LONDON, 19 August 2006 — Each of the 43 police forces throughout the UK is now involved in the investigation into the alleged terror plot to blow up nine trans-Atlantic airliners flying out of major UK airports en route to US cities, as the hunt for concrete evidence against the alleged plotters intensifies.
In an apparent breakthrough, police said they had found a “bombmaking kit” in a suitcase on a stretch of land called King’s Wood in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire in the early hours of yesterday.
The BBC reported that a police source said the suitcase contained “everything you would need to make an improvised device.” Scotland Yard, however, refused to comment further on the contents of the suitcase. At least two of the 23 suspects arrested following raids more than a week ago, lived at addresses in High Wycombe.
So significant is the find that police are working round the clock in shifts concentrating on specially identified areas where holes have recently been dug up and then covered with thick undergrowth. The area has been cordoned off and is patrolled day and night so as to preserve the sites for further investigation.
The suitcase find came apparently unexpectedly after children playing in the area stumbled across a “den” in the undergrowth. According to media reports here, police are confident that they can bring credible charges against 12 of the alleged plotters. Thus far they have reportedly found two firearms, 19,000 pounds in cash and liquids which could be used to make explosives at three addresses of suspects.
Police are also involved with security patrols at major airports in the UK; with the searches at 13 addresses in Birmingham, London and High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire; and with sifting through the logistical nightmare of unraveling the hard drives of more than 60 computers which were confiscated following raids at two Internet cafes in Walthamstow and at the premises of 23 suspects who are still under arrest for questioning.
Thus far Scotland Yard officers had completed searches of 26 business and residential sites as part of the investigation.
These dramatic developments come at a time when the British government yesterday said that it was planning a new clampdown on alleged Islamic extremism at British universities. In an interview with the London Evening Standard, Ruth Kelly, the secretary of state for communities — the minister effectively in charge of spearheading the government’s policy of engaging with Muslim communities — warned that Islamic extremist groups were “hijacking” Muslim societies on university campuses. “There is strong evidence that these (university Muslim societies) are breeding grounds for extremism. You can have a situation where this is happening at a university and yet the mosque nearby has no knowledge of what is going on... The mosques have a role here and so do the universities, but this is a matter for all of us,” she stressed.
Next week, Minister Kelly will launch a Commission on Integration and Cohesion which seeks to ensure “all our communities are strong, resilient and all people are fully participating in our society.”
On the travel front, British Airways is running a full schedule of flights for the first time since the terror alert nine days ago. However, this return to “normality” may be short-lived because baggage handlers and check-in staff at Stansted Airport, Britain’s third largest, yesterday called two strikes over the bank holiday weekend starting Aug. 26 in a dispute over pay.
At the same time a war of words has erupted between the budget airline Ryanair and the British government over compensation for the losses incurred as a result of last week’s airport security alert.
Ryanair has issued the government with a seven-day ultimatum to restore airport security measures to normal or risk being sued for compensation.
The UK Department of Transport was quick to rebuff the budget airline warning that “the security regime in place at UK airports is necessary because of the level of security threat and is kept under constant review. We have no intention of compromising security levels nor do we anticipate changing our requirements in the next seven days.”
The Aviation Security Act of 1982 does allow the government of the day to implement measures for the safety and protection of the public.
But Ryanair claims that it can ask for compensation under the provision of Section 93 of the Transport Act 2000.
Most of the airlines based at the major airports in the UK are expecting compensation, but some have stressed that it should be British Airports Authority (BAA), the owner and manager of the UK airports, which is liable to pay the compensation. It may be inevitable that any such cost would eventually be passed on to the hapless passenger in increased ticket prices and other surcharges.
In a scathing attack Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary said a larger cabin baggage allowance and fewer passenger body searches would have avoided handing “extremists an enormous PR victory. The best way to defeat terrorists and extremists is for ordinary people to continue to live their lives as normal.”
O’Leary described the situation at London airports after the security measures were imposed last Thursday, as a “shambles.”
