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The threat level to the UK has been raised by MI5 to critical after the arrests in London, High Wycombe and Birmingham.
Critical threat level - the highest - means “an attack is expected imminently and indicates an extremely high level of threat to the UK”.
Three US airlines are believed to have been targeted.
 I was tossing and turning in bed when I first saw the news about 11 pm last night. British authorities including elements of MI5 and Scotland Yard had arrested 12 men and stated that a terrorist plot to blow up as many as 20 planes in mid-flight bound for the USA from the UK had been arrested.
Sky News reported the men were all British born and of Pakistani decent. It did not identify them as Muslims.
Curt at Flopping Aces has a great post that he has been updating since the news first broke last night. Â
This is the latest reminder that the world war against Islamofascism is just getting started. Thank god for the work of the Authorities in the UK, and their success in stopping this attack.
Our Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff has reported that now 21 people have been arrested, and that the terrorists had planned to detonate liquid explosives that they would bring on in their carry on luggage.
Airport security in the UK and the USA has been stepped up. Â The British are only allowing the bare minimum of carry on luggage and no liquids except baby milk and only when one of the parents drinks the milk in front so security personnell.
Captains Quarters points out there may be as many as 20 terrorists still at large in the UK.
Police arrested 21 people in London, its suburbs and in Birmingham as part of a major covert counterterrorism operation that had lasted several months, Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson said. Searches continued in a number of locations …A senior U.S. counterterrorism official said authorities believe dozens of people — possibly as many as 50 — were involved in the plot, which “had a footprint to al-Qaida back to it.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.
Michelle Malkin has an excellent round up here and reminds us all it wasn’t that long ago that the BBC that this something like this would make a hillarious skit:
Well, this certainly puts that appalling BBC satire, “The Terrorism Awards,” making fun of planes crashing into buildings, in its place, doesn’t it? Are they laughing at the BBC now:
All Things Beautiful predicts the lefts reaction to the news:
I shall be eagerly waiting for the theories of the learned left who will immediately begin with their conspiracy theory mongering, ranging from the timing of the breaking news being in question, to dismissing any possibility that airplanes as ‘flying bombs’ pose a security threat at all. We will look closely as the day progresses and the theories get hammered out to protect the ‘NSA wiretapping golden calf’ and the Patriot ‘non-issue’ Act over at the leftie blogs.Yawn.
I will update throughout the day as details come in.Â
Linking Posts
[…] Plus a glittering view of diminishing returns. And ignorance still rules. What? No invasion? No worries? “. . . the world war against Islamofascism is just getting started.“ […]
Pingback by The Heretik » Blog Archive » Suggestions � August 10, 2006 @ 8:17 am
UK ‘Home Grown’ Terrorist Plot Thwarted…
I shall be eagerly waiting for the theories of the learned left who will immediately begin with their conspiracy theory mongering, ranging from the timing of the breaking news being in question, to dismissing any possibility that airplanes as ‘flying …
Trackback by All Things Beautiful � August 10, 2006 @ 10:01 am
Major Terrorist Plot In England Foiled…
A major, and I do mean major, terrorist plot has been uncovered in Britian which they are telling the world could have dwarfed 9/11 :
Authorities in London thwarted a terrorist plot to blow up an aircraft in mid-flight between Britain and the U.S. usin…
Trackback by Flopping Aces � August 10, 2006 @ 10:26 am
Stopped Terror plot and a practical concern…
Update- There have been exceptions made for the above items I mentioned. There will be a TSA employee there to test that the substance is really milk. How does someone get trained in milk tasting?…
Trackback by The Florida Masochist � August 10, 2006 @ 10:27 am
The media has already gotten in the first salvo across the bow of USS Bush & company, and it hasn’t even been spotted. The terrorists have been labeled as “al-Qaida.” But we’ve been fighting them for, what, six years? Their leader sits in a cave in the mountains of multistan. Bush & company have failed, failed I tell you, to get him. Kerry & company aren’t going to stand for it much longer. We need an IMMEDIATE re-deployment from our miss-adventure in Iraq. How much longer must we suffer the ineptitude of this administration and do what we need to get bin laden and put him on trial? How much longer must this nation be put at risk by an administration that chooses to waste national resources in far-flung and ill-gotten wars of personal gain?
This is all Bush’s fault.
****
And the Korean war was only about Korea; and the Vietnam war was only about Vietnam; and if we had just been able to extinguish the SS in WWII…
The real problem here is that we see this whole struggle in such provincial terms. We are at war with terrorists who lack a state and, therefore, we lack a target. But, in fact, the target is there and it must be engaged. If we continue to waste our national and international resolve in swatting flies here and swatting flies there we will be worn down and loose the larger war. The necessary victories we gain, such as in Afghanistan and Iraq, sour in our bellies and cause us to recoil from our path. We can see where the path leads but the cold fear, a fear that’s been with us since Korea, urges us to look away.
The pacifists and the isolationists among us gather together from different desires but to a common goal and gain strength from each new revelation of horror. Each passing day weakens the public resolve to gain victory. Each distorted story from our correspondents spreads mistrust and confusion. How much longer till we are scattered like so many sheep to be slaughtered at leisure.
Comment by Brad � August 10, 2006 @ 10:43 am
Brad, you say (without specificity): “We are at war with terrorists who lack a state and, therefore, we lack a target. But, in fact, the target is there and it must be engaged.”
While I agree in principle, I cannot tell from your comment whether I agree specically. Let me suggest one or two targets that could legitimately qualify as “the” target:
1.) All states that have given aid and comfort to terrorists and have not taken credible steps to mend their ways, for example, Saudi Arabia, France, Syria, Iran, the PA, Lebanon, etc. We ought to be active participants–to whatever degree the Israelis would accept, in the erradication of Hezballah, for example.
2.) Islam, wherever it exists, for it is the very legitimate ground from which these terrorists are born and nurtured; any GENUINE Muslim is in agreement with the genuine followers of The Butcher of Medina and his message of hate, intolerance and savagry. Phony (”country club” or social) “Muslim moderates” notwithstanding, Islam is the enemy.
Comment by David � August 10, 2006 @ 1:32 pm
I guess you are welcome to agree or not. I try to keep posts short enough to get through in a few seconds. This means that some things must be inferred so I am sorry if what I say isn’t exactly clear.
Our goal in this war should be the preservation of our civilization and all that it stands for. We should be single-minded in this pursuit and settle for nothing less than victory over those that threaten our existence. We could nuke the rest of the world and effectively stop all our opponents but this would not preserve what we stand for. WWII was a pretty serious threat to our existence but we managed to get through it without exterminating either the Japanese or the Germans.
I am not an expert on Islam. I cannot say that it is or is not a religion of peace. I think that what Muslims think and say and do is the key to that question. I wish that they were more thorough at condemning the violent among themselves but I wonder how hard it must have been for right minded Germans to condemn the evil that enveloped them. It’s pretty easy for us, sitting in our easy chair, to demand that they stand up and march for peace. Where will we be when the thugs come for them in the middle of the night?
Our goal, as I said, should be our own preservation. How do we accomplish this if we instantly condemn the whole of their peoples to the ranks of enemy? The latest incident is a case in point. Fox news reported that Pakistan provided intelligence that led to the conspirators. Would they not have been on a short list of countries that harbored terrorists that hate us? Our goal in Iraq would be nearly impossible if the people there thought that we hated them as Muslims. We should be thinking constantly of our goals and what we stand for as a people and let those thoughts guide our actions. I don’t think we need more enemies than we have right now and I think it would be a mistake to embrace Islamophobia as a new guiding light.
In this vein I believe we should deal very harshly with regimes that promote terrorism or Islamofascism. The list of countries in this category is fairly small: Iran and Syria. Saudi Arabia is home to some pretty evil people but Saudi Arabia does not officially harbor terrorists and has cooperated with us in our prosecution of terrorists.
Ultimately, we need to change minds and you don’t change minds at the point of a gun. Most of this work will be done from within the Muslim community by Muslims. For this reason I was sorry to see the Dubai ports deal go down the drain. The deal did not give over control of our ports to Islamics and sent a message that we were open to those that play by the rules. This is precisely where we will find inroads to the Muslim world and begin the work we need to do. The Islamic world has been inflamed with hatred for us by fifty years of proselytizing by radical extremists and we aren’t going to undo that damage in a couple of years. I specifically do not agree that our woes are due to our support for Israel or because of the “Palestinian issue†nor will abandoning Israel or creating a Palestinian state fix things. Conversely, fighting the whole world, or even the whole Islamic world, would be just as wrong.
Comment by Brad � August 10, 2006 @ 5:25 pm
This political correctness fetish is proving to be the death of us. The current red alert flight security measures are completely useless. Worrying about shampoo, shaving cream, baby formula, medicines and making everyone wait 5 hours or more doesn’t do a thing to prevent dedicated Islamic terrorists from smuggling explosives components on board planes. They’ll simply secrete them in body cavities, etc.
There is one simple countermeasure which is fast and 100% effective. Make anybody boarding a flight spit on a picture of Mohammed.
Comment by Anonymous � August 10, 2006 @ 7:05 pm
Dave knows I tend to agree more with Brad’s view. Islam is not our enemy. Islamofascism is.
Yes Islam needs a reformation but there are hundreds of millions of muslims who wish us no harm nor should we them.
As far as Saudi Arabia goes it is not a simple “they are all bad or they are all good” equation.
The fact is there are lots of bad guys in the royal family, and lots of guys in the royal family who would happily embrace a westernized society with all of our wicked western ways.
In the end as I have said countless time, a wider world war seems almost inevitable to me. We are only in the very beginning of this fight.
Unlike Korea or Vietnam this dedicated fanatical enemy will follow us home and kill us all if we don’t kill them first.
Comment by The Ugly American � August 10, 2006 @ 9:20 pm