Quote:Airport security stepped up in Britain over bomb plot fears

Action follows US intelligence that al-Qaida operatives are planning to develop explosives that can avoid detection

• Josh Halliday and Vikram Dodd
  
• The Guardian, Thursday 3 July 2014
  

British armed police patrol Heathrow's terminal 5 in London. Photograph: Shaun Curry/AFP/Getty Images

Security at UK airports is to be tightened after US officials raised fears about terrorists in Syria and Yemen developing explosives that could be smuggled on to planes.
The Department for Transport (DfT) said on Wednesday night that it would "step up some of our aviation security measures" following the warning from US security chiefs.
US officials told Reuters that security at European airports would be increased following intelligence that al-Qaida operatives in Syria and Yemen had joined forces to develop bombs that would avoid detection and bring down aircraft.
The US did not specify which airports or countries would be affected, nor did it say what triggered the extra precautions.
The DfT confirmed that aviation in Britain would be affected but declined to comment on what extra measures would be in place. It is thought that they could include increased random screening of passengers and tighter scrutiny of footwear, mobile phones and computers.
A DfT spokesman said the changes would not cause significant disruption to passengers and the threat level remained at substantial, meaning an attack was a strong possibility.
He said: "The UK government keeps aviation security under constant review in conjunction with international partners and the aviation industry.
"We have taken the decision to step up some of our aviation security measures. For obvious reasons we will not be commenting in detail on those changes."
The US department of homeland security said "enhanced security measures" would be implemented in the next few days at "certain overseas airports with direct flights into the United States".
The department secretary, Jeh Johnson, said: "We are sharing recent and relevant information with our foreign allies and are consulting the aviation industry."
US intelligence believes extremists in Syria and Yemen have been in contact to develop bombs that escape heightened security measures, although they do not have specific intelligence about an imminent attack or specific plot emanating from the suspected collaboration.
Some in the US intelligence community also believe that "training complexes" have been set up in Syria for western jihadists so they can return to their home countries better trained to carry out attacks.
While that conclusion is the subject of debate, it shows the level of fear counter-terrorism officials have about the threat posed by violent jihadists from Syria now considered to be the main one facing the west.
Intelligence is reported to suggest bomb makers from Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula (AQAP) have travelled to Syria to meet al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra to work on ways to get an explosive device past existing security.
AQAP was behind two failed plots that evaded aviation security. One was the underpants bomb over the US in December 2009, where the device did not explode fully. The other was the two ink cartridge bombs hidden on separate cargo planes that were aimed to detonate over the eastern US in October 2010. In that plot the concealment of the devices was so innovative it initially escaped detection by experienced bomb experts, but they were discovered at enroute stop-overs following an intelligence tipoff.
Since the September 11 2001 attacks al-Qaida-inspired terrorists have developed plots that have exploited weaknesses in aviation security. The largest was the liquid bomb plot broken in 2006, based in the UK.
Security experts said the heightened security measures did not necessarily mean the US was acting on intelligence of a specific bomb plot.
The independent aviation analyst Chris Yates said: "You could argue that this being Independence Day weekend in the States everybody is going to be on tenterhooks and watching carefully. This could be an example of someone at the department for homeland security watching carefully and putting two and two together and coming up with five."
Yates said he would be surprised if the heightened security did not lead to delays for passengers flying to the US from busy British airports. He said: "They say the measures shouldn't impact on travel but take Heathrow, with multiple flights a day to the US, and the likelihood is this could end up causing a backlog."
Information suggesting increased threats can be wrong and the subject of debate among intelligence officials.
Intelligence in 2010 about a feared Mumbai-style gun and bomb plot against an unspecified European target led to a retooling in the UK of the police's planned response to an armed attack and extra resources being deployed. Some with close knowledge of the debates at the time now believe the intelligence was mistaken or incorrectly analysed.
A spokesman for Heathrow airport in London declined to comment on the new security measures. British Airways could not be reached for comment. A Virgin Atlantic spokeswoman said: "We don't comment on operational security matters."

Quote:Liquid Lies Revisited

by craig on July 3, 2014 1:03 pm in Uncategorized
There never was a liquid bomb plot. It was proven in court not to exist. It was a fabrication of the minds governing a Pakistani torture chamber.
It is only a week ago that, as the terrorist industry sought to terrify us with the idea that jihadists from Syria would attack the UK,[URL="http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/06/lord-byron-terrorist/#comments"] I wrote that:
[/URL]

"The patent absence of any genuine Islamic terrorism in the UK to fight is an obvious threat to the funding of this huge industry. Hence the current hype about the threat from Birmingham school governors or British residents fighting in Iraq and Syria. We have the usual propagandists for this threat thrust upon the airwaves again Frank "Goebbels" Gardner and even the utterly discredited "Quilliam Foundation" who have been back on the BBC. At the moment they are peddling the utterly untrue line that 9% of those who travel from the UK to participate in fighting abroad, on return get involved in terrorist activity in the UK. Frank Gardner has been repeating this ad nauseam"

Now the terror industry has moved to ramp up this entirely false fear with worldwide headlines about a new threat of bombs on planes. The BBC and Sky both link this to the great "liquid bomb plot" of 2006. Everybody remembers that massive story that dominated the headlines for weeks. It was described by the British security services as "Bigger than 9/11″. Today BBC News described it as a "plot to bring down seven airliners simultaneously".
22 people were arrested in Stasi style raids conducted on their hones at 2.30am. These included a 22 year old woman with a young baby. The Home Office proudly proclaimed that the Home Secretary, Dr John Reid, had been awake all night and personally directed those raids on sleeping families with children.
You may recall that the tabloids directed by Rebekah Brooks and Coulson ran front page stories about the evil Islamic mother and the liquid explosive in her baby bottles. These evil Muslims are so heartless they are prepared to blow up their own babies!! John Howard, Australian Prime Minister, said "That would be an appalling reflection on the lack of humanity of that child's parents."
Except it was all untrue. The chemical traces the police claimed to have found on the baby bottles proved to be Sodium Dichloroisocyanurate, normal baby bottle sterilising solution, from Boots. The woman was found not guilty on all charges. Neither the tabloids, the police, nor Dr John Reid and John Howard have ever apologised. Of the 22 people arrested in those darkest night raids, only eight were ever charged fourteen were released without charge, there being no evidence against them. Of the eight who were charged, five were found not guilty. Three were convicted as terrorists but there was nothing in their plans about blowing up aircraft. I am not personally convinced of the safety of their convictions anyway. They may have been unpleasant fantasists, but not much else. These three certainly had no practical plan or method to bring down seven aircraft, despite the BBC repeating that lie continually at the moment. The recent death of Gerard Conlon reminds us all of the horrifying willingness of English juries to convict the demonised other, be they Irish Catholics or Muslims.
This is what I blogged just three days after the story broke. Everything I wrote here proved to be true:

"None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for quite some time.
In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.
What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for over a year like thousands of other British Muslims. And not just Muslims. Like me. Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests.
Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed the details of this amazing plot to blow up multiple planes which, rather extraordinarily, had not turned up in a year of surveillance. Of course, the interrogators of the Pakistani dictator have their ways of making people sing like canaries. As I witnessed in Uzbekistan, you can get the most extraordinary information this way. Trouble is it always tends to give the interrogators all they might want, and more, in a desperate effort to stop or avert torture. What it doesn't give is the truth.
The gentleman being "interrogated" had fled the UK after being wanted for questioning over the murder of his uncle some years ago. That might be felt to cast some doubt on his reliability. It might also be felt that factors other than political ones might be at play within these relationships. Much is also being made of large transfers of money outside the formal economy. Not in fact too unusual in the British Muslim community, but if this activity is criminal, there are many possibilities that have nothing to do with terrorism."

Despite the fact I was right and the entire mainstream media was wrong, I was directly attacked by highly paid alcoholic warmonger Nick Cohen in the Observer as a "conspiracy theorist".
The famous "liquid bomb plot" was used by both the UK and US governments to drive through yet more anti-civil liberties legislation, despite the fact that the plot did not actually exist and the technology of home made portable and easily deployable binary liquid explosives is a myth.
The mass hysteria whipped up by the mainstream media and appalling neo-con politicians over the "liquid bomb plot" did a huge amount to boost the massive budgets of the terrorist industry. The media never carried the news of the non-existence of the plot, so there was never any downward pressure on those budgets as a result. The patent lack of Islamic terrorism in the West is becoming a threat to those budgets now. But, Hell! The liquid bomb myth worked last time, didn't it? Why not use it again?
That the BBC can recycle as fact the "liquid bomb plot to blow up seven airlines" is sickening enough. But then they did something that was so jaw-dropping as to be unbelievable, even given the total lack of ethics at the BBC. To make sure the "fear" really sunk in, they showed a "reconstruction" of the liquid bomb plot. A section of aircraft fuselage was mounted on the ground, and then an explosion blew out a big hole in it. Text labelled it "reconstruction" underneath.
How can you have a "reconstruction" of something which never happened, and was shown in court not to have happened? I should love to believe that this BBC ploy is so ludicrous it did not work; but I have a sad feeling that 90% of people probably believe the "liquid bomb plot" did exist, as Tony Blair, George Bush, John Reid, John Howard and the entire media told them it existed, and nobody has ever told them it did not.