Foiled plane bomb plot suggestive of Qaeda: Chertoff

By Deborah Charles

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government raised the
security alert on passenger planes and barred air travelers
from carrying liquids on Thursday after Britain foiled a
suspected al Qaeda plot to blow up flights to the United
States.

“While this operation was centered in Great Britain, it was
sophisticated, it had a lot of members and it was international
in scope,” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said.
“This operation is in some respects suggestive of an al Qaeda
plot, but because the investigation is still under way, we
cannot yet form a definitive conclusion. We’re going to wait
until all the facts are in.”

The United States is sending air marshals to Britain to
provide expanded security coverage to prevent efforts to blow
up flights to the United States, Chertoff told a news
conference.

FBI Director Robert Mueller told the news conference there
was no evidence any of the plotting took place within the
United States, which was the center of planning, preparation
and execution of the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York
and Washington that killed almost 3,000 people.

President George W. Bush had known about the investigation
for several days, was briefed about it regularly and knew the
arrests were coming, a senior administration official said. He
said the decision to move to a red alert was closely
coordinated between the two countries.

The Department of Homeland Security said it took the
unprecedented step of raising the threat level for commercial
flights originating in the United Kingdom to “severe” or red,
its highest level.

The threat level for all other commercial aircraft
operating in or destined for the United States would be raised
to “high,” or orange, from “elevated,” or yellow, Chertoff said
in a statement.

Britain said the plot may have involved a “liquid chemical”
device, and U.S. Homeland Security barred passengers from
carrying liquids, including beverages, hair gels and lotions,
aboard planes.

Canada said it had increased airport security in
coordination with the United States and Britain, banning
passengers from bringing gels and liquids on all flights and
stepping up screening.

Chertoff told the news conference the plot was in the final
planning stages. He added that he considered U.S. air travel
safe following the extraordinary precautions taken on both
sides of the Atlantic.

A U.S. intelligence official said authorities believe the
plot involved sophisticated explosives in liquid or gel form
that were to have been carried on to aircraft, with battery
triggers possibly stored in clocks, laptops or calculators.

The threat level for the country as a whole remained at
yellow, according to the department’s Web site.

Britain’s security service raised its threat level to
“critical” from “severe,” the highest of its five ratings,
suggesting “an attack is expected imminently.”

A U.S. official who asked not to be further identified said
United Airlines, Continental Airlines and American Airlines
flights between Britain and the United States had been
specifically targeted for attack.

U.S. airports were reporting long lines but not the
canceled flights, chaos and severe delays that unfolded in
London’s Heathrow Airport, where the plotters were thought to
be planning to board flights to the United States.

Passengers at U.S. airports were tossing out cans of soda
and discarding makeup and hair gel, as they grudgingly accepted
the new security measures.

“My initial reaction was kind of uncertainty but I figure
today was the safest time to fly,” said Shannon Miller, a
29-year-old teacher from Boston, who lives in London and was
waiting to fly home from New York’s John F. Kennedy airport.

“I’d rather be on the airplane than sitting at home hearing
the same news over and over,” she said.

(Additional reporting by Todd Eastham, David Morgan in
Washington, Abha Bhattarai in New York, Scott Malone in Boston)