British Thwart Terror Plot

Dubya has got us tramping all over Iraq, and sending bombs to the Israelis to bomb the Lebanese to the stone age and the terrorists are organizing in London. Al Qaeda and its pretenders are our enemy, not the Iraqis or the Lebanese. All we are doing is recruiting more suicide bombers by killing women and children in Iraq and Lebanon.
WaPo

British authorities said today they had disrupted a "major terrorist plot" to blow up passenger flights between the United Kingdom and the United States with liquid explosives, prompting a full-scale security clampdown at U.S. and British airports and a cascade of delays in trans-Atlantic flights.


London's Deputy Police Commissioner, Paul Stephenson, said 21 people had been arrested in London and in Birmingham, England, after a months-long investigation into what he said was a plan for "mass murder on an unimaginable scale." Peter Clarke, chief of the London police department's anti-terrorism branch, said the investigation reached a "critical point" last night, requiring immediate disruption of the plot, the arrests and the imposition of heightened security measures.


[...]British authorities said the threat involved terrorists who aimed to smuggle liquid explosive material aboard airplanes in hand baggage, including timers and detonators that could be assembled in flight. In July 2005, terrorists attacked London's subway and bus system with bombs made of acetone and peroxide mixed in plastic containers. Those attacks claimed 52 lives and injured hundreds of others.


Reid said the operation was aimed at bringing down "a number of aircraft" -- reportedly at least ten -- "through mid-flight explosions, causing a considerable loss of life." The plot, he said, "was a very significant one indeed." Chertoff said the plot, which he described as "sophisticated," was indicative of an al-Qaeda operation, but, he said, U.S. and British officials "cannot yet form a definitive conclusion" about al-Qaeda involvement. Chertoff said the attackers planned to carry explosive material and detonation components on planes "disguised as beverages, electronic devices and other common objects."


[...]American held three London-bound morning flights, one each from Chicago, Boston and New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. To balance those cancellations, the airline also dropped three afternoon or evening flights scheduled to travel from London to those U.S. cities, Hotard said.


In Northwest Washington, a tight cordon of police security was thrown up around the British Embassy compound on Massachusetts Avenue.