Morning News Roundup (11 August)

Top Story

• About 9pm on Wednesday, Britain's police and intelligence chiefs learnt that a British-based al-Qa'ida cell was within 48 hours of mounting a terror attack that could have been more deadly than 9/11. Within hours, 24 suspected terrorists, mostly British-born, were arrested after raids across the South-east and Birmingham.
  [...]
  Information from phone taps and bugging devices began to build a picture of a well-organised and motivated group, who were inspired by the idea of a global jihad and sympathetic towards the aims of al-Qa'ida. Clear links with Pakistan and north Africa were established, including several visits to Pakistany, but the intelligence failed to uncover a "Mr Big" from al-Qa'ida pulling the strings. It initially seems that, as with the July 7 suicide bombers, who killed 52 people in London last year, the plotters were a mixture of young people radicalised while living in Britain and influenced by travelling abroad.
  
  The details of the plot also began to emerge. An experienced counter-terrorism officer described the findings as "bloody scary stuff". The plotters were allegedly planning to commit phased attacks in which three or four aircraft would be blown up over the sea, thereby destroying any clues about how the bombs were smuggled on board. [The Independent]
  
  
• In the aftermath of the July 7, 2005, suicide bombings on London's transit system, British authorities received a call from a worried member of the Muslim community, reporting general suspicions about an acquaintance.
  
  From that vague but vital piece of information, according to a senior European intelligence official, British authorities opened the investigation into what they said turned out to be a well-coordinated and long-planned plot to bomb multiple transatlantic flights heading toward the United States. [WaPo]
  
  
• Calvin Klein perfume and L'Oreal mousse, toothpaste and mouthwash, shampoo, hair conditioner, nail polish and deodorant (stick and spray) -- they all got chucked yesterday as travelers emptied their shaving kits and cosmetic bags in the latest ritual of an airport security crackdown.
  
  Gallon after gallon of bottled water in just about every shape, brand and size were also forsaken. The crackdown came as airport officials expanded the list of banned items after the breakup in London of a plot by terrorists planning to blow up U.S.-bound passenger jets with liquid explosives hidden in carry-on luggage. [WaPo] And check out this post over at Boing Boing, which asks some good questions...
  
  
• As Americans stood in long lines at airports, President Bush went ahead with his planned trip to Wisconsin to raise money for a Republican Congressional candidate and to speak about the economy during a stop at a metal factory. He made brief remarks about the arrests in Britain on the tarmac of the airport in Green Bay, saying the plot was “a stark reminder” of the threat from “Islamic fascists.”
  [...]
  He later flew back to his ranch here, and aides said there were no plans for him to cut short his stay.
  [...]
  One high-level administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said White House aides were concerned that the president would be open to accusations he was politicizing the crisis if he responded dramatically. This official said a decision had been made in part for the president to keep a low profile and allow the event to speak for itself. [NYTimes]
  
  
• President Bush seized on a foiled London airline bomb plot to hammer unnamed critics he accused of having all but forgotten the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Weighed down by the unpopular war in Iraq, Bush and his aides have tried to shift the national political debate from that conflict to the broader and more popular global war on terrorism ahead of November 7 congressional elections.
  [...]
  Vice President Dick Cheney and White House spokesman Tony Snow had argued that Democrats wanted to raise what Snow called "a white flag in the war on terror," citing as evidence the defeat of a three-term Democratic senator who backed the Iraq war in his effort to win renomination.
  
  But Bush aides on Thursday fought the notion that they had exploited their knowledge of the coming British raid to hit Democrats, saying the trigger had been the defeat of Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut by an anti-war political novice. [Agence France Presse]
  
  
• You decide: Playing partisan with the threat is a dirty political trick or the plot reveals the dire need for more surveillance. In any case, the ingredients for a liquid bomb are terrifyingly easy to find. [Foreign Policy's Passport]

Middle East Sturm und Drang

• “Iraq needs one to two years to rebuild its security forces,” Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi said Thursday, contradicting a recent claim by Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani that they would be fully operational by the end of 2006. [ThinkProgress' ThinkFast]

Climate Crisis

• An inconvenient reminder: Greenland’s icecap “is melting faster than ever before on record, and the pace is speeding year by year,” new data shows. “The consequence is already evident in a small but ominous rise in sea levels around the world, a pace that is also accelerating.” [ThinkProgress' ThinkFast]

Misc.

• As anticipated, David Beckham has been dropped from the England squad for the first time in 10 years, signalling the dawn of Steve McClaren's reign as head coach.
  
  Beckham, who was England captain for the duration of the preceding coach Sven-Goran Eriksson's tenure, has been pointedly omitted from the squad that will face Greece in Wednesday's friendly. The 31-year-old midfielder resigned his captaincy on July 2 and his successor was revealed yesterday to be Chelsea central-defender John Terry. [The Guardian]

Just a quickie today as Mrs. F and I take off for the weekend to Lake Quinault for a wedding. Back on Monday...