Terror Questions - Do you have answers?

**I R Paki** · 08-14-2006

We awake to news that a major terror plot has been thwarted. Security sources claim that the group, who have been under surveillance for months, wanted to explode as many as 10 planes, probably somewhere over the Atlantic. Thousands of travellers are stranded, planes have been cancelled and the country's security threat has been raised to its highest level. There are a lot of questions we'll be trying to answer during the course of the day, for example:

1. how close were we to "mass murder on an unimaginable scale"?
2. have the security services found any explosives?
3. why did the police decide to swoop today?
4. were they members of a foreign terror cell or were they British-born?
5. how will this change the way we fly? Will we have to get used to flying without any hand luggage?

-Newsnight.

Quotes from what people think:

1. At 01:27 PM on 10 Aug 2006, jeff bowes wrote:
Here we go again the media jumps, unthinkingly to attention and reports, as fact, what remain allegations of 'terrorist' plots, from the police and security services. The same bodies which have a catalogue of failure, gross injustice. shootings, wrongful arrests and serious questions concerning their efficiency, and the reliabiliy of thie information. Yet, once more reporters are despatched to issue matter-of-fact bulletins, using affirmative language, that may well have been authored by MI5 itself! Will the same jounalists be giving equal exposure to the predictable and eventual release, by the police, of the so-called twenty terror suspects' claimed to have been involved in this current activity? Will reporters be outside Paddingon Green police station, when the authorties release these individuals, at the convenient late hour, on some future sunday evening, limiting the scrutiny of public and media exosuret? How often will the media serve as an unwitting (or even knowing) conduit, for what may be the black arts of security and political agendas? Is no one going to stand up and speculate upon the rather ineresting timing of all this, with John Reid giving a keynote and, now seemingly prophetic, address on the immense threat of posed to the UK by 'terrorism', only twenty fours hours earlier! Is it beyond journalists to rigorously examine the curious political coincidence of this incident, at a time when the sympathy of the British people is largely behind the suffering of the Muslim people of Lebanon, and the nation is appalled by Tony Blair's callous indifference and appeasement of Israel and the US. can these circumstances not have even the slightest relationship to this incident, or are we to swallow uncritically the authorized press statements of our unaccountable security services?

Another one - This is so funny.

Here we go again... And the point of telling the terrorists how alert the security staff is what, exactly? Go home today, lads, they're expecting us?

Before the war, in an equally daft and unquestioned move, Heathrow was surrounded by armoured cars. As their maximum speed was around 40mph, there must have been reliable information that the terrorists were on mopeds or in Robin Reliants - the only other conclusion is that it was a PR stunt.

**Keltoi** · 08-14-2006

1. Authorities have stated they were days away from doing a "dry run", to see if their liquid explosives would make it through security check.

2. Obviously they have found explosives. If I remember correctly, one British official described the explosives as "sophisticated".

3. Probably because they had enough evidence and had a fairly good of how was involved.

4. They have stated the alleged terrorists were British born of Pakistani descent.

5. I would bet there will be a ban on most liquids brought aboard aircraft, something that should have been done long ago I would imagine.