Extremists plotted suicide attacks on at least seven flights from Britain to the United States in a simultaneous attack of “truly global impact”, a prosecutor said on Thursday. The eight men, whose arrest prompted tough limits on the carrying of liquids in hand baggage on to planes, wanted to target seven flights from London’s Heathrow airport to New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto and Montreal, prosecutor Peter Wright said as he opened the case against them.They aimed to use liquid explosives in soft drinks bottles to cause “a civilian death toll from an act of terrorism on an almost unprecedented scale”, Wright added. He said the accused were “not long off” activating their plan and had talked of up to 18 different suicide bombers targeting flights, when police busted the group in August 2006.
The seven flights were operated by United Airlines, American Airlines and Air Canada. They left Heathrow daily, within roughly two and a half hours of each other — meaning they would have been in mid-air simultaneously, Wright said. “These flights were particularly vulnerable to a co-ordinated attack upon them while in flight. If each of these aircraft was successfully blown up the potential for loss of life was indeed considerable,” he said. “When the mid-flight explosions began the authorities would be unable to prevent the other flights from meeting a similar fate as they would already be in mid-air and carrying their deadly cargo,” he added. “These men and others were actively engaged in a deadly plan” which would have resulted in “a civilian death toll from an act of terrorism on an almost unprecedented scale,” he said.
In the dock sat “some of those prepared to lose their lives,” he said, adding that they bore the “cold-eyed certainty of the fanatic” and were “indifferent to the carnage that was likely to ensue”.
The eight men in the dock at Woolwich Crown Court in London were: Abdulla Ahmed Ali, also known as Ahmed Ali Khan, 27; Assad Sarwar, 27; Tanvir Hussain, 27; Mohammed Gulzar, 26; Ibrahim Savant, 27; Arafat Waheed Khan, 26; Waheed Zaman, 23; and Umar Islam, also known as Brian Young, 29. Seven are from London, while Sarwar lives in the midlands.
| I'da guessed most of not all of them with the possible exception of Brian were from Pakistain. |
| Per the Khaleej Times, up to 18 could have been involved. |