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August 15, 2006

UK: Another Arrest In Muslim Air Terror Plot

News from Reuters in Yahoo, News.com.au, and from Associated Press via Star Tribune, CBS News, South Africa's Independent and Topix.net and also from Keyetv.com via Topix reports that another suspect has been arrested today in Britain, in connection with the recent plot to bomb several translatlantic US-bound planes using suicide bombers armed with liquid explosives.

The arrested person now makes those in custody 24. There had been 24 suspects in Britain until one had been released over the weekend without charges. The suspect was arrested in the Thames Valley Area, which includes High Wycombe, where several suspects were arrested on the night of 9/10 August.

A spokesperson for Scotland Yard said: "The person who was arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 on suspicion of involvement in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism is in custody at a police station in the Thames Valley area."

The arrest is believed to be made following the discovery of an area of Kings Wood in High Wycombe, which has been cordoned off and subjected to intensive police searches since August 10. Today, there were BBC broadcast reports that a cache of firearms and other items had been recovered from this area of woodland.

There were also two searches of internet cafes in Slough, not far from High Wycombe, this afternoon. The One World Internet Cafe was searched and its co-owner, Nargis Janjua, said police had taken away 25 computers from the premises. She said: "They told us they were watching for days and weeks before."

Meanwhile, the baggage at Heathrow airport is starting to mount up, with airport authorities saying that they are trying to return 5,000 bags to their owners. The BBC states that as many as 10,000 bags have "gone missing" since the crisis began in the early hours of Thursday, August 10.

Restrictions upon travellers are being relaxed, but there are still plane cancellations at British airports. One in 10 flights at Heathrow, inbound and outbound, were cancelled yesterday. There have been 1,000 cancellations since last Thursday, August 10, when the crisis began.

The British Airports Authorty (BAA) admitted that it had refused to pay 35 million pounds ($66,290,430) to cover the costs of extra policing this year by the Metropolitan police. A spokesman from Ryanair said: "If the government wants to double the number of security checks, it must provide the extra staffing."

The Times and the Guardian reported that the government is discussing the possibility of screening passengers through "passenger-profiling". This would mean people who are behaving suspiciously, have strange travel plans or are from certain ethnic or religious backgrounds would be targeted for special attention.

This has brought the inevitable responses of condemnation from Muslim groups. As at least one of the 24 arrested suspects is ethnically white, a Muslim convert, and probably would not be subject to such profiling.

Ali Dizaei, a chief superintendent in the Metropolitan Police claimed that these profiling moves would create a new offense of "travelling whilst Asian."

The anti-semite Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain said: "The Government needs to think very, very carefully before it considers putting this measure into practice."

In the Independent, Ali Dezai is reported to have said on BBC2's Newsnight: "We cannot lose sight of the fact that terrorists come in all shapes and sizes.. Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber, would have certainly gone through the security system because he was a white male."

"Clearly it is about common sense, but it's not about saying to the victims of this problem - and remember the Muslim community is also a victim of this problem, and many of the people on July were in fact Muslim - you are the victims, you go and sort it out. It's not dissimilar to saying to women who are victims of domestic violence; 'you are a victim of domestic violence you should go and sort it out yourself'."

Moazzem Begg, a former Guantanamo detainee has told ITV News that instead of flying to Edinburgh, where he is promoting his book, Enemy Combatant, that he decided to take a train, because of the suspicions he would have faced at the hands of airport security officers.

38-year old Begg, who spent nearly three years in Guantanamo, said: "I think this is the environment that people like me - perhaps a Muslim, or Asian or someone from a non-white background - have to deal with on a daily basis."

There is a hope that Rachid Rauf, the UK national who is currently detained in Pakistan, may be extradited soon. In Pakistan, the Foreign Ministry spokesman Tasnim Aslam said: "We do not have any extradition treaty at the moment but yes, because he is a British national, the possibility of his extradition remains there."

An anonymous official from the UK Home Office said: ""These things can take time, it is likely to be days, rather than hours, before the individual is brought into Britain." There were suggestions that requests would be made to extradite other individuals from Pakistan to Britain.

Keyword: The name of the UK police operation on this plot is Operation Overt

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at August 15, 2006 6:42 PM

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