Author: NBC News
Publication: MSNBC.com
Date: August 10, 2006
URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14278216/?GT1=8404
Officials: Leader still at large in Pakistan,
test run was planned for weekend
British authorities said Thursday they thwarted
a terrorist plot to simultaneously blow up 10 aircraft heading to the U.S.
using explosives smuggled in hand luggage, averting what police described
as "mass murder on an unimaginable scale."
Officials told NBC News that the alleged mastermind
of the plot is still in Pakistan and has yet to be captured.
Some plotters had already purchased tickets
on a flight to stage a test run planned for this weekend. The test run would
have determined how easily the plotters could have gotten their materials
past security and on board the planes.
The actual attack would have followed within
days, officials told NBC News.
Police arrested 24 people saying they were
confident they captured the main suspects in what U.S. officials said was
a plot in its final phases that had all the earmarks of an al-Qaida operation.
However, ABC News quoted unidentified U.S. officials who had been briefed
on the plot as saying five suspects were still at large and being urgently
hunted.
President Bush called the plot a "stark
reminder" of the continued threat to the United States from extremist
Muslims.
Senior U.S. intelligence officials told NBC
News that the plot was on British officials' radar for about two weeks and
that several of the people involved had been monitored for several months
when this plot came into view.
Asked whether there were a significant number
of suspects involved in the plot still on the loose who could still carry
out an attack, the official said, "They didn't get them all."
Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff
described the plot on Thursday as "well-advanced and well-thought-out
and ... really resourced to succeed."
The alleged plan
Britain disclosed no details about the plot or those arrested, although one
police official indicated the people in custody were British residents, most
of whom lived in east London. A French official in contact with British authorities
described the arrested as originating from predominantly Muslim Pakistan.
British authorities said the suspects were
arrested in London, its suburbs and Birmingham following a lengthy investigation,
including the alleged "main players" in the plot.
At least one of the plotters attended a terrorist
training camp in Pakistan, and more than one of the accused prepared a martyrdom
tape, a counterterrorism official told NBC News.
Investigators say the plotters had not decided
on specific flights to attack, but within the past few days were clicking
around the Internet, looking at non-stop flights from the U.K. to the U.S.
that left around the same time, NBC News' Pete Williams reported.
U.S. officials say British investigators had
the terror cell under close surveillance for several months, keeping the U.S.
informed, then adding more specifics just within the past several days.
For the past several days, the FBI has feverishly
looked for any potential ties to terrorists in the U.S., but has not found
any.
"We literally in the last couple of weeks
have had hundreds of FBI agents around the country tracking down every lead,
and we have not found to date any plotters here in the United States,"
FBI Director Robert Mueller told NBC.
Aviation experts say airport screening devices
have a hard time picking up the chemicals the plotters planned to use, something
officials verified with a test Thursday morning at Washington's Ronald Reagan
National Airport.
Officials raised security to its highest level
in Britain - suggesting a terrorist attack might be imminent - 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 outside of baby formula.
Chertoff said the terrorists planned to use
liquid explosives disguised as beverages and other common products and set
them off with detonators disguised as electronic devices.
"I can't tell you that the particular
explosives they had designed would have succeeded in bringing the planes down,
but certainly you don't even want to come close to taking that kind of a risk,"
Chertoff said on MSNBC TV's "Hardball."
A counterterrorism official with knowledge
of the plot and Thursday's arrests told NBC News that the plotters, who ranged
in age from 17 to 35, planned to use false-bottomed sports drink bottles to
bring the liquids on board.
The terrorists on each plane would combine
the separated liquids mid-flight to create an explosive solution.
An American law enforcement official who was
briefed on the investigation said it appeared the liquid to be used was a
"peroxide-based solution" to be detonated by an electronic device
that was not specified, but could be anything from a disposable camera to
a portable digital music player.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity
because British authorities had asked that no information be released.
Alerts raised worldwide
News of the arrests and extreme security measures in London, a major international
aviation hub, sent ripples throughout the world. Heathrow was closed to most
flights from Europe, and British Airways canceled all its flights between
the airport and points in Britain, Europe and Libya. Numerous flights from
U.S. cities to Britain were canceled.
Washington raised its threat alert to its
highest level for commercial flights from Britain to the United States.
The alert for all flights coming or going
from the United States was also raised slightly.
Two U.S. counterterrorism officials, speaking
on condition of anonymity, 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.
'Stark reminder'
Visiting Green Bay, Wis., to raise support for a Republican candidate, Bush
said that the plot was a "stark reminder that this nation is at war with
Islamic fascists." Despite increased security since Sept. 11, he warned,
"It is a mistake to believe there is no threat to the United States of
America."
ABC News quoted sources as saying Western
intelligence agencies had identified three of the alleged ringleaders. It
said two were believed to have traveled recently to Pakistan and later had
money wired to them from Pakistan, purportedly to purchase airline tickets
for suicide bombers.
While British officials declined to publicly
identify the 24 suspects, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said in
Paris they "appear to be of Pakistani origin."
Pakistan's government said later its intelligence
agents helped Britain crack the plot and had arrested two to three suspects.
"Pakistan played a very important role
in uncovering and breaking this international terrorist network," Foreign
Ministry spokesman Tasnim Aslam said, but she declined to give details.
'Homegrown'
The suspects arrested in Britain were "homegrown," though it was
not immediately clear if they were all British citizens, said a British police
official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of
the case. Police were working closely with the South Asian community, the
official said.
Raids were carried out at homes in London,
the nearby town of High Wycombe and in Birmingham, in central England. Police
also combed a wooded area in High Wycombe.
Hamza Ghafoor, 20, who lives across the street
from one of the homes raided in Walthamstow, northeast of London, said police
circled the block in vans Thursday and that they generally swoop into the
neighborhood to question "anyone with a beard."
"Ibrahim didn't do nothing wrong,"
Ghafoor said, referring to a suspect. "He played football. He goes to
the mosque. He's a nice guy."
The suicide bombing assault on London subway
trains and a bus on July 7, 2005, was carried out by Muslim extremists raised
in Britain.
The police official said the plotters intended
to simultaneously target multiple planes bound for the United States.
"We think this was an extraordinarily
serious plot and we are confident that we've prevented an attempt to commit
mass murder on an unimaginable scale," Deputy Police Commissioner Paul
Stephenson said.
First time red alert status invoked
Prime Minister Tony Blair, vacationing in the Caribbean, briefed Bush on the
situation Wednesday. Blair issued a statement praising the cooperation between
the two countries, saying it "underlines the threat we face and our determination
to counter it."
Chertoff said the plot had the hallmarks of
an operation planned by al-Qaida, the terrorist group behind the Sept. 11
attack on the United States.
"It was sophisticated, it had a lot of
members and it was international in scope. It was in some respects suggestive
of an al-Qaida plot," Chertoff said, but he cautioned it was too early
in the investigation to reach any conclusions.
It is the first time the red alert level in
the Homeland Security warning system has been invoked, although there have
been brief periods in the past when the orange level was applied. Homeland
Security defines the red alert as designating a "severe risk of terrorist
attacks."
"We believe that these arrests (in London)
have significantly disrupted the threat, but we cannot be sure that the threat
has been entirely eliminated or the plot completely thwarted," Chertoff
said.
He added, however, there was no indication
of current plots within the United States.
'Close to the execution phase'
Chertoff said the plotters were in the final stages of planning. "We
were really getting quite close to the execution phase," he said, adding
that it was unclear if the plot was linked to the upcoming fifth anniversary
of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
A senior U.S. counterterrorism official said
authorities believe dozens of people - possibly as many as 50 - were involved
in the plot.
In the mid-1990s, officials foiled a plan
by terrorist mastermind Ramzi Youssef to blow up 12 Western jetliners simultaneously
over the Pacific. The alleged plot involved improvised bombs using liquid
hidden in contact lens solution containers.
NBC News' Robert Windrem, NBC News' Courtney Kube, Reuters and The Associated
Press contributed to this report.
