UK reduces terror threat level

The British gov­ern­ment reduced their threat level from Critical to Severe on Sunday, an indi­ca­tion that the UK offi­cials no longer think that “an attack is expected immi­nently.” The Department of Homeland Security matched this change shortly there­after by reduc­ing the threat level on flights bound from the UK to the US from Red to Orange. The rest of the avi­a­tion sec­tor remained at Orange.

Other news from the last 24 hours related to the UK avi­a­tion plot:
1. British Home Secretary John Reid said on Sunday that the UK had dis­rupted four major ter­ror plots in Britain since the July 7, 2005 tran­sit attacks, and said that police were inves­ti­gat­ing two dozen cur­rent plots.
2. This Sunday Times story takes a close look at the events that trig­gered the UK’s response on Thursday morn­ing, telling how MI5 and Scotland Yard sprung into action fol­low­ing the arrest of plot mas­ter­mind Rashid Rauf in Pakistan. And it pro­vides new bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion on the plot­ters.
3. The Guardian reports on Monday that the sus­pected ring­leader of the avi­a­tion plot, Rashid Rauf, is pro­vid­ing details “that directly link the con­spir­acy to al-​​Qaida in Afghanistan.“
4. Sec. Chertoff made the rounds of the Sunday morn­ing talk shows, clar­i­fy­ing that no U.S. links to the plot­ters have been found. In related news, this story in the New York Times describes how Sec. Chertoff and a small cadre of DHS offi­cials pre­pared for the response prior to Thursday’s arrests.
5. TSA amended its travel rules slightly on Sunday, clar­i­fy­ing that baby for­mula and med­ica­tions would be allowed on flights, and that shoe removal would now be manda­tory for all pas­sen­gers at all air­ports. The trans­port author­i­ties in Britain also relaxed their carry-​​on rules today, now allow­ing pas­sen­gers to take on one small bag (but no liq­uids or gels).
6. This AP story describes dif­fer­ent types of explo­sives detec­tion equip­ment that are rel­e­vant for the liquid/​gel explo­sives threat.
7. Interpol’s Ron Noble crit­i­cizes British offi­cials in a NY Times op-​​ed for not using Interpol’s inter­na­tional information-​​sharing mechanism’s in the after­math of the arrests, and makes the case for the value of this type of information-​​sharing.
– Christian Beckner, cross-​​posted from Homeland Security Watch

August 13th, 2006 | Homeland Security | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.