London – A plot to simultaneously blow up as many as 10 U.S.-bound passenger jets with liquid explosives hidden in carry-on luggage was foiled with the arrest of 24 suspects, British and U.S. officials said Thursday.
The bombs were to be assembled on the aircraft apparently with peroxide- based solution and everyday items such as a disposable camera or a music player, two American law enforcement officials told The Associated Press.
Tough new security measures snarled air traffic through the day and filled departure lounges in Britain and the United States with crowds of frustrated travelers.
British authorities had been secretly watching the alleged conspirators, most of them British citizens of Pakistani origin, since late last year, officials said, and moved to make arrests after concluding they were 48 hours away from a “dry run” to test their plot.
Officials warned that some conspirators may remain at large.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security increased its threat level for U.S.-bound commercial flights from Britain to “red” – the first use of this highest terrorism alert signaling imminent attack, invoked in this case to conform with a British alert.
Officials said they had no information that the plot was to include attacks in the United States.
At airports across America, many flights were canceled and security screening lines grew long and slow-moving as passengers got special inspections, and drinks and most other liquids and gels were banned as carry-on items.
Starting today, passengers will be required to submit to secondary screening of their carry- on items at aircraft gates, in addition to the screening at the main security checkpoints. Such expanded gate searches were implemented after the 2001 attacks and later eliminated.
Intelligence officials and private analysts expressed suspicion that the plot was an al-Qaeda operation but said there was no confirmation.
“Put simply, this was a plot to commit mass murder on an unimaginable scale,” said Paul Stephenson, deputy commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police, describing a plot that if successful could have could have rivaled the death toll in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The plot “was sophisticated, it had a lot of members and it was international in scope,” U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told reporters.
News that all of the suspects were British citizens fit with some analysts’ view that future Islamic terrorism attacks will be organized by locally based groups acting largely on their own, with inspiration but not direction from Osama bin Laden.
Many young Muslims in Britain are angry with the U.S. and British governments over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Three of the four suicide attackers who killed 52 passengers in London’s transit system last summer were British citizens of Pakistani origin, investigators concluded. The fourth was identified as a Jamaican- born convert to Islam.
President Bush called Thursday’s arrests “a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation.”
British officials did not announce the suspects’ names, but early today the Bank of England listed the names of those whose assets had been frozen after their arrests in the plot.
Counterterrorism officials said the plotters intended to strike at United, American and Continental airline flights to New York, Washington, D.C., and California.
But law enforcement officials said no specific cities were targeted, just the United States in general, and that the suspects were interested in nonstop flights between Britain and the United States, which would have made New York and Washington obvious candidates.
A senior U.S. law enforcement official said the working theory was that the bombs would be detonated in midair, similar to the so-called Bojinka plot, a code name used by bin Laden operatives for a 1995 plan to bomb 11 U.S. airliners simultaneously over the Pacific Ocean.
The “similarities to Bojinka are striking and are very much on everyone’s mind,” the official said. Simultaneous detonation would maximize the death toll in part by preventing authorities from grounding other planes carrying explosives.
U.S. and European intelligence officials said that the 24 people arrested by British police in London, the London suburb of High Wycombe and the city of Birmingham were all British citizens and that most, perhaps all, were of Pakistani origin or had roots in Pakistan. Many had traveled to that country recently, the officials said.
The oldest person on the list released by the Bank of England was 35. The youngest was 17.
A federal law enforcement official in Washington said that at least one martyrdom tape was found during the raids Thursday in England. Such a tape is also an earmark of al-Qaeda.
A congressman, who did not want to be identified because of the sensitivity of the investigation, said after being briefed by intelligence officials that U.S. intelligence had intercepted terrorist chatter and British intelligence helped thwart the plot through undercover work.
Pakistani officials said they had worked closely with U.S. and British intelligence since December to counter the plot.
Tasnim Aslam, spokeswoman for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry in Islamabad, said several arrests were made in Pakistan on Wednesday; security sources said the arrests took place in Punjab province.
Until recently, authorities believed they had the entire group of plotters under surveillance and were allowing them to continue their planning as police secretly gathered evidence.
But authorities became concerned in recent days that there might be additional, unknown conspirators, according to two senior intelligence sources.
The lack of certainty forced authorities to begin the arrests sooner than anticipated, U.S. and European intelligence officials said, and to impose a ban on bringing liquids aboard planes in case other plotters moved forward in response to the arrests.
“This is by no means over,” said one U.S. intelligence source, who like others agreed to discuss limited elements of the plot on condition of anonymity.
Ahmed Versi, editor of Britain’s Muslim News, said hate mail had already started pouring into his office over the Internet on Thursday morning, saying Muslims were unwelcome in Britain.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
