London - Police statement on airline bombing plot - "mass murder on an unimaginable scale"

Reuters ^ | August 10, 2006 | Paul Stephenson

[HAL9000]

Police statement on airline bombing plot

LONDON (Reuters) - Following is the full text of a statement issued by London Deputy Commissioner, Paul Stephenson on Thursday morning:

"We are confident that we have disrupted a plan by terrorists to cause untold death and destruction and commit mass murder.

The Commissioner has been fully briefed and he is at New Scotland Yard today. He and I want to pay tribute to officers from the Met's Anti-Terrorist Branch and the security services for the work they have undertaken to disrupt these activities.

We believe that the terrorists' aim was to smuggle explosives onto airplanes in hand luggage and to detonate these in flight.

We also believe that the intended targets were flights from the UK to the USA.

Overnight we have arrested 21 people. The majority of those arrests have been in London but we have also made arrests in Thames Valley and Birmingham. We are currently searching a number of addresses.

We are grateful to our colleagues in other force areas for their support.

As the operation got under way we spoke to community leaders to make them aware that a major anti-terrorist operation was taking place but without giving specific details about locations. This extensive dialogue will continue throughout the operation.

We would like to reassure the public that this operation was carried out with public safety upper most in our minds. This is a major operation, which will inevitably be lengthy and complex. The UK is now at the highest possible level of alert.

We will consider the threat in its wider sense and take whatever action is necessary to protect people in London and throughout the country.

Measures have already been put in place to restrict hand luggage taken onto aircraft. This will inevitably cause significant delay and we ask people to remain calm, patient and vigilant at this very difficult time.

Put simply this was a plot to commit mass murder on an unimaginable scale."

[Aquinasfan]

Gov. Romney (MA) calling National Guard to screen passengers.

Cool.

[sonic109]

Why not ?

[sonic109]

On the basis that Islam is more a political movement then a religion . A movement that has as its goal the end of America.

[sinkspur]

Why not ?

Check the Constitution. American citizens aren't deported.

[Roccus]

That' the bottm line!

[Aquinasfan]

Waiting for them to realise that their views won't save them. The terrorists don't care.

What it comes down to is simply this: the truth is too frightening for them to face. They're cowards. And they're unwilling to make the sacrifices that fighting entails.

So they remain in their comfortable fantasy world where conservatives are the (harmless) bad guys.

[jgorris]

This and the chatter we're seeing across many other channels including direct threats by the jihadists, it appears to me that there is a major effort underway by the jihadists to
try and take the initiative back by means of another mass-murder attack. They seem to be very desperate right now to conduct a successful attack since they've lost the initiative-- due directly to us taking the fight to them.

[vimto]

funny you say that my Nana (grandmother) used to say the same. She told me a few times I don't mind anyone coming into the country but those Pakistani's.... and yes I thought she was racist. but in her own way she sensed the unbridgeable gap between democracy and Islam (though she couldn't properly articulate it (but then who could?).

Just looked at DU. amazing stuff on there, One response to today's event was simple enough to remember.

"Bush is Hitler".



How do you get to that comment from here?

[sonic109]

You know what pal . YOU live with them then . I dont like Moslems , I dont trust Moslems and I dont want them in my town or my neighborhood or my country. If they are Americans citizens then they would need to be questioned in order to stay here. ALL other have to go , no student bisas , no immigration , no vistors allowed from Moslem countries. This is war my friend of haven't you heard .

[Aquinasfan]

ALL MOSLEMS NEED TO BE DEPORTED FROM THE US ..Time for PC talk is over..We MUST DEMAND THIS !

On what basis?

That their religion demands the imposition of sharia law and dhimmi status for non-Mohammedans?

The question of whether it is possible for a government to tolerate a religion that does not tolerate other religions is no longer a theoretical question for us.

If we're not going to deport them, we should at least bar further Mohammedan immigration. Sadly, I don't see either happening.

[nina0113]

I just ordered her book on it for pickup at my local Borders.

[Prokopton]

"The policy you are advocating would be counterproductive and very difficult to administer. It would alienate many of our allies like Pakistan, Turkey, Indonesia, etc. India is not a "Muslim country" yet it has the second largest Muslim population. It would also radicalize the 4 to 6 Muslims in the US."

This type of thinking is putting us in peril.
Pakistan is not a real ally. At best they are, on occasion, an ally of convenience when the head of the country fears the same terrorist who want to kill us also want to kill him.

Turkey is periodically an ally when they think it will help them get aid but, as we have seen by their refusal to allow troops through their country during the invasion of Iraq, their real allegiance is to their cult/religion.

Indonesia is not, and never will be,
an ally.

India can be an ally as 90% of it's citizens are non-muslims. Muslims are the enemy of India as much as they are the enemy of the U.S.

I consider any true muslim in this country i.e. those that believe in the koran, as enemies. I am an infidel to them and never can be an equal or fellow citizen. They do not believe in our form of government nor our system of justice.

I do not believe in shutting our Country to all foreigners, but I do believe we can, and should, be more selective in who we allow to enter and remain in the United States.

[Salvation]

And, after this, the Republicans will win!

[woollyone]

Thanks.

[sinkspur]

I dont like Moslems , I dont trust Moslems and I dont want them in my town or my neighborhood or my country. If they are Americans citizens then they would need to be questioned in order to stay here.

You can associate or not associate with whomever you'd like. But we're not going to throw the Constitution overboard because you don't like Muslims.

[nina0113]

ping to 197 & 198

[Aquinasfan]

"Bush is Hitler".

How do you get to that comment from here?

You can't get there from anywhere in reality.

[diamond6]

God bless the Brits........indeed!

[maryz]

imagine Sorox pulling the puppet strings on someone like Kerry.

Kerry had a guest column in today's Boston Herald, primarily about the Israel/Lebanon war. It's hard to summarize, since it's gibberish, but this sample paragraph gives the flavor of the whole:

This situation -- and really the entire world -- is crying out for U.S. leadership. We need to pursue smart, muscular [sic] diplomatic solutions to problems too complex to be solved through force alone.

He recommends "preventative diplomacy" instead of "crisis diplomacy." Oh, and he's against dead children (except when they're aborted, though he doesn't mention that).

[TomGuy]

Qatar Airways Plane Attempted Hijack Thwarted

===

FoxNews reporting massive tie-ups regarding flight and flight cancellations throughout the ME, Europe.

[Even in failed plots, the Islamofanatic terrorists manage to create chaos and economic upheaval in the Western world.]