From Newsday:

Five are still at large

BY CAROL EISENBERG
NEWSDAY WASHINGTON BUREAU; Staff writers Craig Gordon, Rocco Parascandola and Melanie Lefkowitz contributed to this story.

August 11, 2006

WASHINGTON

Five British-born Muslim extremists believed to be part of the deadliest threat to America since Sept. 11, 2001, were still eluding a massive police dragnet last night, spurring concerns that a possible "Plan B" could be set in motion.

Although authorities said they had "significantly" disrupted the plot, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said that "we cannot assume that the threat has been completely thwarted, or that we have fully identified and neutralized every member of this terrorist network."

"Any time you have five vicious, dangerous guys on the loose, that's a cause for serious concern," said U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. "There's no specific evidence of a Plan B. But the British authorities are going on the presumption that there could be and that's why they're at the highest level of alert."

The terrorists were believed to be 48 hours away from testing their plot to use drink bottles filled with liquid explosives and simple, electronic devices - possibly iPods or cell phones - to set off charges that would have sent hundreds and possibly thousands of airline passengers to a watery death in the Atlantic Ocean, Homeland Security and police officials said.

The impending dry run - and the discovery of two tapes in which the would-be suicide bombers talk about "dying for Allah" - were the triggers that led British authorities to swoop down Wednesday night and arrest 24 men for plotting to blow up nine commercial airliners bound from the United Kingdom to New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles, U.S. Homeland Security sources said.

The Times of London also reported that substantial sums of money had been wired from Pakistan to two of the alleged ringleaders so that they could purchase airline tickets.

"They often do dry runs," said Bush's Homeland Security adviser Fran Townsend, although she would not confirm the 48-hour timetable. As for the timing of the attack, Townsend said, "We know it was imminent. Do we know the exact day? We're not prepared to say that, but we feel confident that this was closer to getting to the execution phase, where they would pull off the attack, closer to that point every day."

Many analysts described the plot as "The Big One" - the spectacular attack that many had theorized al-Qaida had been preparing for some time that would either match or surpass the Sept. 11 attacks in impact.

"If they were waiting to do The Big One, then this would qualify," said Steven Simon, author of "The Next Attack" and a Middle Eastern analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations. "You're talking 747s that carry 400 people each. Ten of them are 4,000 people. They're all going to be killed in action. And that gets you to the casualty figures in the World Trade Center or higher."

President George W. Bush called the foiled plot a "stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists."



Were under surveillance

British authorities indicated that those arrested had been under surveillance since last year. Most were British residents of Pakistani descent. Some had been under investigation before for extremist activity, and they included a young Muslim convert and a teenager, according to the Times of London.

Last night British chancellor Gordon Brown froze the assets of 19 men arrested in the raids. Several had thousands of pounds in their accounts, he said.

British officials raised security alerts to "critical" Wednesday night, suggesting a terrorist attack could be imminent, and sending the global aviation system into chaos. Thousands of flights were canceled yesterday at the height of a busy travel season, and thousands more were delayed as passengers were ordered to dump all liquids - water bottles, suntan lotion, even toothpaste - and airline stocks plummeted.

American officials said the plan, which involved setting off near-simultaneous blasts on American, United and Continental planes, bore the fingerprints of al-Qaida, not just in sophistication and daring, but in its close mimicry of a foiled 1995 plot to bring down 11 airliners over the Pacific with liquid explosives.

"There's actually a precedent for this," Chertoff said. "A little over 10 years ago, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11th attacks, came up with a similar plan: to detonate 11 explosives in 11 airplanes over the Pacific Ocean.

"The conception, the large number of people involved, the sophisticated design of the devices that were being considered and the sophisticated nature of the plan, all suggest that this group that came together to conspire was very determined and very skilled and very capable," he said.

The devices may have been liquid explosives, which are also an al-Qaida hallmark.



Can't be detected

"As far as I know, the chemical formula is not available on the Internet - and that's what scares" British authorities, said Vincent Cannistraro, former executive director of the CIA counterterrorism center. "It's not like ampho and other well-known compounds. And we know it can't be detected by any security machines in use right now."

While the plotters had been watched for months, key information was gleaned only recently, said King.

"This plot had been watched for a while, but then moved very, very quickly in the last few weeks," he said. "In the last two weeks, the U.S. played a very significant role. The Brits are the best at infiltration. We're the best at electronic surveillance."

Surveillance of Internet traffic between the suspected terrorists indicated that they had considered setting off their devices simultaneously in the mid-Atlantic, but had also discussed trying to blow up the aircraft as they circled above the destination cities, the Times of London said.

Why would al-Qaida return to a plot similar to one that had been foiled before?

"Striking aviation, you not only kill people, but you have a major impact on the economy and a major psychological and symbolic effect," said Clark Kent Ervin, a former Homeland Security inspector general who has written about the continuing threat to America. "It's so dramatic to see airliners explode and crash into buildings. There's a drama from that that you don't get from attacking a supermarket or a movie theater. It's just particularly spectacular."

Staff writers Craig Gordon, Rocco Parascandola and Melanie Lefkowitz contributed to this story.

Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.