Chertoff: Threat ‘suggestive of an al-Qaida plot’

Sophisticated plot, suggestive of al-Qaida
Chertoff said there was no indication of plotting in the United States but said officials cannot assume that the terror operation in Britain had been completely thwarted. He said the plot appeared to be engineered by al-Qaida, the terrorist group that carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attack against the United States.

“It was sophisticated, it had a lot of members and it was international in scope,” said Chertoff, who spoke at a news conference also attended by Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and FBI Director Robert Mueller. “It was in some respects suggestive of an al-Qaida plot.”

He added, however, that “because the investigation is still under way we cannot yet form a definitive conclusion.”

Gonzales said the operation could “potentially kill hundreds of innocent people.” Britain said 21 people had been arrested, including the alleged “main players” in the plot.

‘Bojinka’
One aviation security expert, Douglas Laird, said the thwarted plot eerily resembled a 1994-1995 plan code-named “Bojinka” that Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed had overseen to blow up 11 airliners simultaneously.

In that plot, al-Qaida sympathizers had planned to mix liquid explosives undetectable by most security equipment, smuggle them aboard planes in a contact lens solution bottle and then set them off using a Casio watch as a trigger, FBI documents show.

“I’m surprised they’ve waited that long to try this, 10 or 11 years, when the current system still has no way to detect such liquid explosives,” said Laird.

At the news conference in Washington, Mueller also pointed at al-Qaida. “This had the earmarks of an al-Qaida plot,” he said.

The alleged plot was “as sophisticated as any we have seen in recent years as far as terrorism is concerned,” Chertoff said.

‘A real threat’
There were no commercial passenger planes in the air from Britain to the United States when the red alert was issued, FAA Administrator Marion Blakey said. She said three cargo planes aloft from London — two Lufthansa and one UPS plane — were allowed to continue because the threat was focused on passenger planes.

The U.S. Northern Command, the military headquarters established in response to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, was “monitoring and ... a little bit more vigilant today,” said spokesman Michael Kucharek, declining to be more specific.

“I’m not going to say it’s business as usual,” he said. “We’re looking at all sources of information — this is a real threat to the nation.”

The plot was not believed to be connected to a group of Egyptian students who disappeared in the United States more than a week ago before reaching a college they were supposed to attend in Montana. Several of the 11 have since been found, although the FBI has said none of the group is believed to be a threat.

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