August 11, 2006
AQ GOES BACKWARDS:
Thwarting the Airline Plot: Inside the Investigation: U.S. picked up the suspects' chatter and shared it with British authorities; new federal alert warns that peroxide-based explosives could also be employed in future attacks in the U.S. (BRIAN BENNETT AND DOUGLAS WALLER, 8/10/06, TIME)
Britain's MI-5 intelligence service and Scotland Yard had been tracking the plot for several months, but only in the past two weeks had the plotters' planning begun to crystallize, senior U.S. officials tell TIME. In the two or three days before the arrests, the cell was going operational, and authorities were pressed into action. MI5 and Scotland Yard agents tracked the plotters from the ground, while a knowledgeable American official says U.S. intelligence provided London authorities with intercepts of the group's communications. [...]Posted by Orrin Judd at August 11, 2006 12:08 AMThough the plot has all the hallmarks of an al Qaeda operation, U.S. officials cautioned that there isn't yet evidence of a direct link between the plotters and the organization's top leaders. "We're not convinced this particular operation is connected to the al Qaeda chain of command," Charles Allen, Chief of Intelligence for the Department of Homeland Security, told reporters on Thursday afternoon. As for whether the attack was being timed for the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11, Allen said he thought the attack would simply be launched when it was ready. "I am a long standing believer that terrorist plotters or planners execute when they have all of the plot together," said Allen. "We have no evidence this was timed to any particular holiday or special event."
The plot also appears to be a return to older terrorist tactics of trying to blow up an airplane in mid air, rather than turn the jet into a missile as the Sept. 11 attackers did. 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."
The terrorists do have something of an obsessive/compulsive disorder when it comes to going back time and again to the same targets they failed at in the past. So 9/11 followed on the heels of the 193 WTC attack, the latest plot is a follo-up to the failed 1994 airline bombing plot in the Pacific, and the terrorists seem obsesses at blowing up subway trains, whether in New York or in London or elsehwere.
Makes it a little easier to figure out where the future targets will be, though I suppose the terrorists could either figure out a smarter method of attack in the future or decide to turn their attention to other targets.
Posted by: John at August 11, 2006 12:38 AMIt can't be a surprise that the bad guys decided to try masking explosives in carry-on liquids (coffee cups, shampoo, whatever). If TSA or the FBI hadn't thought about this years ago, now that would be a surprise.
The next step might just be suicide bombers using body cavities to hide their stuff, or perhaps sleeper cell maintenance employees putting explosives in the bowels of the aircraft. We also could see electronic 'warfare' against planes in flight, or as they try to land in bad weather.
Posted by: ratbert at August 11, 2006 1:24 AM