UK 'plot' terror charge dropped

RedPlanet

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6175427.stm

The arrest of Rashid Rauf in Pakistan triggered arrests in the United Kingdom of a number of suspects allegedly plotting to blow up transatlantic flights.
The Pakistani authorities described him as a key figure.
But an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi found no evidence that he had been involved in terrorist activities or that he belonged to a terrorist organisation.
As well as forgery charges, Mr Rauf has also been charged with carrying explosives.
But his lawyer says police evidence amounts only to bottles of hydrogen peroxide found in his possession.

You all remember the Terror in the Skies plot to bomb loads of aeroplanes last...August maybe?
That thread is long gone now.
At the time however there was huge media hype about it leading to airlines restricting loads of carry-on stuff, liquids in particular. Even on boards.ie there were moderators buying into the media hype surrounding this story.
Well, here we are now months later, now that the media storm has faded and what do we have?
Nada.
2 bottles of bleedin hydrogen peroxide and lots of BE AFRAID, BE VERY VERY AFRAID.
:rolleyes:

Manic Moran

That the court found insufficient evidence to charge that one chap doesn't mean that there was no plot, or that the other persons facing charges in the UK will automatically be found to be not guilty.
Let's see what happens with the other trials, shall we?

NTM

RedPlanet

Funny how that doesn't work the other way huh?
Loads of people including the mainstream media had their minds made up before the suspects were even charged with anything.

Manic Moran

Unfortunately true. Happily, the media is not the final arbiter on such matters. The CPS thinks it still has a case against the chaps in British custody, we'll let the British courts decide if that is so.

NTM

oscarBravo

In the meantime, we live with the idiotic legacy of not being able to bring toothpaste onto an aircraft. Winning the war on terror? It's over: the terrorists have gone home, our governments are doing their job for them.

Fratton Fred

oscarBravo wrote:

In the meantime, we live with the idiotic legacy of not being able to bring toothpaste onto an aircraft. Winning the war on terror? It's over: the terrorists have gone home, our governments are doing their job for them.

what's the old saying, the Police need to be lucky every single time, the terrorist only once.

The threat is real enough and if a bit of inconvenience at an airport means my plane arrives in one piece, then so be it.

robinph

Fratton Fred wrote:

what's the old saying, the Police need to be lucky every single time, the terrorist only once.

The threat is real enough and if a bit of inconvenience at an airport means my plane arrives in one piece, then so be it.

I'm still not entirely sure how one would go about blowing up a plane with a bottle of water and some toothpaste though, but admittedly I didn't pay all that much attention in chemistry so might have missed that lesson.

Fratton Fred

robinph wrote:

I'm still not entirely sure how one would go about blowing up a plane with a bottle of water and some toothpaste though, but admittedly I didn't pay all that much attention in chemistry so might have missed that lesson.

some guy got on a plane with explosive in the heel of his shoe!!

Hobbes

The whole thing is starting to remind me of the IRA and the tube bombs many many years ago.

The bombs themselves were never meant to kill (based on the location and the fact warnings were well in advance). However there actual intention was to bring London to a standstill which they pretty much did.

All OBL has to do these days is find some muslim'ish guy planning a holiday somewhere and throw out a few coded transmissions and bobs your uncle whole airports are shut down.

That's not to say it may be possible to do such an action, but terrorism isn't always about blowing sh!t up.

robinph

Fratton Fred wrote:

some guy got on a plane with explosive in the heel of his shoe!!

Which would probably not have done anything other than burnt his own foot. But because of that incident they now check for wires coming out of your footware in the airport, as if you would made your exploding shoe so badly that you left the fuse in plain view when walking through security. This binary liquids to make bombs on board a plane is a load of rubbish and they now seem to get the latest security tips from Hollywood films.

Of course it could be a cunning plan from Colgate to try and increase the sales of their travel size tubes of toothpaste.

Fratton Fred

robinph wrote:

Which would probably not have done anything other than burnt his own foot. But because of that incident they now check for wires coming out of your footware in the airport, as if you would made your exploding shoe so badly that you left the fuse in plain view when walking through security. This binary liquids to make bombs on board a plane is a load of rubbish and they now seem to get the latest security tips from Hollywood films.

Of course it could be a cunning plan from Colgate to try and increase the sales of their travel size tubes of toothpaste.

you obviously have a greater scientific knowledge than I do, but I'll take my security advice from Special Branch and MI5 thanks.

scojones

RedPlanet wrote:

Funny how that doesn't work the other way huh?
Loads of people including the mainstream media had their minds made up before the suspects were even charged with anything.

Welcome to today's society. We make our minds up about people before hearing both sides of the story, and then the truth. It's the way we are. This is why rumours spread so fast and end up with purple monkey at the end. It's sad, and people are assholes.

Fratton Fred

sjones wrote:

Welcome to today's society. We make our minds up about people before hearing both sides of the story, and then the truth. It's the way we are. This is why rumours spread so fast and end up with purple monkey at the end. It's sad, and people are assholes.

There is so much "Media" around these days, they have to get people to read their newspapers somehow. If it's not Muslim scaremongering then it's peadophiles.

Manic Moran

I don't know about Europe, but after an initial ban, the TSA in the US has relaxed its restrictions a bit, toothpaste is now permitted.

NTM

A Dub in Glasgo

It is absolutely ridicous. The new rules are just so baffling

1. I was allowed through Glasgow Airport security to East Midlands with 60ml of toothpaste in a 120ml container

2. On returning to Glasgow from East Midlands the next day, I was hauled to one side and interrogated for 10 minutes because I had 58ml of toothpaste in a 120ml container. The container was thrown in the bin with the comment 'You could have filled 120ml of liquid in the toothpaste container with stuff'. I could not understand their logic, can anybody?

oscarBravo

Fratton Fred wrote:

what's the old saying, the Police need to be lucky every single time, the terrorist only once.

You need to be more than "lucky" to blow up a plane with a tube of toothpaste.

Fratton Fred wrote:

The threat is real enough and if a bit of inconvenience at an airport means my plane arrives in one piece, then so be it.

But it doesn't mean that. The chances of your plane turning into a cloud of shredded aluminium and flaming kerosene are pretty much identical whether or not I'm allowed to bring a bottle of mineral water onto it.

I asked the question when this case first came up: what lengths are we going to go to in order to feel "safe"? If MI5 et al decide that the only way to prevent a terror attack on an airplane is to have every passenger heavily sedated and strapped naked into his/her seat for the duration of the flight, will that be ok if it means that your plane arrives in one piece?

It's much too easy to dismiss my argument as hyperbole, but think about it: if we were told twenty years ago (and I can remember air travel back then) that we'd have to take our shoes off going through airport security and that we wouldn't be allowed to bring toothpaste or perfume on a plane, we would have laughed in scorn.

sovtek

Manic Moran wrote:

Unfortunately true. Happily, the media is not the final arbiter on such matters. The CPS thinks it still has a case against the chaps in British custody, we'll let the British courts decide if that is so.

NTM

Yes we will let the British courts decide...but you can't discount the implausibility of the supposed plot put together with the ricin "plot" that wasn't.
What is more likely? That guys were actually going to try and blow up a plane using chemicals that wouldn't work or that Blair needed some political cover and made up some bs?
My opinion is that it was trumped up or blown out of proportion for political ends.

Fratton Fred

oscarBravo wrote:

You need to be more than "lucky" to blow up a plane with a tube of toothpaste. But it doesn't mean that. The chances of your plane turning into a cloud of shredded aluminium and flaming kerosene are pretty much identical whether or not I'm allowed to bring a bottle of mineral water onto it.

I asked the question when this case first came up: what lengths are we going to go to in order to feel "safe"? If MI5 et al decide that the only way to prevent a terror attack on an airplane is to have every passenger heavily sedated and strapped naked into his/her seat for the duration of the flight, will that be ok if it means that your plane arrives in one piece?

But that's the point. They don't know if it is just water so rather than test every bottle that goes through security, the easy thing is to ban all bottles completely.

btw, heavily sedated and strapped to me seat is the way i generally fly.

oscarBravo wrote:

It's much too easy to dismiss my argument as hyperbole, but think about it: if we were told twenty years ago (and I can remember air travel back then) that we'd have to take our shoes off going through airport security and that we wouldn't be allowed to bring toothpaste or perfume on a plane, we would have laughed in scorn.

20 years ago you could leave your front door unlocked at night, 20 years ago you didn't need a burglar alarm, 20 years ago kids could go off and play in the street all day.

20 years ago you could travel to work on the underground without the fear of someone blowing themselves and 50 other people to kingdom come.

Fratton Fred

sovtek wrote:

Yes we will let the British courts decide...but you can't discount the implausibility of the supposed plot put together with the ricin "plot" that wasn't.
What is more likely? That guys were actually going to try and blow up a plane using chemicals that wouldn't work or that Blair needed some political cover and made up some bs?
My opinion is that it was trumped up or blown out of proportion for political ends.

who has said the chemicals wouldn't work? IIRC, there was a strong possibility that it could have worked.

I suppose Blair got four lads from Leeds to blow themselves up on the London Underground just so he had a justification for a war as well then?

I hope it never happens here, but if it does, you may view these things differently.

oscarBravo

Fratton Fred wrote:

But that's the point. They don't know if it is just water so rather than test every bottle that goes through security, the easy thing is to ban all bottles completely.

The easy thing != the right thing. In the recent past a woman had her medication confiscated, and passed out on the plane. But hey, at least the plane arrived in one piece.

Fratton Fred wrote:

btw, heavily sedated and strapped to me seat is the way i generally fly.

Good for you, but I don't see why your phobia (or anyone else's) should dictate the nature of airline security.

Fratton Fred wrote:

20 years ago you could leave your front door unlocked at night...

I often still do.

Fratton Fred wrote:

...20 years ago you didn't need a burglar alarm...

I don't have one.

Fratton Fred wrote:

20 years ago kids could go off and play in the street all day.

Many kids still do.

Fratton Fred wrote:

20 years ago you could travel to work on the underground without the fear of someone blowing themselves and 50 other people to kingdom come.

Hundreds of thousands of Londoners still do. I've been on the underground many times in the past year, and the thought of being blown up never crossed my mind.

You do know they let you bring toothpaste and mineral water on the underground, right?

FYI

Craig Murray on the terror plot that never was:

http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2006/12/the_war_on_sham.html

SimpleSam06

Fratton Fred wrote:

But that's the point. They don't know if it is just water so rather than test every bottle that goes through security, the easy thing is to ban all bottles completely.

Ahaha, hey wait till you hear this. Coming back from asia there a few weeks ago through Schipol airport in Amsterdam, I was interested to find out that this 100cl or larger (and what, 5 terrorists with 20cl each can't get on board?) liquids rule had been introduced in my absence. So, I had some 12 year old rum in my carry on luggage.

First I was arguing with staff pre-security check, who said I needed to have liquids bagged and tagged, my response was that the duty free in the third world nation I was visiting wouldn't know their plastic bags from a hole in the wall, then I was arguing with them after they confiscated my rum, then I was off home.

So I read in the paper what these lackwits are doing with the confiscated stuff... they are GIVING THEM TO CHARITY FOR AUCTION! Hahahah, so let me get this straight, you confiscate potential explosives from passengers, and then donate them to charity!?! Legend. And even if you do somehow test for explosives without breaking the seal, how the hell do you track that back to the passenger who was trying to bring EXPLOSIVES onto your plane?

The punchline is of course that the incompetents in the airport confiscated the 70cl bottle and missed the litre one, so I wasn't too irritated.

I'm with robinph, its a cunning scheme by the clear resealable plastic bag consortium... they finally figured out that ??? PROFIT!! equation.

And don't get me started on the laptop.