Posted on 08/09/2006 10:17:04 PM PDT by gary_b_UK
A major terrorist plot to blow up planes in mid-flight has been disrupted by police, Scotland Yard says.
It is thought the plan was to detonate explosive devices smuggled on board aircraft in hand luggage.
During the night, police arrested a number of people in London after a counter-terrorist operation they said had lasted several months.
Police believe the attacks would have been particularly targeted at flights from the UK to the US.
The Department for Transport said security at all UK airports has been increased.
Passengers on all flights will not be allowed to take any hand luggage on to any flights in the UK.
Only the barest essentials - including passports and wallets - will be allowed to be carried on board in transparent plastic bags.
West London where Heathrow is, might as well be part of Pakistan....
MSNBC reports that one of the terrorists WORKED at Heathrow. Great...inside man.
I wonder if the authorities did that racial profiling thing?
You're quite welcome.
Frankly I find this very ominous. I never thought they'd let it get to that position, unless we were in outright war (on our land!)
I figured they put that "peg the meter" level there for psychological purposes, so that they'd always be able to say look, we're NOT at the worst level, things aren't that bad.
I know that now they're saying they were tracking this situation for months, but I don't buy it. This whole thing reeks of a sudden "oh, $#!+!" moment, that snuck up on 'em FAST, in the middle of the night.
The fact that they woke up the President and the head of Homeland Security in the wee hours of darkness confirms that, IMO. Everyone was scrambling like chickens with their heads cut off. Contradictory dicta were issued, revised, reissued, for a period of several hours. Total chaos in the airports. One nation after another suddenly deciding to cut their flights to the UK. Etc., etc., etc.
I think they managed to nip this thing at the last minute, and came within moments of being caught with their pants down.
And it makes me wonder how many other terrorist "operations" are progressing UNdetected.
I think this, like the Israel/Lebanon war, is intimately tied in with Iran's BIG war plans. It's all a game of misdirection, straight out of The Art of War. Get everyone looking somewhere else, putting out one brushfire after another... and then, *boom*!
I don't expect to be sleeping very well for the next few weeks. That Aug. 22 "threatpoint" strikes me as nothing to summarily dismiss. Just as "der fuhrer" outlined HIS plans in Mein Kampf, THIS fuhrer-wannabe has been utterly transparent in disclosing HIS intentions for us.
And just as the world dismissed the threats a half-century ago, they are likewise dismissing this round of threats.
George Santayana was right. And my cupboard remains filled with rice and beans. (CHEAP "complete protein", lasts forever, takes up little space, and costs next to nothing. As "life insurance" goes, you can't beat it with a stick.)
Also highly recommended: a book titled, "Pulling Through" by Dean Ing. Get it for a buck or so at your favorite online used-book outlet.
I wonder if the authorities did that racial profiling thing?
A huge percentage of the workers at Heathrow are muslim.....
So there's still dudes hanging around with liquid explosives trying to blow stuff up.
LOL!
Yeah, NO ONE would possibly object to a fully-regimented "experience". I guess that's why the prisons are full to overflowing, eh?
One last time: MOST people do NOT want to subject themselves to that sort of misery -- and they won't! But hey, write your congresscreep and try to get it pushed through. The sooner you folks finish the job of turning air travel into an absolutely repugnant form of abuse, the sooner Americans will return to the kind of travel we used back in the '50s.
It was a much nicer day and age. I know, I was there. There's NOTHING like a family trip in the car. Nothing! And the sooner people flip the final bird to the airline industry, as they call AAA for a "triptic" to their destination, the sooner this country will be to finding its roots. Thousands if not millions of families will for the first time get to know each other, as they turn away from the "cattlecars in the sky."
But we want the ones on the plane = 3 X 9 = 27. Think we WANT to pick up 3 more.
If these 3 have regrouped with the proper components, they might still be able to make some other kind of hit "on the ground".
Or they could fly out of another airport.
It's worse than that. There is a rule prohibiting them from enhanced screening (the "special treatment") of more than THREE muslims/arabs (i.e., those decked out in obvious regalia) per flight. There have been plenty of reports of arabs snickering as they pass through like royalty, while 80 year old American grandpaws, babies, and so forth, are given "the treatment."
For any terrorists, this provides a perfect opportunity, of course -- and they can't be that stupid as to not realize it. All they need do is place three "clean" members toward front of the line, and then have the actual operatives further back in the line. To make sure it works, the first three "clean" ops will "act suspicious", ensuring that they will be searched. The rest will 1) act pure as the driven snow, striking up friendly conversations with western type passengers, and 2) be decked out in full garb, to ensure that they are NOT subject to searches once the quota has been filled.
All this, to avoid OFFENDING our enemies.
Madness. Sheer f'n MADNESS!
..the answer isn't obvious to me...(it might be to everyone else)
They do NOT wake up the President and chief of Homeland Security in the middle of the night unless it is very serious business. (And those two were far from the only ones who got wakeup calls last night!)
SOMETHING serious, something big, something UGLY took everyone by surprise. This is not a good indication. (Yes, I do dismiss the spate of "we were watching them for several months" happytalk statements over the past few hours.)
congressman peter king on NYC radio this morning - talking about how we had to drop this PC nonsense and profile Muslims - he was very blunt about it.
It sounds as if they can be identified if they show. Deep underground into a safehouse and then a private decision. All airports worldwide are under the "red".
The fact that the Dems aren't preaching to us today tells us the damn Dems in Congress better think about the security of the American people instead of the ACLU platform. They also might just try not giving security secrets to the NY Times.
MSNBC just reported that one of the "suspects" worked at Heathrow.
...and recall what I said earlier.
"For some reason, I don't trust Chertoff any further than I can throw the Queen Mary 2"
Hmm interesting comment.
The British certainly are good at thwarting terror plots.
Thank goodness they are!
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