This article has been translated into English by Ben Kearney.
The stories we know about the most famous terrorists and the best known terrorist plots do not match up with the facts. DeepJournal
created a seven part series detailing this issue, starting off with the
case of the Liquid Bombers. The limitations for liquids on airports are
the result of the near attack by these so-called Liquid Bombers.
Their plot was foiled just in time in August of 2006. Or was it? There
are still some disturbing questions to be asked regarding
the terrorists and their plan. Questions that can no longer be posed to
the leader of the Liquid Bombers, Rashid Rauf, now that he has escaped
under suspicious circumstances.
The European Commission announced in
mid-December 2007 that it plans to lift the restriction on the amount
of liquids that airline passengers can take on board with them. Jeanine
Hennis-Plasschaert,
European MP for the Dutch VVD, has for some time said that the
restriction does nothing to prevent terrorism and offers only the
appearance of safety. To this day, travelers at Amsterdam's Schiphol
Airport are allowed to take liquid containers no larger than 100 milliliters on board with them. These restrictions apply in America and England as well. These limitations are the result of the attack by the so-called Liquid Bombers.
August of 2006. A group of about 25
terrorists, later to become known as the Liquid Bombers, takes the West
by the throat with their plan to crash approximately ten airplanes
simultaneously. President Bush addresses
the nation: 'If these terrorists had succeeded, they could have caused
death on a massive scale. The plot appears to have been carefully
planned and well-advanced. They planned to bring the components of
their explosives on board in their carry-on luggage, disguised as
bottled drinks and electronic devices'. According to
Michael Chertoff, head of America's Homeland Security Department, the
attack could potentially have resulted in hundreds of thousands of
casualties. The near-attack by the alleged terrorists gets a lot of
publicity because of a huge operation by the police in which a number
of airplanes are grounded. This is noteworthy because the suspects had
already been under the radar for about one year and hadn't made any reservations, much less purchased tickets.
Big doubts over feasibility of plot
As of today the restriction on liquids remains in place at Schiphol Airport. According to Dutch Professor Carel van Eijk, the risk of terrorist attacks hasn't been diminshed by this policy. French expert Christophe Naudin of the University of Paris shares Van Eijk's opinion. Professor of International Communication Cees Hamelink is
also quite clear about it: 'It's absolute rubbish. It's meant to scare
the living daylights out of us, it's meant to keep us alert and to keep
alive a notion that terrorism is really dangerous and it is necessary
to spent an enormous amount of money'. He points out that 100 ml of
nitroglycerine is enough to blow up an airplane. The Liquid Bombers
wanted to make the explosive TATP (triacetone triperoxide) on board the
aircraft. Gerry Murray of the Forensic Science Agency in Northern
Ireland and Peter Fielden of the Defence Science and Technology
Laboratory at the University of Manchester say
that it would be extremely difficult to produce TATP by combining
liquids in the restrooms of airplanes. A journalist from The Register
consulted experts and describes
the problems with the terrorist plan. Beginning with the fact that
merely dumping the precursors together makes no sense, according to
Professor of Chemistry Jimmie C. Oxley of the University of Rhode
Island. In order to arrive at TATP, sulphuric acid has to be added to
acetone and peroxide drop by drop
for several hours at just the right cold temperature while stirring
continuously. When the axphyxiating fumes are released, they form white
crystals at a temperature of below 10 degrees C (50 degrees F) after a minimum of six hours - though probably much longer - which then have to be harvested by way of filtration and dried for several hours. The thermometer has to be closely monitored as well, as TATP is very unstable, as witnessed by its nickname,
'Mother of Satan'. 250 grams of the white crystalline powder resembling
sugar is needed for a substantial explosion, which means that per
airplane you need sixteen times the content of an airplanes bathroom sink in order for the plan to succeed.
Multiple interests
Former
British ambassador Craig Murray had access to some of the most
sensitive documents during his career. Currently he maintains a blog on
which he writes
about the Liquid Bombers: 'None of the alleged terrorists had made a
bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports,
which given the efficiency of the UK
passport agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for quite
some time.' The online magazine Salon interpreted the situation in U.S.
terms and noted
in September of 2006: 'America has been scare-mongered into submission,
and it's tough to tell who is more pleased, the foreign evildoers in
their caves and distant laboratories or America's own leaders with
their upcoming elections and color-coded instruments of control. Have
we become a nation run by a faction of war profiteers, exploiting the
fears of its own citizens? I don't know about you, but I'm starting to
feel had'. According to
The New York Times, at least one person benefited from the thwarting of
the plot: President Bush, who could use a small victory during the
lead-up to the midterm elections given his low approval numbers.
Whatever the case, the plot was foiled. But there is still criticism.
An ideal attack?
According to
The Independent, British authorities, under pressure from the U.S.,
acted abruptly and too quickly, and as a result not all of the
terrorist suspects were aprehended. In an inside stab at Bush, the
reason given in England for the overseas intervention was that it was a
'short-term success' for the Americans. That success was the arrest of
Rashid Rauf by Pakistan at the request of the Americans. Because Rauf
was connected to the terrorists who wanted to blow up the airplanes,
MI5 and Scotland Yard felt it necessary to round up the whole gang,
according to counter-terrorism sources of The Independent. One year
later the U.S. role turned out to be bigger when it became clear that a number of the Liquid Bombers had been trained by Jundullah (Army of Allah), a terrorist organization which, as ABCNews suggests, is being sponsored by the U.S. in their clandestine battle against Iran. The London Telegraph is even more specific and writes:
'[...] the CIA is giving arms-length support, supplying money and
weapons, to an Iranian militant group, Jundullah, which has conducted
raids into Iran from bases in Pakistan'. Prior to the training by
Jundullah, the alleged terrorists - in connection with an earthquake
relief operation - were present in camps run by the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD), the parent organization of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET). LET gets
(financial) support form the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI, which
again is directly connected to the American intelligence agency - the
CIA.
What did America want to achieve with the arrest of Rauf? The
exact reason is unknown, but what we do know is that the arrest did not
lead merely to a short-term success, but also to a
large-scale terror alert which continues to have consequences to this
very day in the West. The thwarting of the terrorist plot had the
advantage of both of these successes, and prevented the damage that
would have occured if it had been demonstrated that the plot could not
possibly have become reality. This combination of factors made it an
important step forward for the War on Terror.
Prime suspect escapes
The person who was supposed to be in charge of carrying out the plan was the Brit Rashid Rauf. Rauf was picked up in Pakistan by the Pakistani intelligence service when the plan was disrupted by the authorites. Rauf hereby became
England's 'most wanted' terrorist. England requested his extradition -
not because of any involvement in the plan to blow up the airplanes -
but because he allegedly murdered his uncle in 2002. On Sunday December 16 Rauf escaped from custody in Pakistan, most likely because his handcuffs had been removed by his guards, who wanted to let him pray in a mosque. Rauf was being transported after appearing in court for extradition proceedings. Prior to his visit to the mosque, his handcuffs had also been removed so that he could eat a hamburger from a local McDonalds franchise. President Musharraf was informed of the escape and ordered Rauf's arrest. The question is whether Rauf is the only one who is happy that he escaped.
Rauf was about to be extradited to England in exchangeforeight Pakistani criminals. His lawyer Hashamat Habib immediately called
it a 'mysterious disappearance': 'It comes at a time when the British
government is trying to extradite him. And it all looks very suspicious
to me.' Khalid Khawaja, a former Pakistani intelligence agent who at
one time shared a cell with Rauf, described
him as a simple man who did not have the wherewithal to plot an escape.
He said he believed that Rauf might have been 'taken away by the ISI'
and feared that his friend might be shot dead while 'on the run'.
Rauf's lawyer Habib:
'In my estimate it's an organised disappearance. They don't want to
hand him over. [...] He was fixed up and the government is now afraid
that he would become an embarrassment if sent to the UK because they
hyped up his involvement. [...]'. What ever may be, Rauf's escape is a
benefit not only to him; what if it had been proven in court that the
plan to explode ten or more airplanes with bombs manufactured on the
spot was impossible, and all of the anxiety and security measures that
followed were actually unnecessary?
Problems with the War on Terror
Even though it is for modern man easier to fall victim to a peanut or to lightning
than to a terrorist, the notion of terror is still a reality of daily
life. Terrorism is at the top of the agenda. The interests are huge.
Large sums of money have been invested, whole careers are at stake and
ad agencies - the samepeople who market everyday products such as deserts and insurance - make a lot of money off of expensive anti-terrorism campaigns, such as The Netherlands against terrorism. But do the facts upon which governments base the distribution of all that money for anti-terrorism really add up?
Despite
all these investments, it's not going well with the War on Terror. In
the course of just one week we learned that the prime suspect from the
group of Liquid Bombers escaped, that the case against the 'Miami
Seven' - who wanted to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago - ended in a hung jury, that any number of videotapes containing coercive interrogations by the CIA appear to have been erased, and that the case
against the failed German-train terrorists is about to begin. These
terrorists made bombs with faulty detonators in response to the misunderstood
Danish cartoon affair. This plot from Germany is reminiscent of what
happened in July of last year. London and Glasgow have 'escaped a
bloodbath', wrote
the Dutch NRC Handelsblad in its editorial. 'A new tragedy has failed
to materialize', reported the newspaper with relief. In the Dutch
national daily news show, reporter Tim Overdiek presented the events as being near-catastrophes and a serious terror offensive, even though the CIA and Scotland Yard had explained one day earlier that there was really nothing to worry about, even if the explosives had detonated.
The first signs that there was something going wrong with the War on Terror were the revelations over the torture practices carried out by America around the world. People were plucked right off the street in Western European countries and to be tortured in far-flung corners of the globe. It then turned out
that many of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay had been taxi drivers and
greengrocers who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time
and had been sold to the Americans for tens of thousands of dollars.
One of the cases that attracted a lot of attention was the case against
the American 'Dirty Bomber' Jose Padilla. After three and a half years
the verdict has been postponed until January of 2008, but the punishment has already been meted out: Padilla has been subject to so much abuse that he will never be the same again.
Alongside
the little fish there have also been a number of big fish that have
been swept up in the net that has been cast. It supplied some familiar
names such as Al Zarqawi (Al Qaida in Iraq) and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
(mastermind of 9/11). Besides these names, there is still a wish list
that contains the big prize: Osama bin Laden. There's only one problem. The stories we know about the attacks and the terrorists often don't match up with the facts.
The Phantom Terrorists of the War on Terror
Part 1: Liquid Bombers
Part 2: Miami Seven
Part 3: Al Zarqawi
Part 4: Osama bin Laden
Part 5: JFK Pipeline Plot
Part 6: >Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Part 7: >Fort Dix Six
This
series will not be published on DeepJournal beyond part 1. The series
is available for newspaper, magazine or online publication. For more
information contact Daan de Wit.
I second that emotion. This is brilliant stuff. Many thanks, Daan!
3
January 04, 2008
Robinea: Don't forget the Anthrax attack hoax and the Small Pox vaccination campaign
Fine article. One big question is how successfully the suppression of objective analysis of these fear-mongering hoaxes and provacateur schemes. Anthrax and small pox... are two fake threats that paralyzed the country for months - while objective (i.e. not on the payroll) infectious disease experts and microbiologists were appalled but unwilling to confront the blatant manipulation of the public.
4
January 07, 2008
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Part 1 - The Liquid Bombers
August of 2006. A group of about 
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passport agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for quite
some time.' The online magazine Salon interpreted the situation in U.S.
terms and 
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