Britain Foils 'Plot To Blow Up Planes' (Jihadists strike again)

RFERL ^ | August 10, 2006 | RFERL

[nmh]

Someone should ask them to go to Iran, Iraq or Syria and personally apologize to these terrorists. They need to give them big hugs and smooches and explain how they too hate America and especially Bush. I'm real sure that would end the war on terrorism and we'd all live happily ever after!

LOL!

[fight_truth_decay]

Special Report: The Tactical Side of the U.K. Airliner Plot
British authorities said Aug. 10 they thwarted a militant Islamist plot to attack as many as 10 U.S.-bound passenger jets flying out of London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports. They also said they are taking extraordinary measures at British airports, such as banning carry-on luggage on trans-Atlantic flights. Liquids such as toiletry items and drinks and some small consumer electronic devices also are being banned.

Media outlets are reporting that the operation would have caused an unimaginable catastrophe. Such an operation, however, was both imaginable and practicable. Indeed, a very similar operation -- called Operation Bojinka -- had been planned in 1994.

After his participation in the first World Trade Center bombing, Abdel Basit (also know by the name on his fraudulent Iraqi passport, Ramzi Yousef) settled down in Manila, Philippines. He assembled a cell of operatives who began to plan a long list of terrorist attacks. One of those was Operation Bojinka, a plan to simultaneously destroy 12 airliners en route to the United States from Asian cities.

Basit and his cell developed a modular improvised device constructed of a doll stuffed with nitrocellulose, a detonator and a timer made from a modified Casio wristwatch. Once through screening and on the plane, the devices were to be assembled in the aircraft's restroom.

On Dec. 11, 1994, the cell tested its device on Philippine Airlines flight 434. It detonated, but did not bring down the plane. In fact it killed one only person and wounded 10 -- not the spectacular results the militants had hoped for. Based on their test results, they went back to the drawing board and decided to augment their main charge with a liquid form of an acetone peroxide explosive, which they were going to place in contact lens solution bottles. This additional quantity of a powerful explosive would be sure to give them the added punch they needed. However, while brewing the liquid explosive they lost control of the reaction and their apartment caught fire. One of Basit's laptop computers was recovered from the apartment and the plans for Bojinka were discovered. Basit left the Philippines and fled to Pakistan, where he later tried to continue the plot. He was in the process of implementing it when one of his bombers got cold feet and turned him in.

Based on this history, and the example of convicted “shoe bomber” Richard Reid, a plot like the one thwarted Aug. 10 in Britain is not far-fetched. It is very much within the capabilities of al Qaeda and smaller independent jihadist groups. Also, when viewed through this historical lens, it is easy to understand why authorities made the decision to ban liquids and small electronic items from the passenger cabins. Indeed, nearly five years after Sept. 11 and Reid's attempted attack, civil aviation is still vulnerable. Such attacks are not that difficult to plan and execute and there are many ways that explosives can be concealed in addition to liquids. Once liquids are banned from planes, jihadists will find another alternative.

The Bojinka plan called for the plotters to board flights with multiple legs, hide the devices and then jump off before the devices activated. The current plot, however, almost certainly was designed to use suicide operatives, because of the airports and the flights -- direct to the United States -- involved. With as many as 10 flights reportedly being targeted, that meant they had identified and trained at least 10 suicide operatives.

Though that is only half the number of operatives involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, it is nonetheless a significant number of suicide operatives for a single mission. When combined with the number and types of targets involved -- al Qaeda is fixated on aircraft -- it does appear as if this current operation was connected to al Qaeda. There are claims that the detainees are British citizens of Pakistani origin, revealing that al Qaeda's London management team was still largely intact following the July 2005 attacks against London's transit system.

Many questions remain, such as why the authorities waited as long as they did to wrap up this plot -- seemingly at the last minute. There are two possible explanations for this: First, because this was a very big and complex operation, it took authorities longer to identify all the operatives involved. They did not want to miss any of the suicide operatives, planners or bombmakers, and leave them free to strike another day. This difficulty might have been further complicated by al Qaeda involvement, as the group practices better operational security than grassroots cells and it would have made it harder (and taken longer) for the informant and the authorities to connect all the dots and identify all the components of the organization. The British government still is embarrassed that it was unable to identify all the elements of the 2005 Underground bombings, so there would be an incredible amount of pressure on investigators to make sure they identified all of them this time.

Second, the informant might not have come forward until the operation was well under way. The informant very possibly is one of the suicide operatives who got cold feet and changed his mind. He might not have made the decision to bail out of the operation until quite late in the game, and then it took the British government some additional time to verify the threat, identify the other elements of the cell and then swoop in and arrest them.

Either way, somewhere in the attack cycle there was a serious breakdown in operational security -- and the plot was thwarted. These arrests demonstrate the threat remains very real. One of two other factors also is in play, however. Either the British government's counterterrorism efforts are sufficiently robust as to allow them to penetrate al Qaeda operations in some instance at least, or, as we have discussed in the past, al Qaeda's operational security has been degraded. Either way, penetration is now more possible -- raising the possibility that, though al Qaeda remains a threat, it is not the strategic threat it once was.

subscription, emails, podcasts .. 08.10.2006 www.stratfor.com
--Strategic Forecasting, Inc. site is super busy if you can't hook up..O'Reilly is plugging them like they are a newly discovered analysis group which they are not and we have used for some time..

[Glenmerle]

What is the attraction of terrorists to airplanes? Are they hypnotized by shiny objects?

Evil people are drawn to destroy what they are incapable of creating.

[tractorman]

I agree with you that this is not a conventional war. It is a religious war.

My point is that we need to fight them with their own religion and we are failing to take advantage of many opportunities like blowing up “holy” sites or burying their dead in pig carcasses.

We will never win this war until we remove their will to fight.

[RightWhale]

Yeah, that seems to be true.

[proud_yank]

Interesting link. Is there a holiday or something coming up for them soon? It seems that there has been quite a rise in these plots lately, or is it just me?

I always enjoy stuff along these lines:

The poll, conducted for The Times newspaper and ITV News, found that 13 per cent of Muslims felt the bombers should be regarded as martyrs, and seven per cent felt suicide attacks on British civilians were justified in some circumstances. Pollsters surveyed 1,131 adults between June 1 and June 16. The margin of error was plus or minus three percentage points.

Such a peaceful bunch.

[Mrs. Darla Ruth Schwerin]

God Bless Britain and Tony Blair...

[Uncle Hal]

If we do not start racial profiling, we are crazy. This PC crap is threatening our country.

[sergey1973]

Here is an update from CNN . Note that apparently all the suspects are British Citizens. CNN of course couldn't say that all the suspects are also Jihad waging Muslims--it is too politically incorrect--so they indicate that "some of them of Pakistani ethnicity".

As many as 10 flights were targeted, and the plot may have involved up to 50 people, U.S. officials told CNN.

U.S. and British officials said some suspects could still be on the loose and their investigations were continuing.

Indications are that all of the 21 arrested were British citizens and some were of Pakistani ethnicity, a senior U.S. intelligence official said.

In a sign of the heightened security, Chertoff said the U.S. was dispatching extra air marshals to Britain.

Chertoff said it was unclear if all suspects were in custody.

[sergey1973]

"If we do not start racial profiling, we are crazy. This PC crap is threatening our country."

I'd rather say "Religious Profiling". White Islamists are no less dangerous than Arabs, Pakistanis or anybody else. There were already a few cases of European born White converts to Islam that became suicide bombers, like one Belgian woman who got blown herself in Iraq.

[sergey1973]

I also want to add "God Save Britain, US and the rest of the civilized world from the blood-thirsty Jihadists".

[Mrs. Darla Ruth Schwerin]

Yes. We all just need to stay several steps ahead of those cannibals...

God Save All Us Sane Folks...

[DTA]

There’s a simple way to end all of this nonsense but it takes guts.

#1. Announce that the next terrorist attack will result in the destruction of Mecca.

#2. Announce the next attack after that will result in the creation of Medina Glassworks

#3. Announce that we’ll keep going down the list of “holy sites” and create glassworks there.

#4. Then DO IT!

[Brit_Guy]

"There were already a few cases of European born White converts to Islam that became suicide bombers, like one Belgian woman who got blown herself in Iraq. "

Word here in the UK is that wilst the majority of those arrested are of Pakistani descent at least 3 are indeed white British muslim converts with very ordinary British names. Very scary.

[sergey1973]

"Word here in the UK is that wilst the majority of those arrested are of Pakistani descent at least 3 are indeed white British muslim converts with very ordinary British names. Very scary."

Surely it is scary. I traveled to Britain twice as a tourist in 2000 and 2001 as a part of Western Europe tour, returning to the US just a few days before 9-11. In both cases I've passed through Heathrow airport. Traveling by plane or train and thinking that your flight or train might be the target of the terror attack by religious fanatics at any time is not something civilized world should put up with.

After 9-11 and a number of subsequent terror attacks perpetrated by Muslims around the world (including London tube bombing last year), I think it's urgent to treat Islam not as a religion but as a totalitarian political-religious movement. It's up to Muslims to either change Islam to make it acceptable to non-Muslims or abandon it altogether, but the rest of the world should not continuously suffer from Islamic terrorists.

[Fair Go]

Sounds like the same type of plot they were planning over the Pacific in the mid-1990s.

[Dante3]

Sacry.

[ladyinred]

It seems to me we are treating this the same. Hitler wrote his plans in a book and it was ignored, Communism still is here , and we pretend they are "progressives" and vote for them. What else is new?