Bleeding terrorists...

[sillygirl]

...at it again:


http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/hi/news/5055757.html

AIRPORTS throughout the UK were plunged into chaos today after a major terror plot to blow up aircraft in mid-flight was foiled.
It's believed terrorists were poised to explode liquid chemical devices on flights between Britain and America

[gomichild]

All very nerve wracking stuff.

[kamome]

Traveling is going to become even more of a chore than it already is. Now all carry-on items have to be in transparent plastic bags??!

[mr. sparkle]

Hopefully they won't come up with explosive Baby formula, the only liquid you're allowed to bring on board.
I've heard in the UK, you cannot bring your laptop on board any longer.

BTW, this is officially a terror plot and making big news here "outside the Buddha".

[GuyJean]

BTW, this is officially a terror plot and making big news here "outside the Buddha".

Interesting.. I wonder why I'm not concerned..

I don't see any planes at LAX.. But it could be a Safari bug:
http://www4.passur.com/lax.html

From Java App for Errorists-tay

GJ

[kamome]

This just received from the travel service that my employer uses:

British authorities said Thursday they had thwarted a plot to simultaneously blow up several aircraft heading to the U.S. using explosives smuggled in carry-on luggage. In response to the reported terrorists plots in the UK many flights in and out of the UK have either been cancelled or are experiencing significant delays.

*In the UK*

Following this morning's police action, security at all UK airports has been increased and additional security measures have been put in place for all flights.

With immediate effect, the following arrangements apply to all passengers starting their journey at a UK airport and to those transferring between flights at a UK airport:

All cabin baggage must be processed as hold baggage and carried in the hold of aircraft departing UK airports.

Passengers may take through the airport security search point, in a single (ideally transparent) plastic carrier bag, only the following items. Nothing may be carried in pockets:

• Pocket-size wallets and pocket-size purses plus contents such as money, credit cards, id cards, etc. (not handbags)

• Travel documents essential for the journey (for example passports and travel tickets)

• Prescription medicines and medical items sufficient and essential for the flight (e.g., diabetic kit), except in liquid form unless verified as authentic

• Glasses and sunglasses, without cases

• Contact lens holders, without bottles of solution

• For those traveling with an infant: baby food, milk (the contents of each bottle must be tasted by the accompanying passenger) and sanitary items sufficient and essential for the flight

• Female sanitary items sufficient and essential for the flight, if unboxed

• Tissues (unboxed) and/or handkerchiefs

• Keys (but no electrical key fobs).

All passengers must be hand searched, and their footwear and all the items they are carrying must be X-ray screened.

Wheelchairs and walking aids must be X-ray screened, and only airport-provided wheelchairs may pass through the screening point.

In addition to the above, all passengers boarding flights to the U.S. and all the items they are carrying, including those acquired after the central screening point, must be subjected to secondary search at the boarding gate.

Any liquids discovered must be removed from the passenger.

There are no changes to current hold baggage security measures.

*In the U.S.*

In addition, we want to advise travelers that due to heightened security in the U.S., airport officials are currently advising passengers to allow an additional 2 or 3 hours to their normal arrival at the airport, carry as few items in their carry-on as possible and do not attempt to bring liquids as carry-on items.[font=Arial] [color=#000000] Delays of up to 5 hours have been reported at many airports worldwide. [/color]

In light of the threat to aviation and the need to respond to it, we are asking the traveling public to be patient and understanding and to cooperate fully with airport security staff and the police.

I can just see women walking through security with tampons visible in their ziploc bags and mothers drinking their baby's formula in front of a security guard.
[/font]

[Kuang_Grade]

It will be interesting how the security rules will play out from this....There are alot of businesses that could be impacted by this--at least of a good chunk of the duty free industry and possibly a large part of economic base of various airports-not much point for all those stores beyond the security gates in airports if you can't carry much of anything on board. And I'm now about 100% certain to sell off my PSP now since its usefulness on long flights was the only thing keeping me from selling it off.

[GuyJean]

not much point for all those stores beyond the security gates in airports if you can't carry much of anything on board.

Good point.. Unless they make a special 'duty free area' on the plane where all purchased goods are stored until the destination. Then it's divvied out to the buyers..

Is it really necessary to 'carry' the exposives onto the plane? Couldn't they shove flammable liquid up their ass in a balloon.. Or swallow some sort of time-bomb.. Hope those emergency exit doors are locked-shut during flight..

Maybe I shouldn't write this...

GJ

[(1VB)freels]

Anyone got any info on people coming from Japan to the US? I need info ASAP.


P.S. I am glad that those terrorist asshat's got caught!!!

[GuyJean]

Anyone got any info on people coming from Japan to the US? I need info ASAP.

http://www.narita-airport.or.jp/ais/flightall/inter_dep.html

GJ

[AssKissinger]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1225152,00.html?cnn=yes


[SIZE="6"]Was the Airline Plot a Rerun?[/SIZE]
A decade ago authorities in Asia foiled an al-Qaeda plot eerily similar to the one just stopped in Great Britain
By SIMON ELEGANT/BEIJING
SUBSCRIBE TO TIMEPRINTE-MAILMORE BY AUTHORFlashback: Ramzi Yousef is Caught
Related Blogs: Click here for blog postings from around the web that are related to the topic of this article.

Posted Thursday, Aug. 10, 2006
Though details are still sketchy, the broad outlines of the foiled plot to bomb airliners plying the Atlantic are eerily reminiscent of a decade-old attempt by an al-Qaeda linked group to massacre hundreds of airline passengers — in that case aimed at U.S. airlines flying over the Pacific. That plot too targeted a dozen or so airliners and aimed to use a liquid explosive, a nitroglycerine-based concoction that was to have been smuggled on to the aircraft in hand-baggage. The plot, codenamed Bojinka — a play on the Serbo-Croatian word for explosion — by its Pakistani planners, came frighteningly close to fruition. In December of 1994, according to U.S. court documents, Ramzi Yousef and Wali Khan Amin Shah, were instrumental in the bombing of a Philippine airlines flight en route to Japan that was a dry run for their much more ambitious attempt to blow up a dozen jets simultaneously. They managed to smuggle a container of liquid explosive concealed in contact lens solution aboard the airplane on an earlier flight, leaving it under a seat in row 26. The explosion killed a Japanese man and forced the plane to make an emergency landing.

Both men were later captured by police — and details of the plot uncovered — after they accidentally set off an explosion in the Manila apartment they were using as a bomb factory. Ramzi was later tried in the U.S. and remains in jail to this day for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, which itself could be seen as a dry run for 9/11.

The parallels between the two attempts underline just how vulnerable airliners remain, says Zachary Abuza, a terror expert who teaches at Simmons College in Boston, Mass. "The amount of explosive you need is really very small," Abuza notes. "It doesn't take much to bring a plane down. And the return is huge. They are targeting the global economy and this remains a huge way to make a dent very quickly by disrupting business and tourism." He and other experts warn that bombs on airplanes will always remain one of the most tempting targets for terrorists, who have killed almost two thousand passengers over the last three decades.

The foiled plot also underlines the fact that, for all the talk in recent years about al-Qaeda focusing on coming up with a new form of terror attack — be it with weapons of mass destruction or against a target other than air travel — the group tends to stick with what they believe is a good plan, notes Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside al-Qaeda. "They think in the long term, over decades," Gunaratna says. "They will keep trying the same plan until they get it right, as was the case with the World Trade Center." From "Richard Reid the shoe bomber to the arrest by Philippine police last year of Islamic extremists in Manila who had manufactured explosives they managed to get into toothpaste tubes, the pattern is there," concurs Abuza. "They will keep trying. And we don't know the chemical composition of this latest attempt but if they have come up with something that is stable and easily disguised we could really have a problem.

[Taro Toporific]

It will be interesting how the security rules will play out from this.....

In the UK at passengers are not being allowed to carry anything on board flights with them except for their travel documents in a clear plastic bag. No liquids, no books, no iPods, no PSPs, not even Hello Kitty buttplugs.

Sheee-it, since crappy baggage liability limits about zero for high value jewellery and electronics and fragile items, there's no reason to pack anything but boxer shorts.
( Airlines have either excluded such items from their coverage, and/or their low limits of total liability have prevented people from recovering full value if their luggage is lost or stolen.)

[Charles]

Sheee-it, since crappy baggage liability limits about zero for high value jewellery and electronics and fragile items, there's no reason to pack anything but boxer shorts.
( Airlines have either excluded such items from their coverage, and/or their low limits of total liability have prevented people from recovering full value if their luggage is lost or stolen.)

There's always the takkyuubin. I hear lots of people are FedExing their valuables to their destinations.

[Korrito]

There's always the takkyuubin. I hear lots of people are FedExing their valuables to their destinations.

I'll be FedExing myself from now on.

It beats getting groped by TSA...but just.

[emperor]

you can still carry on Duty-Free:
so couldnt +50% proof alcoholic spirits & box of matches & pressurised oxygen
make for an interesting flight?

[Mulboyne]

you can still carry on Duty-Free:
so couldnt +50% proof alcoholic spirits & box of matches & pressurised oxygen
make for an interesting flight?

I'm not sure that you can. You can buy it and arrange for delivery in some countries or else buy it on the plane but friends of mine who have travelled have been told that no carry-on is currently permitted. If this continues than the airside shops will have no-one buying except transit passengers. Many of the low-cost airlines have been trying to encourage their customers to only have carry-on luggage so they can save on baggage handlers. That's not going to work anymore.

I can't say I fancy putting my laptop in the hold. Some long-haul passengers in the UK appear to be considering taking the Eurostar train to Paris and then flying from Charles de Gaulle where the hand luggage restrictions have yet to be tightened.

[emperor]

I'm not sure that you can. You can buy it and arrange for delivery in some countries or else buy it on the plane but friends of mine who have travelled have been told that no carry-on is currently permitted.

Oh really? Someone on Sky News or BBC was saying that you still take buy duty free and carry it on, but that was a couple of days ago - I think whatever resrictions they put in place will only be temporary...

The next step is making us strip and put on uniforms/dressing gowns and be sedated for the duration of the flight, while all our clothes and belongings are seperately transported in a reinforced vacumn environment following a thorough inspection.

[Kuang_Grade]

you can still carry on Duty-Free:
so couldnt +50% proof alcoholic spirits & box of matches & pressurised oxygen
make for an interesting flight?

While booze could be used to start a fire, the theory is that is that it would be a "slow", low temp fire with little outward force and there would be time for the crew to fight it...it would pose some threat to passengers but not to the overall operation of the plane. Booze can burn but apparently doesn't go "bang" if you throw a match in it (drinking it, though, may be a different matter).

In the near term, I suspect that there will be a new systems for duty free, such as purchases will be stored in the hold and given to passengers after the flight arrives at its destination. Longer term and depending how serious countries are about this, some sort of interchange system could be developed where you buy it in one country but pick it up in the destination country (although there might be a host of legal issues with this).

[dimwit]

When I flew back from Toronto on the 14th they weren't permiting any bottles on the flights or allowing the duty free shop to sell any liquor or perfume so all my booze had to be especially bubble wraped and stowed in my bags. On flight, they wouldn't allow people to drink beer from cans. Then I get to Narita and have to change airports to Hanada to get my flight to Matsuyama. At Hanada they wanted me to me to move all my booze from the baggage to the carry on, presumably so they would be responsible from breaking any bottles. I guess airports here are working in a parallel dimension.

[FG Lurker]

From the very beginning this whole idea seemed fucked to me. Mixing liquid chemicals in small easily concealed quantities to make a big enough explosion to bring down a plane is NOT a simple thing...actually it is just about impossible. The real world is not the same as a Hollywood action flick.

This is the best article I have seen on this yet:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/17/flying_toilet_terror_labs/

[emperor]

what about highly concentrated acids/bases?
couldnt they eat through the floor and fuselage if you poured a line of it across the width of a plane; fuck up structural integrity enough to make it come apart mid-flight?

[FG Lurker]

[quote="emperor"]what about highly concentrated acids/bases?
couldnt they eat through the floor and fuselage if you poured a line of it across the width of a plane]
Sure! Rolling a few 45 gallon (~180 litre) drums of stuff like that onto the plane won't attract any attention at all.... Make sure you bring acid or base that will eat through anything from plastic to all types of metal alloys. Do they make glass drums in a 45 gallon size?

From an explosive standpoint, you need a fairly large explosion to bring down a plane, or have several well placed moderately sized explosions. It's certainly not impossible but there are far easier ways to kill a lot of people and wreak havoc.

Everyone's attention is being directed towards air travel these days because that is about the only place where the cops have any chance to catch the wackos before they blow something up. Any extremist nutcase who is serious about killing people these days is probably going to blow up a bus (see UK), car, train (see Spain), restaurant, shopping centre, etc...

[Korrito]

From the very beginning this whole idea seemed fucked to me. Mixing liquid chemicals in small easily concealed quantities to make a big enough explosion to bring down a plane is NOT a simple thing...actually it is just about impossible. The real world is not the same as a Hollywood action flick.

This is the best article I have seen on this yet:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/17/flying_toilet_terror_labs/

You don't have to bring down an airplane to create terror. All you need is a carrier and something for him or her to carry. The carrier doesn't need something all that deadly in terms of immediacy...long term will do....like a virus of some sort or something gruesome along those lines.

Or think along short term, like AIDS positive bombers doing the solo shrapnel bit...anything bilogical will do. What do you think would happen to air travel then?