Posted on 01/02/2004 4:33:31 PM PST by saquin
VITAL scraps of intelligence pieced together by British agents revealed how Islamic terrorists were again intent on using aircraft for their next serious attack.
Two suspects questioned by British investigators said that an aircraft leaving a London airport would be part of this new al-Qaeda operation intended to eclipse the death toll in the September 11 attacks. One of these men is understood to have said that the attack was planned for the Christmas and new year holidays.
The revelations came as government eavesdroppers began picking up e-mails from the Middle East referring to transatlantic flights.
Al-Qaeda is desperate to stage another terrorist outrage to prove that it is still capable of orchestrating such a sophisticated and deadly operation, despite recent arrests of some of its most valued organisers.
The suspicion passed to ministers was that terrorists were intending to blow up aircraft packed with passengers returning to America after the holidays over a major city. A British security source said last night: “Such an attack would result in catastrophic loss of life, cause mayhem among travellers and give al-Qaeda the publicity they crave.”
A team of anti-terrorist officers and MI5 agents was ordered last autumn to concentrate on tracking down details of an alleged plot involving aircraft. The team identified one Briton whom they believed was a pivotal figure in this operation. They secretly monitored his telephone calls for weeks, hoping that it would lead them to the mastermind behind the plot and reveal precise details of an attack.
One intercepted conversation mentioned a flight from London bound for America’s East Coast. New York and Washington were seen as obvious targets, though US officials stretched the alert to include other cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami.
Experts say that the terrorists had three main options. They could again hijack a passenger aircraft and turn it into a flying bomb, although increased security since September 11 made that more difficult.
Another possibility was a missile attack on a fully laden aircraft as it took off and was at its most vunerable. Security officials foiled an attempt by al-Qaeda last year to attack a British holiday flight taking off from Mombassa, Kenya.
Two months ago, Saudi officials uncovered a plot to target a BA flight taking off from Riyadh with a shoulder-held missile. The weapon was found abandoned in a car close to the airport perimeter after a shoot-out with wanted terrorists in the Saudi capital.
However, senior British investigators suspect the most likely option would involve blowing up a number of aircraft in mid-air in a carefully synchronised operation. Richard Reid, a south London petty crook trained at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, was stopped by fellow passengers on a flight from Paris to Miami trying to detonate explosives hidden in his shoe in December 2001. Since then al-Qaeda operatives have allegedly been developing new ways to smuggle explosives through airport detectors.
Suspects held here and in the United States have told how these “kit bombs” would be assembled on board. Components of the bomb could be hidden in cabin luggage, concealed in shampoo and medicine bottles in a passenger’s wash bag.
Blowing up passenger aircraft in mid-air was a blueprint for al-Qaeda in the early 1990s. Osama bin Laden allegedly vetoed a plan to hijack up to 11 American airliners in the world’s biggest simultaneous hijack and detonate them above the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The al-Qaeda leader is said to have refined this plan into the September 11 operation, arguing that if there were too many aircraft involved then details of the hijackings were more likely to leak.
Al-Qaeda has a habit of returning to plans that it failed to execute, as it did in attacking the World Trade Centre eight years after members first bombed it.
Extremist websites known to have close links with al-Qaeda have in recent weeks been giving warnings of another imminent attack aimed at embarrassing the Bush Administration.
The difficulty for the authorities is that, as they were uncertain of the exact nature of any attack, they did not know how much of this intelligence should be shared with airlines or travellers.
Kevin Rosser, a terrorism analyst at the Control Risks Group, said: “We are in a world where governments feel they have to act on scraps of information.
“If, God forbid, something terrible happens and then it emerges that governments had information of a risk but did not do anything, they would be exposed politically.”
Mr Rosser explained that it was not possible just to remove suspect passengers and then allow the rest on board to fly, as the suspect might have an associate on the flight.
Increased checks were ordered at UK airports on cargo being flown to the United States in the hold of passenger flights as well as even stricter security for travellers checking in for American-bound flights.
MI5 is said to have received information last summer of the names of two British passport holders who had been recruited for suicide attacks.
The US authorities also claimed that some of those held at Guantanamo Bay had also betrayed crucial information on how aircraft would be integral to al-Qaeda’s next significant strike.
Information from the FBI, CIA and US military intelligence was funnelled into JTAC, the newly created Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre. Set up last June, it includes officers from MI5, MI6, GCHQ, the MoD, police, the DTI and Transec, the security division of the Department of Transport. Within a few weeks of the start of JTAC’s operations Elizabeth Manningham-Buller, the head of MI5, said that the unit was already handling 150 pieces of intelligence a day.
Scotland Yard announced a new level of terrorism alert in November, placing London and other forces round the country on the second highest alert. On December 23 Tom Ridge, the US Homeland Security director, placed the United States on orange alert, the second highest of five alerts used by the American security forces.
Within days officials in Washington began warning airlines around the world that they must toughen up their onboard security and Whitehall officials and police commanders were privately briefed about new American fears of an airborne attack against an American target.
On Monday, the Government announced after discussions with Washington that police marksmen in plain clothes would join selected British flights to the United States as sky marshals. The US began putting pressure on other countries to follow suit.
Washington made it clear that flights would be intercepted or banned from US airspace if there were the slightest security concerns.
If looks could kill...
I hate to be too logical but how about just stop using the term "al-Qaeda"? Refer to them as a "sick group of sorry assed, mentally deficient criminals", no referrals to Middle Eastern or Muslim should be allowed.
If the newspapers can't profile criminals by skin color or race why do we continue to profile terrorists?
Now, for my posts about the dude that looks like richard reid, you must remember that this was just after 911 and we were full of media reports and fbi profiles of muslim extremists, some of which had some of the same features as reid and my Salvation Army guy. That is what I meant....
But, you know, to be honest, unfortunately, the evil muslim extremists have ruined it for all muslims in a real way. Sad, but true. We suspect Middle Easterners and muslims of all nations now.
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