[nmh]

"Allen stressed that the plans seemed designed to kill passengers, not crash into a city on the ground. "We have no evidence there was targeting of cities," said Allen, "This was an effort to destroy multiple aircraft in flight — not against any territory of the United States."

This I don't believe. A terrorist wants to kill as many people as possible - just as they did on 9/11. There is NO WAY in this world you can convince me that terrorist ONLY WANTED TO KILL THE PEOPLE ON THE PLANE in the MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN. Come on!

Of course cities were targeted. They want the most death for their plans and blowing up in the middle of the ocean would not accomplish that.

[Darkwolf377]

I disagree. They have attacked in different ways each time, and they attack our economy. Most of all, they want to be effective, and since 9-11, everyone on every hijacked plane would know what was in store and they would try to take back the plane.

Much better would be to have a successful attack which would signal to all foreigners hoping to come to the US on vacation and spend $$$ that they could be next--something even this failure will accomplish.

[Chena]

Of course cities were targeted. They want the most death for their plans and blowing up in the middle of the ocean would not accomplish that.

I believe that as well. It's possible that they aren't telling us that (or they didn't know for sure) so as not to cause wide-spread panic.

[Ready4Freddy]

I do believe - hard to think of anything scarier than reports of airliners disappearing over the Atlantic, 1 by 1 by 2 by 1...

'nuther thing - one of the hallmarks of al-Qeda is detailed planning (although they did blow it with the timing of the 9/11 flights they chose), but these guys don't sound like they had a firm grasp of a plan presumably just a few days from execution.

his I don't believe. A terrorist wants to kill as many people as possible - just as they did on 9/11. There is NO WAY in this world you can convince me that terrorist ONLY WANTED TO KILL THE PEOPLE ON THE PLANE in the MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN. Come on!

[1066AD]

On the other hand, if a plane falls in mid-Atlantic deep waters it would be hard to prove just what actually brought it down, adds to FUD factor (fear, uncertainty and dread) for future flyers let alone prosecute any others involved but AQ etc can still claim the credit. Think of the Air India 747 that blew up over the Pacific, not sure they ever got a conviction of the support staff in Canada. Lockerbie was almost certainly supposed to blow up over water.

[rwa265]

I heard that they wanted to blow up the planes over U.S. population centers and have the fiery debris rain down on the cities.