Heathrow Plot Warning: Who Will Protect
A group, of mainly British Muslims, was plotting for
the past eight months, to smuggle chemicals aboard planes and assemble liquid
bombs during the flights and blow them above the
By Adel Darwish.
London 11
August 2006
The stress to Londoners and the tension engulfing the place, not to mention to
mention financial and economic losses especially among British Muslims, were
only comparable to those that followed the terrorist attacks on 7/7 last year,
which claimed more than 50 lives, and injured more than a hundred of from
several ethnic religious backgrounds including Muslims.
If it wasn't for a mixture of luck – or divine providence –,
alertness of MI5, Special Branch and other security agencies and the
cooperation from many British Muslims, the disaster would have been of a much
larger scale than 7/7 and the loss of life would have been much higher than
that of last July, and even the losses at of Bali, Taba,
Sharm al-Shaykh, and
perhaps 9/11. The
British Muslims cooperated
with the police authorities because they are responsible subjects of the
British Crown. Their consciences and their both national and human loyalty came before and other superficial belonging to
some mythical umma ( World wide Muslim community) according to empty slogans raised by false prophets and parroted by imams ( Muslim vicars)
and clergy of hatred and the promoters of evil , to brainwash confused and misguided youths.
The terrorist group – made of a number of cells of 18 people were
arrested on Wednesday (9 August) night and at dawn yesterday – had some
evil plan. Blowing up a number of passenger airliners, mostly
belonging to US airlines, over the
Consider the
scale of life that might have been lost. The average flight in a holiday season carries
about 300 people plus 10 crew this means the death of nearly 1,000 people
in every terrorist batch of explosions.
The plot was planned for the
summer holiday season, when the majority of passengers are families with young
children from all ethnic and religious groups including Muslims, not to mention
the death of people in the cities over which they intended to blow up the
airliners. When the Pan American flight 103 exploded in 1988 over Lockerbie, a considerable number
of the victims were town residents killed by the falling debris.
The vile scheme required the terrorists to assemble liquid chemical bombs
during the flights. This would have been done by smuggling undetectable
components, mainly for domestic and cosmetic use, on board, and hence they did not need
to hijack the airliners, and they would have blown them up suddenly without any
warning. Just some one going to the toilet, assembles the bomb, and bang.
The police Criminal Investigation Division (CID), sources say the cells were
under surveillance, and the movements and contacts of their members had been monitored
for over eight months since December 2005.
This is an important detail
since radical Arab nationalists are likely to pin the blame on our Prime
Minister Tony Blair to justify such evil terrorist plot because of his ''
stance on the war in
Despite my sympathy toward the liberals, lawyers and
human-rights Organisation and my fully understanding – and often support-
for their continuous
criticism of the Blair government's over-reaction and illiberal laws, and
despite my personal doubts about the intentions of Home Secretary John Reid, I fully
sympathies with the man in this occasion. Dr Reid found him self in most
unenviable situation yesterday (Thursday 10 August.) Damned if he acted and
damned if he didn't.
The terrorists were just about – a matter of days or even 48 hours
– to carry out their evil plan, as police surveillance of the suspects,
and the monitoring of their communications revealed. Therefore, the state of
security alert was raised to "critical," i.e. to maximum. But it is
not as simple as it sounds.
Arresting a group of terrorist cells could alert another undetected cell or
cells who were either sleepers or might be planning a long-term operation, to activate
their plans before being detected as they fear one or more of the arrested
suspects might expose them during questioning by police. They might carry out a
terrorist attack against a soft target. Thus the home secretary was forced to
impose arbitrary measures at the airports because of the fear that an
undetected cell might try to leave the country. Such measures
are unpopular and inconvenience thousands of innocent people going about their
business and causes them considerable financial losses (expensive
cosmetics, medicines, perfumes and any form of liquids are confiscated at
airports).
Had an undetected cell carried out some terrorist attack, the home secretary
would be left with the blood of the innocent on his hands.
Moreover, if it were to turn out that the information were wrong and the home
secretary had sounded a false alarm , he would be fiercely criticised,
and would be asked to resign, especially with some fiascos still fresh in the
collective memory, like the shooting
dead of an innocent Brazilian young man by
police on 21 July 2005 , and when the house of two Pakistani young men was
stormed by the police, and one of them was mistakenly shot, but no evidence to
prove their guilt was found.
However, I can't help but admire Dr. Reid for the way he risked
his position and political
future. He opted to act according to the principle of safety first in order to
preserve the lives of the people as he considered the loss of his political
future the lesser of the two evils.
What is remarkable about this great nation is how British people, with their
usual courage and good humour
remained calm in the face of unexpected losses as thousands lost their holidays - the
majority of whom have been saving for these holidays for a full year or missed
flights - (Heathrow Airport alone
receives some 93,000 passengers, and more than 90,000 depart from it everyday,
not to mention four other airports around London and dozens of airports in
Scotland, Wales, and the home counties). They all suffered these losses
courageously, without panic, and without any serious confrontations with airline
or airport officials.
The other disturbing feature is that most of the detainees are British-born,
and the Muslims among them – although I think that all of them are
Muslims, even if Scotland Yard, being sensitive to Muslims feelings, politely
refuses to divulge such information - either were born to Muslim families most
of whom of Pakistani origins, or converted to Islam in mosques and Islamic
centers that are unfortunately controlled by hard-line fundamentalists.
The crucial question is how
to combat terrorism? It would be an impossible task without defeating its
ideology, as Mr
Blair noted in his
Those young men have been brainwashed, and now they do not recognise their
nationality of birth or belonging to
The imams of corruption and
hatred had falsely promised these young men they would go to heaven. Would any one
in his right mind believe that a killing dozens of women and children will be a
way to finding peace in heaven?
For the hundredth time I join those who called in the past for expelling the
imams of evil and hatred from
At the same time, let the leftists liberals re-examine some bizarre aspects of
political correctness that justify accepting some non-sense on the basis of
respecting minorities cultural peculiarities. This is a fallacy, and
a folly leading to further the isolation of Muslims in their cultural
"Ghetto" in a climate facilitating the emergence of self-styled
Muslim leaders leading their flock to perdition.
This is the legal aspect. As for the social, political, and cultural aspects,
law alone is not enough to defeat terrorism. Purging Islam and Muslim
communities in
© Adel Darwish 2006
