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Attacks were just days away from execution

Terrorists intended to use liquid explosives to blow up flights between Europe and the U.S.

By TIMES WIRES
Published August 11, 2006

	[Times photo: Ken Helle]
	Tampa International Airport: Lines backed up Thursday at Airside C when security was tightened after the reported terrorist plot to destroy several airliners in flight with liquid explosives was broken up in Britain. Full coverage: Fighting terror in the air
	[AP photo]
	Airline passenger Anton Gerasimov takes a drink of his champagne Thursday before boarding a flight to Russia at San Francisco International Airport. Travelers were asked to dump all liquids.
	NEW RULES Liquids are banned from carry-on luggage and cannot be taken through security checkpoints. That includes drinks, toothpaste, perfume, shampoo, hair gel, suntan lotion and similar items. Drinks purchased in the airport cannot be carried onto flights. Baby formula and medications will be allowed but must be presented for inspection at security checkpoints. All shoes must be removed and placed on an X-ray belt for screening. Passengers traveling to the United Kingdom should contact their airline for information about extra security measures. Laptop computers, mobile phones and iPods were among items banned on British flights.

A terrorist attack foiled by British authorities Thursday was aimed at blowing up as many as 10 airplanes on trans-Atlantic flights to the United States, and plotters hoped to stage a dry run within two days, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

The actual attack would have followed within days, the officials said.

British police released no details of the plot, but said "mass murder on an unimaginable scale" had been averted.

The suicide attackers reportedly planned to use a peroxide-based solution that could ignite when sparked by a camera flash or another electronic device.

The test run was designed to see whether the plotters would be able to smuggle the needed materials aboard the planes, the Associated Press reported, citing officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject matter.

Thus far, British police have reported the arrests of 24 people, saying they were confident they captured the main suspects in what U.S. officials said was a plot bearing all the earmarks of an al-Qaida operation. President Bush called it a "stark reminder" of the continued threat to the United States from extremist Muslims.

As word of the arrests began to spread Thursday, travelers were soon stuck in air terminals on both sides of the Atlantic.

Long lines of irritated people snaked through U.S. airports as people waited hours to reach security checkpoints.

Guards with rifles stood watch in several U.S. airports, and the governors of California, New York and Massachusetts sent National Guard troops to bolster security.

The ban on all liquids and gels from carry-on luggage left travelers with little option but to throw away bags of makeup, perfume and bottles of liquor and wine. Baby formula and medicines were exempt but had to be inspected.

"Ridiculous, but that's part of the price you pay for traveling during a time like this," said Julius Ibraheem, 26, a college counselor from Chicago, as he stared at the long lines leading toward checkpoints at O'Hare Airport.

Tighter carry-on checks

Officials raised security to its highest level in Britain and banned carry-on luggage on all flights. Huge crowds backed up at security barriers at London's Heathrow airport as officials searching for explosives barred nearly every form of liquid.

Two U.S. counterterrorism officials said the terrorists had targeted United, American and Continental airlines.

A U.S. intelligence official said the plotters had hoped to target flights to major airports in New York, Washington and California.

Airport security in the United States will be expanded nationwide today to include checks of passengers and their carry-on luggage for any liquids, the head of the airline industry's largest trade group said.

Passengers already are being checked at the gates of 25 airports where planes leave for Britain. The gate checks are in addition to screening at security checkpoints.

"It's going to spread across the whole system (Friday)," said James May, president of the Air Transport Association.

"It is safe to travel," said White House spokesman Tony Snow, "but there are going to be some inconveniences."

'Nearing execution phase'

Little was disclosed about those arrested, although one police official indicated they are British residents. A French official in contact with British authorities described the 24 as originating from predominantly Muslim Pakistan.

Pakistani intelligence officials helped British security agencies crack the plot and have arrested two or three suspects, officials said Thursday.

"Pakistan played a very important role in uncovering and breaking this international terrorist network," Foreign Ministry spokesman Tasnim Aslam said.

"There were some arrests in Pakistan which were coordinated with arrests in the U.K.," she said. She declined to provide further details.

But a senior Pakistani government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to comment on the matter, said "two or three local people" suspected in the plot were arrested a few days ago in Lahore and Karachi.

ABC News, citing U.S. sources, said five more subjects are being "urgently sought," but British police declined to comment. They continued to search homes and businesses in an investigation that may have a long way to go. Peter Clarke, head of Scotland Yard's antiterrorism branch, called the uncovered plot large and global.

"We were really getting quite close to the execution phase," said U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

The president, in brief remarks from Green Bay, Wis., said the events showed that "this nation is at war with Islamic fascists."

Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert at Singapore's Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, said everything known so far points to involvement by Osama bin Laden's terror group.

"It is a classic al-Qaida tactic. It is a hallmark of al-Qaida to carry out coordinated, simultaneous attacks and the aviation domain is certainly known to al-Qaida," he said.

FBI Director Robert Mueller echoed those sentiments, saying: "This had the earmarks of an al-Qaida plot."

There have been dozens of thwarted plots around the world since the Sept. 11 attacks, and several were murderously successful. Suicide bombers killed 52 people in London on July 7, 2005; 58 in two attacks in Istanbul, Turkey in 2003; and 202 in Bali in 2002.

Islamic radicals planted 13 explosive-filled backpacks on Madrid trains on March 11, 2004, killing 191 people. They then blew themselves up days later as police closed in.

While al-Qaida's call for global jihad clearly acted as inspiration, there has been no direct evidence that bin Laden or his No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, had advance knowledge of those attacks, that they helped plan them, or that they provided financial or logistical help to those who carried them out.

The group's failure to match the destruction it inflicted on Sept. 11 has led to speculation that a global dragnet that has forced bin Laden into hiding and ensnared many of his most trusted deputies may have degraded al-Qaida's abilities.

Analysts said Thursday that is a theory to be believed only at the world's peril.

Local backlash feared

Tampa Bay area Muslim leaders condemned the thwarted plot and called on law enforcement officials to step up patrols at mosques in case of a backlash.

"Terrorism is something that is un-Islamic," said Ahmed Bedier, director of the Central Florida Council on American Islamic Relations, during a news conference. "It's something that we abhor, and it has nothing to do with our faith."

Bedier said his office had already begun receiving hate e-mail and expected it to increase in coming days. "The climate is already very hostile for the Muslim community, and something like this is only going to make it worse," Bedier said.

This story was assembled from Times wires by staff writer David Ballingrud. Kevin Graham contributed.

[Last modified August 11, 2006, 06:25:28]