Progressive
April 1st, 2004, 10:06 AM
Well take a look at this :roll:
Police foil al-Qaeda plot in UK, eight arrested
London, Mar 31 (PTI) Police today claimed to have foiled a plot by al-Qaeda supporters to set off a massive lorry bomb, with the arrest of eight British citizens, majority of them of Pakistani origin yesterday.
British intelligence agents and anti-terrorist officers were questioning the eight persons after the discovery of ingredients for a half-ton fertilizer bomb in West London, police said.
The supplier of the chemicals has been traced but detectives are concerned at the lack of effective control on the sale of a chemical that is used to make military explosive, they said.
The same mixture has been used regularly by al-Qaeda groups since their 1998 lorry bomb attacks on two US embassies in East Africa and in the bombings of a residential compound in Saudi Arabia, where Western workers lived.
The bomb would have been five times the size of the devices used in the al-Qaeda attack on Bali, which claimed more than 200 lives.
Seven of the men arrested are 22 and under, including a 17-year-old student who was seized at an address in Slough.
The other man is 32 years old, police said.
Police believe that an al-Qaeda inspired operation was possibly behind the intended attack. They also believe that terrorists intended to kill hundreds of civilians with an attack on a "soft target" such as a shopping center.
700 officers yesterday raided 24 homes and business centres across London and the South East.
Police foil al-Qaeda plot in UK, eight arrested
London, Mar 31 (PTI) Police today claimed to have foiled a plot by al-Qaeda supporters to set off a massive lorry bomb, with the arrest of eight British citizens, majority of them of Pakistani origin yesterday.
British intelligence agents and anti-terrorist officers were questioning the eight persons after the discovery of ingredients for a half-ton fertilizer bomb in West London, police said.
The supplier of the chemicals has been traced but detectives are concerned at the lack of effective control on the sale of a chemical that is used to make military explosive, they said.
The same mixture has been used regularly by al-Qaeda groups since their 1998 lorry bomb attacks on two US embassies in East Africa and in the bombings of a residential compound in Saudi Arabia, where Western workers lived.
The bomb would have been five times the size of the devices used in the al-Qaeda attack on Bali, which claimed more than 200 lives.
Seven of the men arrested are 22 and under, including a 17-year-old student who was seized at an address in Slough.
The other man is 32 years old, police said.
Police believe that an al-Qaeda inspired operation was possibly behind the intended attack. They also believe that terrorists intended to kill hundreds of civilians with an attack on a "soft target" such as a shopping center.
700 officers yesterday raided 24 homes and business centres across London and the South East.