LONDON - Air travellers around the globe faced delays amid heightened
security after Britain said it had thwarted a plot to wreak "mass murder" by
simultaneous mid-air bombings.
A British Airways
aircraft lands at Heathrow Airport, near London August 10, 2006. British
police said on Thursday they had thwarted a plot to blow up aircraft in
mid-flight between Britain and the United States and arrested more than 20
people. [Reuters] |
Some 24 people were arrested in pre-dawn raids on Thursday, most of them in
London and surrounding areas, over the alleged plot to smuggle in hand baggage
seemingly innocuous liquids onto US-bound planes that would be assembled into
bombs.
Britain raised its security alert to "critical" -- the highest of five levels
-- and imposed severe restrictions on what passengers are allowed to bring into
plane cabins.
US officials said the plot to was the most serious since the September 11,
2001 attacks on New York and Washington and could have killed thousands, and
also raised the threat level for air travel.
The tighter screening of passengers caused delays, forcing many airlines to
cancel flights.
More than 600 British flights were cancelled, airports operator BAA told AFP.
The airline information company OAG told The Guardian that around 400,000
people in Britain had been affected by the ensuing chaos.
Many passengers using London's Heathrow airport as a transit point were told
that they would have to wait until the weekend, or even the beginning of next
week, before they would be able to catch connecting flights.
US officials estimated that up to 10 planes were targeted in an operation
they said bore the imprint of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.
Britain's domestic Press Association quoted senior police sources as saying
they believed up to nine planes were to have been blown up in a simultaneous
attack. Other British media said from five to 12 planes were to be targeted.
A US intelligence official speaking on condition of anonymity said the
alleged plot had targetted United Airlines, American Airlines and Continental
Airlines flights to New York, Washington and Los Angeles, and possibly other
major hubs such as Boston and Chicago.
US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff indicated that bombs had been
recovered at the homes of the arrested suspects.
"Since we did not have an opportunity to study the bombs before we took them
under arrest and because it will take time to analyze what they have done, the
prudent course was to prevent any kind of liquid that might be harbouring an
explosive device coming in," he said in an interview on CNN.
