The Airline Bomb Plot
Three quick links and thoughts on the airline bomb plot:
(1) Pakistani Intelligence helped? The London Times is reporting that Pakistani Intelligence help thwart the plot. The Times also passes along this nugget from Pakistan:
Today Pakistani security forces Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, leader of the outlawed Islamic militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, (LeT) under house arrest. The largest of the separatist groups fighting the Indian forces in Kashmir, the LeT has also been blamed by Indian authorities for last month's train bombings in Bombay which killed more than 200 people.
(2) Liquid explosives. There are a number of reports, including this one from the AP, saying that the plotters wanted to use liquid explosives in their carry-on luggage to blow up the planes. It is worth noting, as some reports do, that this was the Ramzi Yousef's modus operandi in the mid-1990s. Yousef, whose uncle KSM orchestrated 9/11, was plotting to blow up a dozen aircraft in mid air when he was arrested. Yousef had wanted to use liquid-based explosives mixed on board the aircraft.
(3) Al Qaeda plot? Although it is too early to tell who the plotters are, exactly, Rohan Gunaratna hits the nail on the head concerning likely al Qaeda involvement:
..."The scope or the magnitude of this attack is much larger than previous attacks," said Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert at Singapore's Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies.
He added that 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. They have obvious experience in working around that system and extensive knowledge of the aviation domain."...
(1) Pakistani Intelligence helped? The London Times is reporting that Pakistani Intelligence help thwart the plot. The Times also passes along this nugget from Pakistan:
Today Pakistani security forces Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, leader of the outlawed Islamic militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, (LeT) under house arrest. The largest of the separatist groups fighting the Indian forces in Kashmir, the LeT has also been blamed by Indian authorities for last month's train bombings in Bombay which killed more than 200 people.
(2) Liquid explosives. There are a number of reports, including this one from the AP, saying that the plotters wanted to use liquid explosives in their carry-on luggage to blow up the planes. It is worth noting, as some reports do, that this was the Ramzi Yousef's modus operandi in the mid-1990s. Yousef, whose uncle KSM orchestrated 9/11, was plotting to blow up a dozen aircraft in mid air when he was arrested. Yousef had wanted to use liquid-based explosives mixed on board the aircraft.
(3) Al Qaeda plot? Although it is too early to tell who the plotters are, exactly, Rohan Gunaratna hits the nail on the head concerning likely al Qaeda involvement:
..."The scope or the magnitude of this attack is much larger than previous attacks," said Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert at Singapore's Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies.
He added that 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. They have obvious experience in working around that system and extensive knowledge of the aviation domain."...
posted by Thomas Joscelyn at 10:09 AM
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