Al Qaeda Alert-Airline Terror

[Vajra]

Source:

US, German intel: Al Qaeda plots multiple attacks on US-, Israel-bound airliners

DEBKAfile Special Report

July 9, 2009, 9:17 AM (GMT+02:00)

Target of new al Qaeda hijack plot

Western anti-terror agencies have warned that a large group of 15-20 al Qaeda terrorists, trained in Pakistan and Algeria to hijack and blow up airliners, deployed secretly in at least six European and Middle East countries in early July. They are standing ready to carry out multiple terrorist attacks.

The terrorists are believed to have landed in Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Turkey and Egypt.

The dates to watch, local authorities were warned, were July 4, July 7, the fourth anniversary of the 7/7 attacks on the British transport system in which 52 people died, and July 8-9, when the G8 summit meets in the Italian town of L'Aqila. US president Barack Obama will fly in from talks with Russian leaders in Moscow.

Al Qaeda planners, say the Western sources, know it is extremely hard to break through the massive security cordons protecting summit leaders. They are therefore planning to hijack passenger planes of airlines belonging to the targeted states and blow them up in mid-air.

DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources report the first specific red alert on Saturday, July 4, referred to the possible hijack of Turkish Airways planes taking off from Turkish airports for US destinations or Tel Aviv. Special precautionary measures were put in place at both ends of their routes.

The alert is still in force.

Spoiler: show

More from WTOP

Last week, German authorities discovered that groups of terrorists may have been dispatched from training bases in Pakistan to launch crippling attacks.

In April, U.S. intelligence officials warned Germany about possible terror attacks. Since that time German security officials have reportedly been preparing for massive, multi-layered attacks for which al-Qaida has become known.

Shortly after the April warning, German Ambassador Klaus Scharioth said in an unrelated interview, “You will understand that I can’t go into the details of the terrorist threat, but I can only tell you that we all know that we have to be vigilant and that we have to continue to work very hard on that, but I do not want to go into details.”

Intelligence suggests al-Qaida operatives are planning to plant multiple explosive devices in several locations and detonate them either in a simultaneous or sequential fashion.

U.S. and German intelligence sources say that strategy is designed to emulate the ones employed Bali in 2002 and Madrid in 2004. The idea is to draw in first responders to the scene after the first explosion, and then the subsequent explosions are set off in the same location to inflict maximum casualties.

A U.S. intelligence source with knowledge about the situation says “it is a credible threat, which also includes Germans in North Africa."

I wouldn't be caught on a plane leaving those 6 locations if I were living there .

Seems like since they would never be able to do terrorist attacks like 9/11 again, they're now planning to focus on blowing up planes in mid-air instead...(which is just as tragic really).

[Correction]

Just post 'everybody panic' once a day in your livejournal.

[Cephius]

So alarming that the paranoid homeland security department has yet to raise the National threat level.

I realize you're not trolling or whatever, but you really make too many of these "EVERYBODY PANIC" threads when they're based off unreliable articles that use way too much speculation. If you have something credible next time, go ahead.