Posted on 04/20/2003 10:37:18 PM PDT by miltonim
GLOBAL JIHAD Heathrow target of terrorist plot? Report: Al-Qaida planned to fire missile at airliner from theme park near airport Al-Qaida terrorists planned to shoot down an airliner from a theme park close to London's Heathrow Airport in February, according to a report in Britain's biggest selling daily, The Sun.
Britain's government stationed thousands of military personnel and police around the world's busiest airport and other key London sites to thwart the plot.
At the time, authorities would not reveal the exact nature of the threat, saying only there were fears of a possible al-Qaida strike to coincide with the Muslim festival of Eid.
But a government source told The Sun that members of the terror network planned to break into Legoland while it was closed for the winter before carrying out the strike using a shoulder-fired missile.
''The intelligence services established there was a threat from elements connected to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network,'' a source said.
''Our people later learned that their plan included a break-in at Legoland to launch the missile. We believe the target was probably going to be a big passenger jet heading to Heathrow.
''Obviously they hoped to get in unnoticed, mount the assault and get away before anyone had realized where the missile had come from,'' the source added.
Shoulder-fired SAMs are likely to be surprisingly ineffective versus large airliners; actually, most single-engine fighter aircraft survive direct hits from them. It's far from given that a successful hit and detonation of the warhead would bring an airliner down. The warheads are just really small.
Also, WND fails to point out the "Sun", despite being the largest selling paper in England, is pretty pseudo-tabloidish.
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