Posted on 08/10/2006 1:08:44 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
The terrorist attack foiled by British authorities on Thursday was aimed at blowing up as many as 10 airplanes on trans-Atlantic flights, and plotters hoped to stage a dry run within two days, according to U.S. intelligence officials.
The actual attack would have followed within days.
One official said the suicide attackers planned to use a peroxide- based solution that could ignite when sparked by a camera flash or another electronic device.
The test run was designed to see whether the plotters would be able to smuggle the needed materials aboard the planes, these officials said. They spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject matter.
Looks like a good call by British security services not to tell the CIA about this operation before the arrests!
Haven't we been seeing all kinds of "dry runs" LA musicians for instance.
Test run for 8/22 or another 9/11?
Nothing to see here folks.
Move along.
Back to your shopping.
CAN'T THEY KEEP THEIR D*MN MOUTHS SHUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LET THE FREAKIN' OFFICIAL CHANNELS DO THE WORK THEY NEED TO GET DONE!!!!
Excellent call. Wonder how Langely's takin it.
Absolutely. Telling the CIA with it's Democratic leakers would be the same as telling the N.Y. Times. No doubt the Brits think the same thing. Remember, to a liberal Dem, Bush is the enemy and al-quaeda is after thought or really just a public relations creation by the Bush cabal.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008768
Looks like he was right on the money with this one.
That's an interesting premise.
President Ahmadinutjob never said that he was going to attack israel, just that he was going to create a bright light in the sky.
Interesting...
"Remember, to a liberal Dem, Bush is the enemy and al-quaeda is after thought or really just a public relations creation by the Bush cabal."
Exactly. When I hear people asking, how can leftists support al-quaeda or hezbollah, I know the questioner is missing the point. Bush, and the GOP are the true enemy. The muslims are not a threat in the mind of a leftist. Just as JF'nK recently said these problems in the M.E. wouldn't be happening if he were president, the leftist thinks that if they gain power, that they can reason with muslims and everything will be fine.
The lefties are seriously, deadly wrong. This is a holy war for the muslims, and they are quite determined. If the left gains power, by the time they realize what is at stake, it may be too late to do anything about it.
I doubt that an Iranian terror plot would be carried out by British-born people of Pakistani descent to be honest.
Dry run "in a couple days".
The real thing a few days later.
That takes us up to what, about August 22?
and how exactly did the the Iranian president know something big was going to happen on August 22?
And what was all the rhetoric Bush gave us soon after 9/11 about going after any nation that sponsors terrorism?
So they had the proper paperwork to get into this country!!
July 9, 2006, 11:09AM
HPD, airport security at odds over incident
Man allowed to board aircraft appeared to have bomb components
By HARVEY RICE
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
Houston police and the federal Transportation Security Administration disagree over who is responsible for allowing a man with what appeared to be bomb components board an aircraft at Hobby Airport last week.
Although the FBI eventually cleared the man of wrongdoing, police officials have transferred the officer involved and are investigating the incident while insisting that the TSA, not police, has the authority to keep a suspicious person from boarding a flight.
"Our job is not to be the gatekeepers," police Capt. Dwayne Ready said. "That burden falls squarely on the airline and TSA to make that final decision.
"We are looking at our role in the situation to make sure our policies were adhered to," he said. "During follow-up, we are finding that there simply was not a material threat."
TSA spokeswoman Andrea McCauley said screeners have the authority to stop people from going beyond the checkpoint to the boarding areas, but they rely heavily on local police.
"It's just agencies talking with each other," Ready said, downplaying the disagreement.
Details of the dispute
McCauley and Ready would not comment about the June 26 incident, but a confidential TSA report obtained by the Houston Chronicle details a dispute between screeners and a police officer on duty at the airport.
The report states that a man with a Middle Eastern name and a ticket for a Delta Airlines flight to Atlanta shook his head when screeners asked if he had a laptop computer in his baggage, but an X-ray machine operator detected a laptop.
A search of the man's baggage revealed a clock with a 9-volt battery taped to it and a copy of the Quran, the report said. A screener examined the man's shoes and determined that the "entire soles of both shoes were gutted out."
No explosive material was detected, the report states. A police officer was summoned and questioned the man, examined his identification, shoes and the clock, then cleared him for travel, according to the report.
A TSA screener disagreed with the officer, saying "the shoes had been tampered with and there were all the components of (a bomb) except the explosive itself," the report says.
The officer retorted, "I thought y'all were trained in this stuff," TSA officials reported.
The report says the TSA screener notified Delta Airlines and talked again with the officer, who said he had been unable to check the passenger's criminal background because of computer problems.
FBI involvement
The incident gained enough attention at higher levels of the TSA that the FBI was asked to investigate. The TSA issued a statement saying its screeners "acted in accordance with their training and protocols."
FBI Special Agent Stephen Emmett in Atlanta said agents there investigated the passenger.
"It was looked at and deemed a non-event," Emmett said, declining to give further details.
Meanwhile the officer involved in the dispute, J.O. Reece, has been transferred to a desk job, "the same place they send officers who are relieved of duty," said Chad Hoffman, attorney for the Houston Police Officers Union.
Hoffman said Reece doesn't understand why he was transferred "when it seems clear from the onset of the investigation that he didn't have probable cause to detain anybody and that his actions were consistent with the law and HPD policy."
In other news today...
Homeland Security announced its latest measures to thwart terrorism. Anyone attempting to board a plane in either the U.S. or a plane bound for the U.S. will be required to wipe their shoes on an image of Mohamed and spit on a Koran. They announced that these new measures are necessary since they are not allowed to profile do to political correctness. Have a nice flight!
Why not?
We're talking radical Islam here, not nationalities.
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