Posted on 08/10/2006 3:00:54 AM PDT by 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."
The Mothers Union and the Womans Institute.
Well, anybody capable of blowing up a plane is capable of lying about what he believes in. The terrorist is less likely to be the rabble-rouser at the local mosque and more likely to be the young engineer in a suit and tie whose co-workers think he is a great guy and who have never heard him say a word about Islam one way or the other.
Don't need any 'permission' we already do.
So you haven't seen it said, either, I take it? I must admit that it was my go-to assumption, just looking for confirmation. Thanks.
Um, they never stopped doing the grannie searches here. I took my 93 yo grandfather (in a wheel chair) to the airport a few months back and the screeners asked if he could stand and shuffle through the metal detector. We said he could, but the moronic screener thought that meant he could stand and go through a proper groping, er, searching.
So there is my poor bald headed grandfather, with his shoes off and outstrected arms, his belt removed and his pants are falling off of him while he's wavering back and forth, about to fall over--all so a $12 an hour IDIOT can check off a box. I was so ticked off, you have no idea. Of course if you say anything you're likely to get face planted into the floor and arrested. I didn't want to put the old guy through that too.
USA Today stories generally aren't allowed on FR due to copyright issues etc. but...
The MSM keeps the PC drumbeat going and it's humorous when real life intrudes on their idealism:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-08-09-muslim-american-cover_x.htm
Yeah, well, you know what they say-the best way to avoid finding a bomb on your plane is to take your own bomb...its a million to one there'll be a second one.They probably just wanted to take their bomb on holiday.
You wouldn't believe all the BS and hate filled idiocy over on DU. They all think this plot is either A)Made up by Bush or B) silly worry over nothing.
WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THESE PEOPLE?!?
So, I guess this was part of what was planned for Aug. 22.
I highly doubt they have caught all of the culprits.
"United we stand" **** damn right we do!
Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power,
and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
This plot was orginally scheduled to take place in Dec. 2003. The Jihadi poster EOM (aka Al Qaeda member Adam Gadahn) was boasting about this "rain" plot on various anonymous boards. Many Freepers were following this plot on the TM thread. Here's two archive posts from another board. EOM/Gadahn was the poster who bragged about 9/11 the night before it happened on the old MSNBC bbs:
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:dEUoCMjR3WgJ:www.land-of-the-free.org/printthread.php%3Ft%3D15409%26page%3D5%26pp%3D40+eom+falcon+amerikka&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=3
EOM
as I tell you before
Mon Dec 22 2003 7:01:29 pm
217.110.209.212
events will begin in London and then you shall see I tell you earlier this week, events will happen in London and then not much longer you will see
EOM
you infidels certainly are an impatient lot
Tue Dec 23 2003 12:41:47 pm
217.110.209.212
you stupid Amerikkkans thousands of you shall perish with the coming "rain" Enjoy what time you have left, Allah will not be much longer before he delivers the next great victory for Islam
I used to fly every couple of weeks. Now it's more like every couple of years, if I can help it!
I don't think the TSA has done a damn thing to make the skies safer.
"How long before some moonbat on the left says this was just hyped"
You are so right! The first call on CSPAN after the press conference said he didn't believe it....that this administration was responsibile.
Another man said the UK was in on it with GWB too.....
We are in a world of nuts!!
Shoe bombs, liquid bombs, carry on bombs. The bloody jihadists are laughing all over the planet.
HOw long will it be before we start searching up people's butts?
You could have a liquid explosive up your butt! Full body cavity searches for ALL!! (Except young middle eastern men, that would just be wrong, plus they'd be lining up for blocks, clogging up the whole works). I hope to God I don't need a sarc tag here.
Picking folks up too soon is like cutting a phone wire...We lost the connection!!
They totally believe that if we remove ourselves from Iraq, then no one will try and blow us up. They've even convinced themselves that 9/11 was Bush's fault..even tho it was planned for years before he took office.
sw
You make a good point. It seems that the First Amendment will be a serious handicap in America's battle against terrorism. But we should not weaken the First Amendment; rather, we should withdraw its protections from Islam, which abuses them.
Suppose a Constitutional amendment along the following lines:
"For all purposes under this Constitution, and the laws and treaties of the United States, Islam shall not be considered a religion; and the practice of Islam in any of its forms may be proscribed by the enactment of general laws as the Congress may deem advisable, or by executive order signed by the President."
Of course, such an amendment would have no chance of passing right now. But suppose that Freepers laid the groundwork in advance, and then immediately after the next muslim atrocity on American soil, execute a plan to have that Amendment proposed and pushed and ratified?
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