Posted on 9-2-2004
Terrorist
bid to build bombs in mid-flight
Jason Burke
Islamic militants have conducted dry runs of a devastating
new style of bombing on aircraft flying to Europe, intelligence
sources believe.
The tactics, which aim to evade aviation security systems by
placing only components of explosive devices on passenger jets,
allowing militants to assemble them in the air, have been tried
out on planes flying between the Middle East, North Africa and
Western Europe, security sources say.
Concerns that militants might assemble a bomb or another weapon
on board were a key factor in the series of recent cancellations
of transatlantic flights. Last weekend British Airways stopped
flights from London to Washington and Miami for fear of an attack
and Air France also cancelled scheduled flights.
Security agencies are now hunting scores of militants who have
been trained in the new tactics. The warning, passed to Western
agencies by Middle Eastern intelligence services, is based on
interrogations of Islamic militants captured in the Arabian
Gulf and is corroborated by intercepted communications between
terrorist cells and interviews with prisoners held by the US
government at Guantanamo Bay.
Officials in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere are believed to have
warned that at least 12dry runs may have been completed and
to have said that the terrorists are aiming to try out their
plans on flights around the Mediterranean and the Middle East
before attempting to bomb a transatlantic route, where security
precautions are now very tight. Militants know that individual
components are far easier to smuggle through airport security
than an assembled bomb.
In May 2002 nearly 100 grammes of pentrite, a plastic explosive
used by the alleged shoe bomber Richard Reid, was found hidden
in the armrest of a Moroccan jet when it landed in Metz, France.
At the time, investigators said they thought it had been put
there as a warning. Now French officials suspect the explosives
were placed on the jet as a trial of the new tactics. Though
some investigators fear they may be the victim of deliberate
'disinformation', officials say that they cannot riskignoring
the warnings.
Ali Abd Rahman al-Ghamdi, alleged to be one of the masterminds
of a suicide attack that killed 35 in Riyadh last May, is thought
to have revealed the new tactics after giving himself up to
Saudi authorities weeks after the blast. Shortly after the cap
ture of al-Ghamdi, who is believed to be close to senior al-Qaeda
figures, the US government's Transportation Security Administration
issued an urgent memo detailing new threats to aviation and
warning that terrorists in teams of five might be planning suicide
missions to hijack commercial airliners, possibly using common
items carried by travellers, such as cameras, modified as weapons.
The CIA said that a high level of threat was based on information
from several incarcerated high-ranking militants.
An FBI bulletin last November was more specific. It warned
that 'terrorists are considering the use of improvised explosive
devices (IEDs) assembled on board to hijack an aircraft or,
alternatively, destroy it over heavily populated areas in the
event of passenger or crew resistance.
'Components of IEDs can be smuggled on to an aircraft, concealed
in either clothing or personal carry-on items such as shampoo
and medicine bottles, and assembled on board.
'In many cases of suspicious passenger activity, incidents
have taken place in the aircraft's forward lavatory.'
Analysts say that although the threat of a 'spectacular' attack
on the West still exists, most strikes by Islamic militants
will be onsoft targets in areas where security is lax. Last
weekend suicide bombers killed 109 people and wounded hundreds
more in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. A radical Islamic
group has published claims of responsibility for a string of
attacks in Iraq on a website run from the UK.
The Islamic Observation Centre, run from London by the Egyptian
dissident Yasser al-Sirri, posted a statement, from 'the Ansar
al-Sunnah Army' on its site last week, saying that the group
was behind the Mosul attack.
The Ansar al-Sunnah Army is linked to the Ansar ul-Islam organisation
which is believed to have launched a series of bomb attacks
in Iraq in recent months, killing scores of Iraqis, aid workers
and coalition personnel. Yesterday senior American officers
said they were tracking the group.
'We are certainly going to follow up on the claims of responsibility,'
said Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, the US command in Iraq's
deputy chief of operations. Many of the strikes have targeted
local Iraqis who have co-operated with the US-led coalition
authorities.
Two versions of the claim have been posted by the IOC. One
threatens further attacks on 'collaborators'.
'While claiming responsibility for this heroic operation, we
tell every agent who has put himself at the service of the occupier
that the fate waiting for you will be much worse if you do not
repent,' the statement said. The group say that the claims of
hundreds of civilian casualties in the strikes are 'lies'.
A second statement, signed by the 'emir' of the group, Abu
Abdullah al-Hassan bin Mahmud, calls the attacks a 'heroic deed
against ... the people of Kurdistan who opened their arms for
the Americans and their army'.
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