LONDON — Britain was yesterday gripped in the highest level of terrorism alert — ‘critical’ — as the British government imposed draconian security restrictions at major airports throughout the country following the foiling by police of an alleged terror plot to blow up some 10 planes primarily flying on the route to major US cities.
The alleged plotters, according to Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson, had intended “mass murder on an unimaginable scale”.
Heathrow Airport, the world’s busiest, has literally become a fortress, with armed police and soldiers visible everywhere, and passengers bearing one of the curses of modern air travel — security delays because of the threat of terrorism.
Home Secretary John Reid, who chairs Cobra, the government’s anti-terrorism emergency committee, warned the British people that the top level security alert will be maintained as long as it was necessary and urged the public to be vigilant. He assured the public that the police are confident that “the main players have been accounted for” and that the operations are ongoing. There is no room for complacency.
The knock-on effect of events at Heathrow is being felt globally. All incoming flights to Heathrow, except those already in the air after the security regime was imposed, have been banned. US air marshals are on their way to the UK to advise on air security, and the US Department of Homeland Security increased the threat level applied to US-bound commercial flights originating in the UK to “red” — the first time it has done this for flights coming in from another country.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, on holiday in Barbados, in a statement confirmed that “there has been an enormous amount of co-operation with the US authorities which has been of great value and underlines the threat we face and our determination to counter it.” The prime minister, it was revealed, did brief President George Bush during the night about the events.
MI5 and Scotland Yard’s Anti-terrorism Unit had known about the plot involving home-grown British Muslim militants for “a long period of time”. The crunch came on the early hours of yesterday morning when police raided premises in London, High Wycombe and Birmingham and arrested 21 suspected plotters, all of whom reportedly are British Muslims mainly of “Asian origin” and links to Pakistan. Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson said the “terrorists’ aim was to smuggle explosives on to airplanes in hand luggage and to detonate these in flight. We also believe that the intended targets were flights from the UK to the United States of America.”
Three US airlines are believed to have been targeted. Security sources stressed that the terror plot was thought to have involved a series of “waves” of simultaneous attacks, targeting three planes each time.
There is speculation that the explosive to be used was liquid based. Hence, the ban on all hand luggage and liquids except baby’s milk, which has to be tasted by the mother before boarding a flight, and essential medicines. Only the barest essentials — including passports and wallets — will be allowed to be carried on board in transparent plastic bags.
The modus operandi, said sources, would have involved units working together, with each member smuggling a component of the makeshift device, which would at the right time be assembled and detonated on board.
Security officials said that given the confined space on the planes, the explosives would have been sophisticated and extremely effective.
UK Transport Secretary Alexander Douglas confirmed that “the seriousness of the threat gave us no choice but for these stringent measures to be implemented.” The ongoing alert is also a fallback in case of more terror units yet uncovered and poised to replace those arrested. The government has also been quick to play down the potential religious or ethnic implications of yesterday’s dramatic events. Police in fact spoke to a “good number of community leaders to make them aware that a major operation was under way.”
Home Secretary John Reid stressed that “all people of this country whatever their religion or ethnic group have a common threat against terrorism. In general terrorists will massacre anyone who stands in their way.”
The war on terrorism, he added, was a “long, wide and deep struggle against very evil people, and not a case of one civilization against another or one religion against another. The curse of evil terrorism is a general threat common to all of us. Internationally, most people massacred by the terrorists have been Muslims.”
Already some pundits are talking about the “(Muslim) enemy within” the country, and questions are once again being raised about the reluctance of so-called moderate Muslim leaders speaking out against the terrorist threat within their communities. Muslim leaders have similarly been caught on the back foot, once again finding themselves reacting to events purportedly planned by their co-religionists and the militants in their midst. Some prominent Muslim leaders contacted by Arab News deferred to comment and preferred to wait-and-see how events unfold over the next few days.
John Conner, a former Scotland Yard official, warned of the growing disaffection and militancy of a small section of British Muslims. Foreign policy and the events in Afghanistan, Iraq and in recent weeks the wanton destruction in Lebanon, he added, may have contributed to heightening the enthusiasm of some militants toward terrorist acts.
