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."

[ohioWfan]

Even if she's a GIRL?? LOL!

[subterfuge]

I don't fly anymore at all. Don't have to for my job. I have a time share in Vail that I trade out every year because flying is so unpleasant anymore. I just vacation on the east coast where I can drive to where I want to go.

[subterfuge]

I don't fly anymore at all. Don't have to for my job. I have a time share in Vail that I trade out every year because flying is so unpleasant anymore. I just vacation on the east coast where I can drive to where I want to go.

[subterfuge]

Oops!

[SoftballMominVA]

I AM a Lutheran, and in constant contact with those in charge of casser.....

Wait, there's a knock at my door. Back later.

[Honeybunch]

Well, I thought the plot involved really strong coffee....

[Paul R.]

World conquest through casseroles is the Lutheran plan as I underst--

No! No! No! Meatloaf!!! (My Mom's is the best - even my Filipina wife loves it!)

You gotta watch Lutherans, esp. us Missouri Synod types.

:-)

[Dooderbutt]

Has anyone been over to the DUmp to see what they're saying?

It's sickening, this is all a Blair/Bush plot to scare the "sheeple" and keep our minds off of everything else, or it's "BUSH'S FAULT" because of Afghanisan/Iraq, or it's the JOOOOOOOOS!Blah, blah, blah

Not that any of that surprises me, it's just scary to think that there are actual people who think things like this up - and BELIEVE it! The good news is, the threads here have up to 1,700 posts (or more)and theirs is not even to 200 so we only have to worry about, what 10-15 whackjobs running around (If they ever get out of their parents' basement, that is).

DUmmies Paranoia – Bush will destroy ya

[Christian4Bush]

"United we stand"

You better believe it brother. You've stood with us, and stand with us - we stand with you. Prayers going out to you! Godspeed.

C4B

[Suzy Quzy]

WAKE UP DEMOCRATS!!!! MUSLIMS want to KILL us ALL!!! It's NOT CHRISTIANS, whom you think are your worst enemies....it's MUSLIMS!!!

[vimto]

Point taken.

[prairiebreeze]

The DemonRATS are selectively snoozing. There are none so blind as those who WILL NOT see.

[not2worry]

In retrospect, we should have sent Saddam to his 72 virgins the day he was found in the spider hole. I suspect we learned our lesson when we found Z.

[fivecatsandadog]

holy cr*p. Thanks for the link (I think). My anxiety level is up about five notches today.

[TET1968]

Inspite of being warned by The New York Times, the terrorists were caught in part by E mail & Phone tapping.

[GottaLuvAkitas1]

"Are they perhaps Middle Eastern men between the ages of 18 and 40?
Or is it too politically incorrect to ask or tell?"

I'm sure they aren't Sikhis or Mennonites. ;)
I'm with you, that PC crap is going to be our downfall.

[reformedliberal]

Minneapolis is the hub for Northwest. They have commuters to every major/mid-sized/small Midwestern city from there.

I am about 5 hrs from the Twin Cities at the point where Iowa/Minnesota/Wisconsin come together. 3 weeks ago, the local Walmart was bought out of Tracphones and a specific brand of hairdryer. The 2 Middle Eastern men, one older, one a teen, who bought them wanted more "before we go back to Michigan". The helpful store manager then called another Walmart to check if they had more phones/hairdryers and they did, so the men were given directions there. A few days earlier, the Onalaska Walmart was also bought out of the phones.

I was told this by an associate who observed part of this transaction, including the manager checking the inventory list for the hair dryers. This was reported to the FBI within days of the event.

We refrained from posting any of this or even discussing it, except to report it to the FBI, since there had been other reports of large phone purchases and we didn't want to either panic people or give the perps a heads up. Those of us who knew about this have been in dread for the past few weeks, waiting for a shoe to drop.

I believe this is huge and covers the USA.

[jimbo123]

This plot was orginally scheduled for December 2003. It's in the FR Threat Matrix archives and the plot to bring down all the airplanes was known on the Jihadi boards at the time as "Jihad Falcon" by the infamous terror propagandist EOM (aka Adam Gadahn).

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1013726/posts?page=2584#2584

"U.S. raises terrorism threat level - Ridge: Possible attacks could rival 9/11"
CNN.Com / U.S. ^ | Sunday, December 21, 2003 Posted: 4:10 PM EST (2110 GMT) | CNN.Com

Follow the archive thread and you can see how things played out at the time by both Al Qaeda and the Feds...

[GeorgiaDawg32]

FOXNews just said the suspects arrested are British Muslim males of Pakastani origin..

[RobFromGa]

whats the deal with hair dryers?