Heathrow Airport has been closed following a foiled plan to blow up as many as 10 Airliners scheduled for travel to the U.S. The BBC reports:
A plot to blow up planes in flight from the UK to the US and commit “mass murder on an unimaginable scale” has been disrupted, Scotland Yard has said.
It is thought the plan was to detonate explosive devices smuggled in hand luggage on to as many as 10 aircraft.
Police are searching premises after 21 people were arrested. Home Secretary John Reid said they believed the “main players” were accounted for.
Reports from the ground are pouring in here at Radioactive Liberty. Edna Glass, a witness on the scene verified that the suspects were of an “indeterminable ethnic and religious background.” She said, “I saw one of the suspects being taken into custody. I was completely unable to determine anything about the suspects height, weight, age, sex, or ethnicity. It was like he or she was the most mundane, non-descript, ordinary, average person in the world.”
Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson said the alleged plotters had intended “mass murder on an unimaginable scale”.
He continued, “I don’t think anyone would ever think that it would be possible to use airplanes to kill innocent civilians. This marks a shocking precedent in the history of the world.”
Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson said, “We are confident that we have disrupted a plan by terrorists to cause untold death and destruction and to commit, quite frankly, mass murder, but we are unsure because the main players are so inexplicably ordinary and average as to be nearly invisible.”
It’s very disturbing, indeed, that any given person has the potential to cause so much death and destruction. Disrupting such plots would be so much easier if there were some sort of common identifying feature that would indicate an individual is a potential terrorist.
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See more at Counterterrorism Blog, Hot Air, Captain’s Quarters, Michelle Malkin, Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler.
UPDATE: Point Five notes “a disturbing correlation between ‘the presence of Westerners on airplanes and terror attacks.’” B.C., Imperial Torturer thinks that there IS some sort of common feature linking the potential terrorists.
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Trackbacked on Mudville Gazette, Samantha Burns

7 responses so far ↓
1
richj
// Aug 10, 2006 at 12:29 pm
The plotters must come from a broad strata of society.
2
von
// Aug 10, 2006 at 1:29 pm
Somehow they missed that GIGANTIC FUCKING RAG ON THE GUYS HEAD!!!
3
Wyatt Earp
// Aug 10, 2006 at 10:57 pm
I heard that the plotters were albino Irish immigrants. But I heard that on CNN, so . . .
4
SeanS
// Aug 12, 2006 at 12:20 am
The scale of this mass murder would have been unimaginable. Maybe if they start looking at some sort of identification, they will be able to stop potential terrorists more often.
Just a thought.
5
isiah
// Aug 14, 2006 at 11:50 pm
intresting. I was under the immpression that nearly every terrorist in history was a male between 16-35 and a bachelor. Huh, well obviously I was wrong I am sure those guys were like grandmothers, very messed up 6 year olds, and newlyweds.
6
FIAR
// Aug 15, 2006 at 12:01 am
How ever did you draw such a conclusion? They’re chameleon like in their ability to blend in. Entirely non-descript they are.
7
Marcy
// Aug 18, 2006 at 3:13 pm
‘unimaginable mass murder’ … well, I think I can imagine it.
10 planes * 200 people (on average) per plane = 2000 deaths. Still a small cry from 911 but still not nice to think about.
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