Here in the UK we woke up this morning to chaos across our airport system, following the arrest of 20+ people in anti-terrorism operations last night.
Many in-bound flights to the UK have been grounded, and the UK’s alert status is now at “critical” - which means an attack is regarded as “imminent”.
Passengers are only being allowed to take minimum possessions on board, and it seems that police are particularly concerned with liquid explosives (mothers are being asked to test baby-milk before taking it on board).
Initial reports suggest that terrorists planned to blow up 10 airlines over the atlantic - in a scaled-up version of the simultaneous London / Madrid bombings.
Some questions:
Does this sound like a credible threat, or over-reaction by security services / politicians?
Will this have a major impact on US airports?
What types of liquid explosives might be referred to here? Are they easy to make in a home lab?
I’m not going to go into details here, but there are explosives that can be made by mixing three fairly easily-obtained chemicals together; the trick when normally preparing explosives from them is stopping them from exploding during manufacture; obviously if you’re a suicide bomber, then this is not a concern; you’d just put pre-measured quantities of them all in a single container, shake and boom.
So far today, according to the news, they are now disallowing people from bringing any liquid or gel of any kind aboard an airplane in a carry-on. And according to some footage they showed in Ohare, security lines are as long as they’ve ever been and flights are delayed as a result.
So nothing huge or permanent yet, but the reaction is being felt here to some extent.
This is always a difficult question to answer, in the early stages of an incident where the only information is available from authorities who cite secirty reasons for witholding full details of the plot. Nevertheless, US security agencies ceretanly seem to be taking it sereiously. I’ll withhold final jugement until I hear a few more specifics.
Almost certainly. The DHS has instituted an overnight ban on the transport of all liquids and gels in carry-on luggage aboard commercial aircraft in the US. This will pretty much gaurantee at least a few days of aggravation for travelers.
They seem to be implying an all-liguid binary or trinary explosive, but some calcium carbide and a bottle of water would be sufficient to make a weak but still fairly impressive bang.
If we learned nothing else five years ago, we learned that terrorism on airplanes is a credible threat. I’d rather have politicians cry “Wolf” a million times if it stops one 9/11 day.
The news I heard this morning said that they’d been monitoring the suspected terrorists for awhile, and that recent events made it critical that they stop monitoring and start arresting. It seems likely to me that this was the real deal.
Which pleases me immensely. While I could be wrong, it seems likely to me that planning a major terrorist attack requires tremendous resources, and there aren’t likely to be too many major attacks being planned simultaneously. Capturing these yahoos makes it much less likely we’ll see a successful terrorist attack for a good while.
Credible threat? The US Congress is on vacation so there’s no legislation that needs a nudge. US elections are not for a few months. I’m not sure about the Brits but I don’t recall hearing about any elections in the immediate future there, either. There are still lots of nuts who want to make a big stink, so I’m going with “credible threat.”
I am suspicious when we suddenly start getting security alerts during the election season after nearly 2 years of NOTHING.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing Bush’s poll numbers start going up based PURELY on a rapid-fire series of security alerts. We are about to get suckered again.
I guess the UK govt at least would claim that the reason nothing’s happened for two yrs is precisely because of alerts such as today’s.
The Metropolitan Police have claimed they’ve thwarted at least 3 terrorist attempts since the 7 July bombings in London… whether you believe this is another matter, of course.
A million? No. A thousand? Not personally. Constant disruption would ruin our lifestyles completely and “the terrorists will have…”. Alas, there has to be a playoff between our security and our way of life, and governments know this. I personally think that despite a few glaring screw-ups the British government has played it just about right.
It may be a case of “once bitten, twice shy” but I found it odd that the alerts stopped when Bush got re-elected. Isn’t it a little too convenient that these alerts are starting during the election season and almost immediately after the administration effectively lost a referendum on the war in the Connecticut primary.
Maybe I should just forget about how we were deceived into supporting the war in Iraq along with a long long laundry list of other reasons NOT to trust this administration and just trust this administration if they say that there is an imminent threat from terrorism.
Mangetout has it right, and in fact it’s dirt-simple to make hypergolic compounds from stuff you can buy at Wal-Mart. I’ve done it, and almost burned a friend’s house down. :eek: I don’t recommend it, because now “creating an incendiary device” is a misdemeanor that cops are familiar with. Peroxides and all strong oxidizers react readily with anything organic. You can raise the temperature of a cup of bleach by dumping sugar into it. Stronger oxidizers and more volatile organics amplify this effect.
col_10002, the terror alert system may or may not be a sham, but the US and UK governments only control our country’s reaction to the plots – they cannot control the credibility or timing of the plots. What they’re talking about in the news is very similar to the Bojinka plot from 1995 (a non-election year) which we were very lucky to catch. I don’t think Bush is above yanking around the color-wheel to get a jump in the polls, but I’d like to see a timeline of the alerts compared to electoral seasons. Remember that the Madrid bombings were almost certainly intended by the bombers to affect the outcome of an election; surely the party that got elected there wasn’t held responsible for the bombings?
So, to answer the OP:
(1) The threat is credible; our reaction can be debated and Monday Morning Quarterbacked to death.
(2) LAX is already banning liquids (even toothpaste ) and other airports will follow suit. The impact is likely to really sting the airline industry.
(3) Check the Bojinka article - that has about as much detail as I care to see posted openly.
And while I think I share your lack of faith in anything that emanates from the current administration, this has come from England. Too, your seeming belief in connection with the CT primary and this latest seems a bit overwrought.
Honestly, when I first heard of it I was immediately reminded of the latest “terrorist” arrest in FL wherein the feds nailed the latest gang that couldn’t shoot straight, but as information comes in, I’m inclined to say that it seems legitimate.
Just yesterday the Home Secretary made a major speech about terrorism:
*
He complained that as home secretary he was “in a very difficult position”, unable to always prosecute individuals due to the difficulty of obtaining “sufficiently cogent admissible evidence for a criminal trial”, while facing legal bars against deporting or detaining them.
He warned: “Sometimes we may have to modify some of our own freedoms in the short term in order to prevent their misuse by those who oppose our fundamental values and would destroy all of our freedoms.”*
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1218053.ece
*
John Reid accused some politicians, judges and liberal commentators of hindering the “life and death” fight with al-Qa’ida as he signalled he was ready to push for new anti-terrorism laws. The Home Secretary said terrorists espousing the same ideology as those active in Iraq and Afghanistan represented the greatest threat to Britain since the Second World War.
And he spelt out his frustration that the nation was using legislation dating back half a century to combat a 21st-century breed of “unconstrained” terrorists driven by a perverse morality.*
*
Mr Reid said: “We need to understand the depth and magnitude of that threat - all of us, each of us across the whole political, media, judicial and public spectrum.”
He criticised some MPs and peers for opposing anti-terror legislation, judges for weighing terrorists’ rights over public safety and commentators for giving “more prominence to the views of Islamist terrorists than democratically elected Muslim politicians”.*
I am sure that there was some sort of plot to attack aircraft.
News items indicate that these people have been tracked for weeks if not months.
Kind of convenient that they moved in on them a day after a major speech calling for increased powers and decreased human rights.
So the terrorists planned this action to coincide with US elections, but were nabbed by officials in the UK to make the Bush administration look good. Got it.
But we suffer from the same low integrity in our politicians.
Blair is desperate to escape from the past-
Most Brits do not believe him over invading Iraq.
Many Brits are doubtful about the Government’s spin over anything to do with difficult issues.
Many Brits are sceptical about the Security Services and the Police- they totally missed the 7/7 bombers, but shot dead a Brazilian innocent and then invaded two homes of innocent people (one family Muslim, one Sikh) and reportedly pistol whipped them, abused them and shot one accidentally in the shoulder. No criminal or disciplinary charges are expected over either of these incidents.
Those of us with suspicion and longer memories remember the deployment of the military at London Heathrow
that was later shown to have been ordered after more interest being shown in the effect it would have on public perception of terrorism than being in itself a valid response to a security threat.
And as I note above, this occurs at a particularly auspicious time for the government to crank up public concern about terrorism. We are entering the ‘silly season’ of the annual news cycle- nothing much happens in August and news outlets are looking for copy. A few weeks of mindless anti-terrorist babble will (they believe) force judges, lawyers, NGOs, the Labour awkward squad etc. to back pedal on their Human Rights belly-aching- NOT actually!
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So the terrorists planned this action to coincide with US elections, but were nabbed by officials in the UK to make the Bush administration look good. Got it.
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I actually think he was saying their is no plot at all, or the plot was nowhere near being completed, or even able to carry out. For all we know it was just a post it. I doubt anyone is implying that the UK govt is trying to make the Bush Admin look good.
) and other airports will follow suit. The impact is likely to really sting the airline industry.