http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4780815.stm
Quote:
Police probe flights terror plot
Homes and businesses across England are being searched and 21 people questioned after police say a plot to blow up planes from the UK to US was disrupted.
They say they are convinced they have the key players in custody, but a wider investigation is only just beginning.
Peter Clarke, the head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch, said the network involved was large and global.
And US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the plot was "in some respects suggestive of al-Qaeda".
Security chiefs, who had had the group under surveillance for some time, said they were close to putting their plan - which police said would have caused "mass murder on an unimaginable scale" - into action.
Sources in the UK have confirmed that they believe an attack may have been imminent - possibly in the next few days.
"They had accumulated and assembled the capabilities that they needed and they were in the final stages of planning for execution," Mr Chertoff said.
Security experts believe they planned to detonate liquid explosives on up to nine planes.
They would have smuggled it on board hidden in drinks, electronic devices and other "common objects".
At UK airports on Thursday - with the country on its highest terror alert of "critical" - bottles of water were taken from passengers and mothers asked to taste their babies' milk before it could be taken onto flights.
Mr Clarke said the surveillance involved in disrupting the plot had been "unprecedented" and had involved police forces in the UK and internationally.
It had only become apparent in the "last two weeks" that the target of the flights was the US, said Mr Chertoff.
Sources told the BBC the "principal characters" suspected of being involved in the plot were British-born, and some have links to Pakistan.
The suspects were rounded up in raids in London, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, and Birmingham. All are being held in London.
Searches continue at several addresses and people were evacuated from some homes in High Wycombe in Thursday.
Meanwhile, chaos continues at UK airports with Heathrow the worst affected.
Thousands of flights have been cancelled and many more delayed.
Passengers who do make it onto flights, are not allowed to take any hand luggage with them.
Stephen Nelson, chief executive of airport operator BAA, said it was the first time that airports had "faced a security mandate of this scale and severity".
And Heathrow chief executive Tony Douglas said there would "inevitably" be delays at the airport on Friday and passengers should arrive prepared.
Home Secretary John Reid said the government was "confident" the ring leaders were in custody but it was not complacent.
He said had the plot been successful, it would have meant "loss of life on an unprecedented scale".
Prime Minister Tony Blair, on holiday in the Caribbean, paid tribute to the police and the security services.
US President George W Bush said the alleged plot was a "stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom
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I mean FFS, if you want to blow yourself up thats fine, go do it up a mountain or on a dingy in the atlantic with a few of your other terrorists mates.
DO NOT do it just before i have to fraking fly from one of these airports and make my long ass flight even longer.
They better pray i don't get into power one day, because retroactive death penalties are the name of my game right now.
