UK aviation terror plot disrupted

A major ter­ror­ism plot was dis­rupted overnight in the United Kingdom, involv­ing plans to blow up mul­ti­ple flights from the UK to the United States. At least 21 peo­ple arrested by UK coun­tert­er­ror agen­cies. The plot appears to involve a device assem­bled onboard, using oth­er­wise benign liq­uids and equip­ment — com­pa­ra­ble to the mid-​​1990s Bojinka plot hatched by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The UK imme­di­ately imposed a ban on carry-​​on lug­gage on all flights leav­ing the United States and went to CRITICAL (the high­est level, equiv­a­lent to ‘Code Red’) in their threat advi­sory sys­tem. The United States gov­ern­ment has gone to ‘Code Red’ for all flights depart­ing the UK (the first time Red has been used by the Homeland Security Advisory System), and ‘Code Orange’ for the rest of the avi­a­tion sec­tor. The com­mer­cial avi­a­tion sys­tem is in chaos all over the world today.
Check my reg­u­lar site, Homeland Security Watch, for more detailed analy­sis and fre­quent updates through­out the day as the facts emerge. And the Counterterrorism Blog is nat­u­rally on top of the story with com­men­tary and analy­sis.
– Christian Beckner

August 10th, 2006 | Homeland Security | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.