{"id":602,"date":"2004-02-08T06:31:37","date_gmt":"2004-02-08T11:31:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2004\/02\/more_aviation_threat_rumors\/"},"modified":"2004-02-08T06:31:37","modified_gmt":"2004-02-08T11:31:37","slug":"more_aviation_threat_rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2004\/02\/more_aviation_threat_rumors\/","title":{"rendered":"More Aviation Threat Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Terrorist bid to build bombs in mid-flight<\/a>“<\/p>\n

Islamic militants have conducted dry runs of a devastating new style of bombing on aircraft flying to Europe, intelligence sources believe.
\nThe tactics, which aim to evade aviation security systems by placing only components of explosive devices on passenger jets, allowing militants to assemble them in the air, have been tried out on planes flying between the Middle East, North Africa and Western Europe, security sources say.
\nConcerns that militants might assemble a bomb or another weapon on board were a key factor in the series of recent cancellations of transatlantic flights. Last weekend British Airways stopped flights from London to Washington and Miami for fear of an attack and Air France also cancelled scheduled flights.
\n. . .
\nOfficials in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere are believed to have warned that at least 12 dry runs may have been completed and to have said that the terrorists are aiming to try out their plans on flights around the Mediterranean and the Middle East before attempting to bomb a transatlantic route, where security precautions are now very tight. Militants know that individual components are far easier to smuggle through airport security than an assembled bomb.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A suicide bombing is a straightforward plot. But what about the reports of pilots and targeting cities such as Las Vegas? Intelligence analysts speculate a bomb could be used in a hijacking attempt:<\/p>\n

The US government’s Transportation Security Administration issued an urgent memo detailing new threats to aviation and warning that terrorists in teams of five might be planning suicide missions to hijack commercial airliners, possibly using common items carried by travellers, such as cameras, modified as weapons. The CIA said that a high level of threat was based on information from several incarcerated high-ranking militants.
\nAn FBI bulletin last November was more specific. It warned that ‘terrorists are considering the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) assembled on board to hijack an aircraft or, alternatively, destroy it over heavily populated areas in the event of passenger or crew resistance.
\nComponents of IEDs can be smuggled on to an aircraft, concealed in either clothing or personal carry-on items such as shampoo and medicine bottles, and assembled on board.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Terrorist bid to build bombs in mid-flight“ Islamic militants have conducted dry runs of a devastating new style of bombing on aircraft flying to Europe, intelligence sources believe. The tactics, which aim to evade aviation security systems by placing only components of explosive devices on passenger jets, allowing militants to assemble them in the air, […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-602","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}