Inadequate Deception: The Impossible Plots Of The Terror War

Terror Games

Suppose you were running a counter-terrorism unit. What would you need? A huge budget -- obviously! But what else? You'd need lots of good people, and you'd need good ways to train them, and good ways to test them. You'd also need to make sure that they passed their tests.

If you were running a conventional military unit, you could do quite a bit of training and testing using relatively short war games. A war game is a simulated battle, with people from the same army (or its allies) playing both "sides". One side "attacks" and the other side "defends", and even though it's not exactly like a real battle, it can be an excellent learning tool. Some war games are designed to last a long time, but many are not, because you can do a lot of training, and a lot of testing, in a week, or even a weekend.

But the war on terror is a different kind of war, and it requires a different kind of war game. Instead of a series of battles, the war on terror involves complex surveillance operations lasting months -- or years. So a war game in the war on terror -- a "terror game" -- would be designed to last a while.

If you were planning a terror game, you wouldn't want your people playing bad guys for months at a time, if you could get somebody else to do it. Fortunately for you, it wouldn't be too hard to recruit some "bad guys" and give them a "plot" to work on. Then your people could watch them while you waited for -- or arranged -- a most opportune moment to "foil" "their" "plot".

In this way you could "pass" your "test", "prove" your "worth" and "justify" an enormous increase in your huge budget.

Knuckleheads And Cutouts

As in most endeavors, much depends on your people. For this job you'd need to avoid anybody bright enough to suspect you of scamming, so you'd be looking for knuckleheads. Fortunately, plenty of knuckleheads are available.

You couldn't do the recruiting directly. The knuckleheads you'd be looking for would never knowingly work for you. Instead you'd have to use a "cutout" to do the recruiting for you. But this wouldn't be a problem. And it would have some powerful advantages.

If the cutout did his job properly, the knuckleheads would never think anything was amiss. They wouldn't suspect they were dealing with a cutout, let alone working for you. And they certainly wouldn't know they were part of a terror game.

It would all be very serious business to them -- and rightly so, for the aftermath of a terror game isn't like that of a conventional war game, when the two "adversaries" get together for steaks and beers to compare notes and so on ...

The "bad guys" in a terror game won't be invited to any barbecues. They'll be arrested; incarcerated and possibly tortured; tried, and potentially convicted and sentenced to long prison terms. For them, it's not a game by any means.

There's enormous deception going on here, and if you were running it, you could set it up in a couple of different ways. You could use a single cutout, but he'd have to be a great actor because he would have to deceive all the knuckleheads all the time. Or you could use two cutouts, one of them deceiving the other, who then passes the messages on to all the rest. In this model, the cutout dealing with the knuckleheads is himself a knucklehead!

People are always more convincing when they believe what they're saying. So using a knucklehead as a "leader" of knuckleheads is almost always a good idea. It simply requires a second cutout.

The term "cutout" comes from covert operations. In a covert op, a cutout isolates the perpetrators from the planners. The perpetrators think they're working for the cutout; they don't know anything about the planners. So even if the perpetrators are captured, they can't implicate the people who are actually running the operation.

This is one of the ways in which covert operations stay covert. And most covert operations do stay covert long enough to be considered successful, if not forever. But if things go wrong and the perpetrators get captured, then the planners can protect themselves by eliminating the cutout (or cutouts).

Using multiple cutouts may seem overly complicated to you. But to any reasonably sophisticated covert agency, it's child's play.

The Plot

If you were running a counter-terrorism unit, and you decided to recruit some knuckleheads for a terror game, you would want to engage them in some tactical or logistical planning, but not in any strategic decision-making.

In this way you could retain overall control of the plot, by proxy through the cutout (or cutouts). And there are many ways in which you could use this control to your advantage. Above all, you'd want to make sure that, technically, the plot was well beyond the knuckleheads' ability to implement it.

You'd do this for two reasons. First, you wouldn't want to cause any damage. (You may be scamming here but you're not trying to hurt anybody. In fact your job is to make sure nobody gets hurt.) And it would be time-consuming and very expensive to watch all the knuckleheads all the time. So you'd need other ways to make sure that their plot would never amount to anything. And you could achieve this quite simply by making the plot impossible.

It would still have to be frightening, so it would have to seem possible, at least superficially. Otherwise no potential victims would be scared, and no potential knuckleheads would be interested.

So it would have to be at least semi-plausible. But it would also need a very serious core difficulty. And this difficulty would have to be kept as secret as possible.

Foiling The Plot

The second advantage of making the plot impossible is that it would take the knuckleheads forever to get anywhere with it. So you could let the plot "simmer" for as long as you liked, and "foil" it whenever it best suited you.

And this would also work to your advantage, because you could plan things. You could make a big deal of the bust. You could get some quotables to exaggerate the danger of the "catastrophic act of terror" that you and your crew had "prevented". And so on. In another walk of life this would be called making hay while the sun shines.

It would be perfect. You'd be a hero, and your budget and your power would be increased. Your boss would never say a word -- even if he suspected (even if he knew!) that you were scamming -- because he'd be a hero too, and his budget and his power would be increased as well.

So even if you didn't play your cards quite right, there'd be nobody with both the incentive and the ability to stop you.

Politics And Terror Since 9/11

In the years since September 11, 2001, it has often happened that a spectacular bust has been made at a key political time, and a big splash has been created over a semi-plausible narrative, while a core impossibility has been hidden.

Thus Shahawar Matin Siraj became New York City's "Subway Bomber" in August of 2004 after he was arrested for allegedly planning to bomb the Herald Square subway station.

Politically, the timing of the Siraj bust was extremely oppotune. In the summer of 2004, many New Yorkers were furious that the Republicans had chosen to party in the city they hadn't managed to protect three years earlier -- yet here they were, using the ruins of Manhattan as a backdrop for their festivities.

But the publicity generated by the arrest of "the subway bomber" turned things around -- for that convention and for a long time thereafter -- and instead of having to defend themselves against charges of incompetence or even complicity, the Republicans were suddenly able to scold the protesters: "See how much danger you're in? See how well our policies work? How dare you criticize?"

And this sudden shift happened despite the facts that Siraj had no bomb, no bomb-making materials, no knowledge of bomb-making, no independent access to any of the above, and no desire to hurt anyone.

It is said that Siraj was planning to blow up the subway during the Republican National Convention. Judging by the absence of bomb-making materials, that couldn't have been the case. The police just chose to arrest him right before the convention started, in order to maximize the publicity value of the bust (and to provide a pretext for their coming assault on those who did protest at the convention).

The "Liberty City Seven" have become similarly infamous for a plot that was similarly implausible. Homeless men from the Miami area who couldn't even afford boots were somehow going to get themselves to Chicago and bomb the Sears Tower? Fanciful at best, no?

The so-called "JFK Airport Bombing" plot was even less plausible -- some would say "even more impossible" -- because of the technical difficulties in what the plotters were allegedly planning to do. And the same characteristic also appears in many less-famous cases.

But the most outrageous foiled terror plot of all was a very famous one, in conjunction with which the most drastic security measures have been taken.

The Liquid Bombers

On August 9th and 10th, 2006, British authorities arrested 25 so-called "terrorists" who came to be known as the Liquid Bombers.

We were told they were planning to to destroy ten or twelve airplanes simultaneously by smuggling common household liquids aboard the planes and using them to make bombs, which they would then detonate, killing "hundreds of thousands of people" in a coordinated attack even more devastating than 9/11.

We were also told that even though the police had been watching the suspects for many months, they weren't sure they'd captured all the plotters, and that the 25 arrests had caused an increased risk of something or other. Extremely tight security arrangements were implemented, virtually shutting down Heathrow Airport for a while and banning such innocuous items as books!

Eleven of the 25 suspects have been charged with "conspiracy to murder", and another four have been charged with lesser offenses. All fifteen have said "not guilty"; their trial is expected to begin in late spring of 2008. The other ten alleged "terrorists" were released without charges.

Realistically, there's never been any increased threat of anything because of those 25 arrests, and the security arrangements were relaxed -- a bit -- after a while, but a very restrictive regime of airport security remains in place. And we can still fly, but we can't take a bottle of water with us, unless it holds no more than four ounces and is enclosed in a clear plastic zip-locked bag, along with our passport and, presumably, all our other vital documents.

Why must we do this? Are we afraid some terrorists are going to smuggle bomb-making ingredients aboard an airliner and mix them up and make a bomb and blow the plane out of the sky? Not at all! It can't happen! But if you got all your news from the papers and/or the TV, you might have no idea just how outrageous the "Liquid Bombers" plot was.

It's not just that they didn't have tickets, or reservations, or passports. These facts prove that the attack was not imminent, and lead some skeptics to question the timing of the bust, which in the political context seemed most opportune. Such questions tend to challenge the sudden increase in security that came along with news of the arrests.

But the timing is not the main point, in my analysis. Terrorists can get passports, they can buy tickets, and they can make reservations. So even if no attack was imminent, that doesn't mean the plot wasn't dangerous.

It's not a question of whether the danger was imminent or not, in my view. There was no danger -- ever! -- because the plot was impossible.

As with all the other implausible plots, the main difficulty is always hidden from the public. In this case, the hidden difficulty lies in the chemistry.

Mother Of Satan

It is definitely possible to make explosives out of household liquids. The simplest such explosive is TATP (tri-acetone tri-peroxide), which can be made from hydrogen peroxide, acetone and bleach. But it's not easy, nor is it quick.

If you wanted to make some TATP, you'd need good quality glassware, otherwise the impurities might cause a weak or premature explosion. And the ingredients themselves would have to be pure, otherwise you'd get the same result, a weak or premature explosion, or none at all.

If you're a suicide bomber, there's no point in killing yourself if you don't hurt anybody else. So you'd want to do it right: you'd want to get the purest ingredients you could find. You'd want to store them in the best glassware you could get. You'd want to do everything possible to protect the purity of these liquids, which would be vital to your plan of attack.

If you'd been studying your chemistry, you'd be ready to go once you got yourself and your liquids on the plane. But you'd wait until the plane was "safely" aloft. And then there would be no time to lose.

You'd mix the acetone and the peroxide first. From that point on, the reaction would generate a lot of heat, and you'd need to watch the temperature carefully. If it rose above 10C (50F) you'd be finished. So you'd need a thermometer -- and plenty of ice.

Having mixed the acetone and peroxide, you would then start adding the bleach -- one drop at a time -- while stirring constantly. Once all the bleach was added, you'd stop stirring and leave it alone for a while. Quite a while, actually.

The reaction takes at least 6 or 8 hours -- some sources say overnight, while others say 2-3 days. And the TATP -- the explosive compound produced by the reaction -- is a white crystal that must be filtered out, then rinsed and dried before it can be used.

They must have been hoping the transatlantic flight was going to be a long one. Only a very hopeful plotter -- or an utter knucklehead -- would imagine that there'd be enough time for all this, between London and New York.

Worse still, it would take a bathtub full of acetone, peroxide and bleach to make enough TATP to knock a hole in the fuselage of a commercial airliner. But that didn't stop the Liquid Bombers.

Lucozade

According to the official story, the "terrorists" were planning to disguise their bomb-making ingredients by adding dyes to make them look like Lucozade -- a popular British "sports drink" which comes in yellow, orange and red (or "citrus", "orange" and "fruit punch", if you prefer).

The plotters were going to make false bottoms for Lucozade bottles and dye their ingredients the same color as the drinks. Then they would fill the bottoms of the bottles with their color-matched bomb-making ingredients and the tops of the bottles with real Lucozade, or so we're told.

Then, presumably, if they were challenged while trying to bring the bottle onto the plane, they could drink from the tops of the bottles. And when they tipped the bottles upside-down and started drinking, the security guards would never notice that the bubbles rose only halfway up the bottles.

So the terrorists would get through the gates that way, and once they had boarded their planes and got themselves over the Atlantic, they were going to step into the restroom, mix their ingredients together, and come back out a minute later with a bomb. Or so we're told.

But what we are never told is crucial. Making such a bomb would take hours -- or days -- even if the ingredients were pure. And it wouldn't be possible at all if the ingredients were contaminated -- no matter how much time and space the terrorists were given on the plane, and no matter how many false-bottomed Lucozade bottles they were carrying.

Thus the "Liquid Bomber" plot wasn't just impossible. It was beyond impossible. And the natural next question is: Why? Who would recruit so many knuckleheads for a mission that was so thoroughly doomed?

Rashid Rauf

We were told that Rashid Rauf was the recruiter. Given the little we know about him, he would be the perfect man for the job.

Rashid Rauf was raised in Birmingham, UK, and moved to Pakistan in 2002, just after the fatal stabbing of his uncle. Shortly after he arrived in Pakistan, he married a very close relative of the founder of Jaish-e-Mohammed, so we are told.

J-e-M is a vicious terrorist group which likes to attack India and Kashmir, and which has made successful bombing attacks on Indian trains and train stations. J-e-M is also suspected in the London bombings of 7/7/2005.

Rashid Rauf is elsewhere described as affiliated with Lashkar-e-Toiba, another vicious Pakistani terrorist group, which has received open support from members of the Pakistani government, and which has also made successful attacks on India and Kashmir. L-e-T has recently gone underground in the face of the GWOT, only to re-appear as JUD.

In August of 2006, when the Liquid Bombers were arrested, we were told that Rashid Rauf was the mastermind, or the bomb-making expert, or maybe just the messenger. But no matter what his role was, he was always described as the link to al Qaeda.

Given his family connections in the UK (including his brother Tayib, who was one of those arrested and released without charges in August of 2006), plus his "street credibility" as a fugitive from British justice (and a potential killer), and his affiliation with various terrorist groups, Rashid Rauf had an admirable profile -- as a potential cutout.

It was Rashid Rauf's arrest in Pakistan that triggered the 25 arrests in Britain, according to the official tale, although the mechanism is unclear.

Some analysts think Rashid Rauf was tortured into giving up the names of the British plotters, who were promptly arrested; others say that when he was arrested he (or perhaps an accomplice) sent a text message to the plotters telling them to go ahead with their attack, and that this message was intercepted by the police. The questions may never be answered -- satisfactorily or otherwise.

There are many ways to eliminate a cutout. Rashid Rauf supposedly "escaped" from the Pakistani police, even though it's fairly clear that he was deliberately released. And we may never see him again.

Thus the cutout has been removed, and the trail from the knuckleheads to the planners has been cut. But if you could follow it, where would the severed trail lead? To J-e-M? L-e-T? al Qaeda? More than one of the above -- or even all three?

Here we can get profoundly confused, especially if we forget that J-e-M is tolerated and L-e-T openly supported by the military government of Pakistan, which itself doesn't like India very much. Both these banned terrorist groups are apparently protected by the Pakistani intelligence service ISI, which itself cooperates closely with Britain's MI6, as befits a virtual branch of the CIA.

You may recall Major General (Retired) Tanvir Hussain, who in the previous session served as Parliamentary Defense Secretary. Major Hussain raised a few eyebrows in a parliamentary debate when he said he had been a member of L-e-T. When he was asked for clarification, he didn't distance himself from the terrorists, nor did he claim that his association with them had ended. Instead the Parliamentary Defense Secretary of America's leading Asian ally in the Global War On Terror said that he speaks at L-e-T's conventions and admitted that he gives them other forms of assistance, too.

Don't be surprised if you haven't heard of this. Tanvir Hussain's statements were reported matter-of-factly in the Pakistani press, mentioned in a quizzical way by an Australian daily, and howled over by the Indian papers. But they were never reported anywhere else; no Western "news" outlet breathed a word of the story.

The connections between and among the various banned and/or state-sponsored terrorist groups are enough to make your head spin, and potential understanding of crucial issues can easily be lost on this very point.

In my view of the plot, and of the surrounding context, it doesn't really matter which -- or how many -- of these terrorist groups Rashid Rauf belongs to.

The confusion is irrelevant here, so the deception is ultimately inadequate. It's clear that the central and essential question looks like this:

Why?

Why would any terrorist group waste so much time and effort -- and sacrifice so many people -- trying to do something that's six kinds of impossible?

There's no question that J-e-M and L-e-T know how to make bombs. Hundreds -- thousands! -- of otherwise healthy people are now dead because of their bomb-making skills.

And we've been warned once or twice about al Qaeda and their sophisticated style of coordinated attacks, how they can bomb an embassy, or a warship, or a couple of office buildings and a military headquarters -- all on the same day!

So it seems only fair to ask: If they can do such things, why would any of these groups waste their time -- and their people -- trying to implement a plot that's beyond impossible?

And if you don't believe the world's most dangerous terrorists would knowingly waste their time and energy instigating plots that were doomed to fail, then you have to ask youself: Who would?

The answer to that question seems clear:

Suppose you were running a counter-terrorism unit...

~~~
thirty-first in a series

Phantoms Of The Terror War: Daan de Wit on the Liquid Bombers

The stories we know about the most famous terrorists and the best known terrorist plots do not match up with the facts.

Thus begins an excellent article called "The phantom terrorists of the War on Terror: Part 1 - The Liquid Bombers", written in Dutch by Daan de Wit, translated into English by Ben Kearney, and published at Atlantic Free Press.

Excerpts :

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.
...

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. [..] 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.
...

One year later [...] 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.
...

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 same people who market everyday products such as deserts and insurance - make a lot of money off of expensive anti-terrorism campaigns...

All of which lends extra emphasis to the following very pertinent question:

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?

The article is the first of a seven-part series that promises much.

I'd read the whole thing if I were you.

Overpowered: How Rashid Rauf Got Away

Rashid Rauf just slipped out of his handcuffs and overpowered the policemen who were escorting him back to jail after his court appearance on Saturday, or so we were told in a stream of breathless and speculative reports, as documented here over the weekend.

Rashid Rauf has been called "a key person" in the so-called "Liquid Bombers" plot, and alternately named as either "the mastermind", or "the messenger" connecting the plotters to al Qaeda leadership supposedly overseeing the alleged plot to down a dozen trans-Atlantic airliners more or less simultaneously. [Rashid Rauf is seen in this photo, taken after his court appearance December 5.]

Rashid Rauf's arrest in Pakistan in August of 2006 was the trigger for the arrest of 25 people in Britain on the 9th and 10th of the month. Ten of those arrested (including Rashid Rauf's brother, Tayib Rauf) were released without charge, but fifteen others still face charges, including "conspiracy to murder" for eleven of them. Their trial is slated to begin in the spring; Great Britain has been trying to extradite Rauf from Pakistan in connection with that trial.

The Pakistani charges against Rashid Rauf himself have been dropped -- twice. But they have been quietly reinstated both times.

The alleged plot -- if successful -- would have killed more people than 9/11, "a senior intelligence" source told The Observer, and Michael Chertoff, DHS-meister at the time, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that the plot could have killed "hundreds of thousands of people".

The alleged plotters were supposedly planning to mix bombs from liquid explosives which they would have smuggled aboard the aircraft disguised as sports drinks. We're told they were planning to step into the washrooms with their bottles of Lucozade and emerge with bombs capable of knocking jumbo jets out of the sky.

From a chemical and logistical point of view, the plot (alleged or otherwise) was impossible, regardless of whether the plotters were intending to make TATP (as suggested by the Guardian), or HMTD (as suggested by the New York Times), or MEKP (as hinted on a few message boards). All of the reactions in question take much longer to complete than any terrorist would possibly be allowed to spend in the washroom aboard a flight, intercontinental or not, as we have documented here (and here, and especially here).

So -- chemically, at least -- this alleged plot could never be done on one plane, let alone a dozen, let alone a dozen planes at the same time -- but that doesn't matter, because this case is not about knocking down airplanes; it's about knocking down democracies!

Thus we had flashing terror alerts and the virtual lockdown of Heathrow, with the cancellation of thousands of flights, and the airlines losing millions. And to this day we have much more restrictive airport security -- none of which makes us any safer than we were last August, when we were in absolutely no danger.

But it's not about explosives; it's about propaganda. And from a propaganda point of view, the alleged plot was -- and remains -- almost perfect, especially since the timeline is so shaggy, and the use of classified national security information for political purposes is so obvious, as documented P. O'Neill at the excellent Best of Both Worlds (starting here, then here, later here, and finally here).

It would have been completely perfect had it ended in a blaze of glory with Rashid Rauf's miraculous disappearance, in which he somehow opened his own handcuffs and overpowered his escorts to vanish inexplicably into the mist of Islamabad.

But instead we now have a detailed account of Rashid Rauf's escape, as told by Shakeel Anjum in Pakistan's The News, who has sources inside the team investigating the incident. Shakeel Anjum's story begins last week:

A warning letter was sent to the capital police by the superintendent [of the] district jail to tighten security of the high profile British national of Pakistani origin, as he was a hardened criminal, Adiala jail sources told The News.

The letter, dispatched in the second week of December, was addressed to SP [superintendent of police] (Headquarters) as well as a DSP [deputy superintendent] of the police headquarters responsible for deploying duties...

Apparently the letter wasn't enough.

Sources said ... the authorities, taking it as a routine letter, marked it to the higher authorities without taking any measures to beef up Rauf’s security.

And so ... Rashid Rauf's police escort consisted of two policemen, Constables Wazirzada and Muhammad Tufail, who told the investigating team that they were traveling with Rashid Rauf, who was handcuffed, in a private taxi.

Great Britain has been asking for Rashid Rauf to be extradited, even though Pakistan has no extradition treaty with the UK.

Pakistan has requested a certain builder in exchange for Rashid Rauf, but the UK has apparently declined. Two Balochi nationalists were arrested in London last week in what appears to be an attempt to set up a counter-offer.

Rashid Rauf and his police escort had been in Islamabad for an extradition hearing on Saturday, and at about 3:00 in the afternoon, as they were going back to the jail, they passed a mosque (on Adiala Road, near Gulshan-e-Abad).

Rashid Rauf asked if he could go in and pray.

Constables Wazirzada and Tufail said he could.

He asked them to wait in the car.

And they did.

About twenty minutes later, Muhammad Tufail went into the mosque to find that Rashid Rauf had slipped out the back door -- handcuffs and all!

The news took its sweet time finding its way up the chain of command, according to Shakeel Anjum, who quotes an officer inside the investigation as saying:

“The authorities took the transportation of the suspect so non-seriously that only two cops were deputed to move him and that too in a private cab instead of a police mobile van.”

The officer also said:

“Apparently, Inspector (Hawalaat) is responsible for his escape because he is supposed to take the ... inmates from jail and send them back escorted by heavily guarded police vehicles.”

But this time everything was done differently:

“Reserve Inspector (RI) headquarters sent the ‘special team’ comprising two constables to fetch the high profile suspect from jail by a private car instead of police van and to take him back to jail in the same way.”

“The police high-ups were informed about his escape about two-and-a-half hours after the incident,” the officer said.

To cap off our story, The News reports that no "missing persons" bulletin was ever issued over the police wireless network.

So there you have it. It may be perfect after all.

Perfectly miraculous? Not exactly.

Perfectly ridiculous? Now you're cookin'!

~~~

twenty-seventh in a series

Uninformed Nonsense: Juan Cole, Rashid Rauf, Liquid Bombs and Whole Cloth

Today's reading is from "Combating Muslim Extremism" by Professor Juan Cole, of the highly respected blog "Informed Comment", as published in the November 19, 2007, edition of The Nation. The piece reached me via George Mason University's History News Network.

Professor Cole's essay includes a short passage about the one "terrorism" case with which I am most familiar, that of Rashid Rauf [photo] and the so-called "Liquid Bombers". I am very unhappy to report that this passage contains a significant amount of fiction.

The rest of Professor Cole's essay may make perfect sense, or it may not. I don't know. For the purposes of this essay, I have set myself a much smaller task: to look at a single paragraph in depth, and to separate what is false from what is true.

For ease of discussion, I have broken the passage in question into four smaller sections, as follows:

The Administration clearly is not very interested in doing the hard work of dealing effectively with small fringe terrorist networks. That is why Osama bin Laden is at large and the CIA unit tracking him disbanded.

This is a highly contentious subject and the assertion is not only unsubstantiated but also absurd. How, pray tell, does the good professor know why Osama bin Laden is at large? Does he really expect us to believe that the administration talks about al Qaeda all the time because it considers al Qaeda a "fringe terrorist network" which is not worth dealing with?

Does he really believe that the administration hasn't made a serious effort to catch Osama bin Laden, a CIA asset whose family does business with the Bush family, because the administration is not very interested in doing the hard work?

Do we really spend $500 billion a year trying to do something the administration is not very interested in doing? I'm sorry to say so, but this explanation cuts no ice with me. So let us move on.

Next, Professor Cole says:

Successful counterterrorism involves good diplomacy and good police work.

And here I agree. I wish Professor Cole had thought to use a better illustration, though:

A case in point is the plot last summer by young Muslim men in London to bomb several airliners simultaneously using liquid explosives in innocent-looking bottles and detonators hidden in disposable cameras. Contrary to the allegations of skeptics, the techniques they envisaged were perfectly workable.

... because here I most emphatically disagree. The techniques envisaged by the plotters were utterly impossible, and if you're willing to spend a few more minutes reading, I will tell you why this is so. But first, let's deal with the rest of the passage.

Professor Cole continues:

The plotters were determined enough to make chilling martyrdom videos.

But determination is no substitute for technical ability. And if they couldn't do it, then it really doesn't matter how badly they wanted to do it! I wish I could flap my arms and fly. I really, really, wish I could do that! But I can't. So I won't.

And the alleged plotters could not have done what they were allegedly plotting to do.

How Do I Know This?

If I dare to speak with a voice of authority about this case, it is because I have done the research.

On the night of August 9, 2006, pro-Bush "Democrat" Joe Lieberman lost the Democratic Senatorial primary in Connecticut to the anti-war candidate, Ned Lamont. As soon as the result became clear, the Republican noise machine suddenly shifted into high gear, calling Democrats all over the country "Defeatocrats" and "soft on terror" because the Democratic primary voters of Connecticut had chosen Lamont over the faux-Democrat Lieberman. At the time I was guest-hosting a high-traffic blog, and I figured this was a newsworthy story. So I started digging. And since I would be writing for a larger than normal audience, I started digging hard. I've been digging hard at this story for the past 15 months.

While I was composing the piece, which came to be known as "An Avalanche Of Bullshit", breaking news arrived from the UK, telling us about two dozen Muslims who had been arrested for allegedly plotting to attack a dozen intercontinental airlines simultaneously. The synchronicity -- Democrats soft on terror while British allies foil a horrifying plot -- seemed too good to be true, and I kept digging.

Within a few days the British press had obtained the names of those who had been arrested (or so they thought: they wound up paying dearly for a couple of minor errors, but that's another story). The papers printed the names, and I set up Google alerts for all of them. (It was because of my Google alert for Rashid Rauf that I found Professor Cole's article at the History News Network.)

For the past 15 months, I have received email whenever any of those names appeared in any news or blog item, and I have read everything about all of them. In addition, I have done more reporting -- and more detailed reporting -- on this story than anyone else, anywhere.

I don't mean to be immodest here -- just truthful. Since August of 2006, I have spent hundreds of hours reading about this case. I've written an extensive series (of which this is the 21st installment) which links to hundreds of source articles. And at my other blog, "Winter Parking", I have posted copies of more than 160 news articles concerning the alleged mastermind and al Qaeda connection, Rashid Rauf.

Because of the nature of the alleged plot, I also did considerable research into the chemistry behind the alleged method of attack, and I acknowledge and thank my science adviser, Bruce, who has that rare combination -- a PhD and good common sense. Bruce's help has been most valuable, as has the assistance of a former Army explosives expert with whom I consulted while I was working on the Ronald Swerlein story.

A Simple Chemistry Lesson

According to the reports which scared us silly in August of 2006, the "Liquid Bombers" were allegedly plotting to take down as many as a dozen airliners en route to the USA from the UK, using bombs made from common household liquids. They were allegedly going to smuggle their ingredients onto the airplanes in soft-drink bottles, then create and detonate the bombs while the planes were in flight. Let's do a little chemistry and see how credible these allegations are.

There are three commonly-known explosives which can be made from hydrogen peroxide and other household ingredients. Hydrogen peroxide is a key ingredient because it has been mentioned in all technical accounts of the bomb-making aspect of the alleged plot, and also because the alleged al Qaeda connection, Rashid Rauf, faces trial in Pakistan for possession of articles for the purpose of terroism, in which the articles in question are bottles of hydrogen peroxide.

The three peroxide-based explosives which have been discussed in conjunction with this case are TATP, HMTD, and MEKP. For legal reasons, I won't link to the recipes for any of these compounds, and for security reasons I won't give enough detail for anyone to make them. I will, however, give you enough detail so that you can understand why the alleged plotters simply couldn't make any of these three explosives, not in sufficient quantity, and not on intercontinental flights.

TATP

Let's start with the first peroxide-based explosive mentioned in the press in connection with this case. Triacetone triperoxide, aka TATP, aka Acetone Peroxide, is reportedly called "the Mother of Satan" by the terrorists who try to make it, because it is so unstable. In other words, it tends to detonate prematurely.

But according to the official story of 7/7, TATP was the explosive used by the four notoriously uninvestigated London Bombers, each of whom supposedly wandered around with 10 kilograms of TATP in their backpacks before the "bombs" detonated, miraculously blowing the undercarriages of the trains upwards into the passenger compartments. It's quite a magical explosive, and according to an article published in the UK by the Guardian, TATP may have been the explosive the alleged plotters were allegedly plotting to make.

In a post called "To Mix The Impossible Bomb", I examined the process by which TATP is made. Here's a short and deliberately vague outline:

Start by mixing the acetone and the hydrogen peroxide together, in the right proportions, using lab-quality glassware (otherwise the impurities will destroy you). And be very diligent about chilling the mixture. You'll need to keep it cold throughout the entire process, otherwise you may get a weak and premature explosion. Add the third liquid, very gradually, stirring constantly and checking the temperature frequently. The addition of the third liquid starts the reaction, and the reaction gives off a lot of heat.

This will be inconvenient for you because the liquid ingredients are highly concentrated and the fumes are extremely noxious. But you need to keep the mixture very close to the freezing point, so you must add the third liquid as slowly as necessary to avoid overheating. When you've added enough of the third liquid, you can stop stirring. But you have to keep the mixture cold, and you have to wait.

The reaction is a slow one and it produces a white crystal. After six or eight hours (some sources say two or three days!), you can pour the result through a fine paper filter, to separate the crystals from the liquid. You can discard the liquid, but you should keep the crystals. They must be rinsed and dried before they can be used.

These explosive crystals formed by this reaction are very unstable and relatively powerful. But airplane fuselages are not cigar tubes. They are built to withstand a significant pressure differential, otherwise they couldn't fly at high altitudes. So it takes a significant quantity of these explosive crystals -- roughly 250 grams (half a pound) in a properly shaped charge, to blow a hole in the fuselage of a modern passenger airplane, according to one demolition expert whose work I read while researching the original series.

If all goes well, you can get as much as 8 grams (a quarter-ounce) of TATP crystals per liter (quart) of liquid. And you need about 250 grams (half a pound) of TATP, so you'll need roughly 32 litres (8 gallons) of liquid ingredients. Now: How are you going to mix that? If you do it all in one batch, you'll need a 40-liter (10-gallon) beaker, which will be difficult to smuggle onto the plane without attracting attention. Of course you can make the TATP in small batches, but then you will need multiple teams, and that means you'll need multiple restrooms.

How many restrooms on an intercontinental flight do you suppose could be occupied by Muslim men bearing glassware and large bags of ice, without attracting attention? It hardly seems possible to fit a 2-liter (half-gallon) flask in an airplane sink full of ice, but if you can do that, you'll only need sixteen teams (and sixteen washrooms). And of course if you make it in smaller batches, you'll need even more teams.

In summary, you will have big problems -- insurmountable problems! -- if you decide to blow up the planes using TATP. So what are your other options?

HMTD and MEKP

An article published by the New York Times on August 30, 2006 (which British subscribers were not allowed to read!), suggested that the alleged plotters may have been thinking of making Hexamethylene triperoxide diamine, or HMTD. And a bit of research revealed that while HMTD is made from a different combination of liquids than TATP, the processes by which they are produced are virtually identical. Crucially, you can't make HMTD any faster than you can make TATP. Again you'll have to chill the mixture and wait for crystals to form, then filter them out, wash them and dry them before they can be used.

If you try to make HMTD on a plane, you'll run into all the logistical problems inherent in trying to make TATP. In other words, it's impossible, unless you get all the passengers and crew to help you.

So what's left? Methyl ethyl ketone peroxide, or MEKP.

The idea that the alleged plotters were planning on making MEKP has been floated on a few internet discussion boards, although to the best of my knowledge it has never been suggested in any mainstream news report. It does represent a third possibility, however, so the chemistry behind the synthesis of MEKP deserves some study.

MEKP differs from TATP and HMTD in that the reaction produces an explosive liquid, rather than crystals. So instead of filtering the result, the MEKP must be decanted -- never an easy task on a moving plane. And again, the plotters will need either an enormous piece of glassware and a way to keep it cold, or else uninterrupted access to more than a dozen washrooms for several hours at a time.

In other words, forget it. It can't be done, not without an enormous number of accomplices, not without the active cooperation of the flight crew, not unless the Atlantic crossing takes an inordinately long time.

To envisage one attack succeeding using this method is an excercise in fantasy. To envisage a dozen such attacks succeeding simultaneously is madness.

I do not say that the alleged plotters were not plotting along these lines. I have no way to know whether they were plotting or not; assuming they were, I have no way to know whether they were mad or simply clueless. But I do know, beyond any doubt whatsoever, that the alleged plot as described was absolutely impossible.

And to make a statement such as

Contrary to the allegations of skeptics, the techniques they envisaged were perfectly workable.

without offering any supporting evidence, or any indication of having done any research, is ... well ... I was about to say "unfathomable", but let's just say a statement like that doesn't bring any credit to its author.

And considering what's at stake -- ridiculous airport security, enhanced police powers, and further legitimization of the GWOT -- Professor Cole's very superficial treatment of this apparently bogus case strikes me as not only "uninformed nonsense" but much, much worse. And here's the reason:

None of this uninformed nonsense would have been necessary if Professor Cole had merely wished to establish the point on which I noted our agreement, namely that "successful counterterrorism involves good diplomacy and good police work". If that was the point he was trying to make, there were a thousand ways he could have illustrated it. And so ...

One cannot help but wonder why Professor Cole would tell a tale made of whole cloth, as it were. Could he be so woefully uninformed? Or could he be trying to prop up the phony war on phony terror? The questions are not pleasant, but then again, none of this is pleasant.

~~~

For my best estimate of what may have driven the alleged plotters, please see "Inadequate Deception: The Impossible Plots Of The Terror War".

~~~



In recent "Liquid Bomber" news, Rashid Rauf's petition for a bail hearing was accepted by a judge in Lahore last week after being rejected in Rawalpindi last month. He is scheduled to return to court in Lahore on November 6th.

As the Frontier Post reported:

On the orders of Judge Sakhi Muhammad Kahut, the kids and wife of the accused Rashid Rauf were allowed to meet him at the premises of the courtyard of the ATC [Anti-Terror Court] here.

When accused Rashid Rauf met his family he began to cry as the environment became sentimental and emotional [scenes] were witnessed.

The meeting continued for 20 minutes.

~~~

NEW! IMPROVED!
A previously posted version of this piece was longer and somewhat speculative in spots. It also contained some crucial spelling mistakes. I have removed passages that may have been extraneous and/or misleading, and fixed the spelling, too. I apologize for any confusion caused by this deviation from the normal procedure of editing articles before posting them.

~~~

twenty-first in a series

NYT Blocks British Readers from Monday's Article on Alleged Liquid Bombing Plot

Paper not shipped to UK on Monday; NYT web page blocks British visitors

Monday's New York Times included a long article about the alleged "liquid bombing plot", which -- as you may recall -- was reportedly broken up by British authorities three weeks ago.

The article "claims to reveal new information", and would certainly have been of great interest to NYT readers in Great Britain.

But they couldn't read it!

From Tuesday's Guardian: UK readers blocked from NY Times terror article

The New York Times has blocked British readers from accessing an article published in the US about the alleged London bomb plot for fear of breaching the UK's contempt of court laws.

Published in the US yesterday under the headline "Details emerge in British terror case", the article claims to reveal new information about the alleged terror bomb plot that brought British airports to a standstill earlier this month.

Online access to the article from the UK has been blocked and the shipment of yesterday's paper to London was stopped. The story was also omitted from the International Herald Tribune, the NYT's European sister paper.

Today's Guardian has a bit more, including this:

For all the precautions taken by papers, legal experts agree there is little to stop bloggers and others from quickly disseminating articles around the globe via websites, messageboards and email.

Mark Stephens, a media lawyer at Finer, Stephens, Innocent, said he did not believe the article was prejudicial and blocking it would increase the likelihood of British readers reading it.

"Lawyers have a tendency to be overcautious on occasions," he said. "By not publishing it, it is almost inevitable that the information will come into the public domain in the UK. It is already being copied on to blog sites and emailed around the globe.

Mr. Stephens is certainly right about that!

The article in question is available at the NYT website, unless you live in Great Britain, in which case you have to look elsewhere: here, for instance.

Excerpts from the article follow, along with a few comments from one very cold blogger:

Hours after the police arrested the 21 suspects, police and government officials in both countries said they had intended to carry out the deadliest terrorist attack since Sept. 11.

Later that day, Paul Stephenson, deputy chief of the Metropolitan Police in London, said the goal of the people suspected of plotting the attack was “mass murder on an unimaginable scale.” On the day of the arrests, some officials estimated that as many as 10 planes were to be blown up, possibly over American cities. Michael Chertoff, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, described the suspected plot as “getting really quite close to the execution stage.”

We now know that these official statements -- from Stephenson, from Chertoff, and from many others as well -- were speculative at best, deliberate lies at worst.

British officials said the suspects still had a lot of work to do. Two of the suspects did not have passports, but had applied for expedited approval.
...
One official said the people suspected of leading the plot were still recruiting and radicalizing would-be bombers.
...
While investigators found evidence on a computer memory stick indicating that one of the men had looked up airline schedules for flights from London to cities in the United States, the suspects had neither made reservations nor purchased plane tickets, a British official said.

So they weren't ready to blow up airplanes after all. They weren't ready to do anything!

So why all the panic? Because it serves a purpose, that's why!

What purpose? Whose purpose?

Is it any wonder that these questions are never asked in the mainstream media?

And here's another important question that is hardly ever asked: Could they have done it?

Despite the charges, officials said they were still unsure of one critical question: whether any of the suspects was technically capable of assembling and detonating liquid explosives while airborne.
...
A chemist involved in that part of the inquiry, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was sworn to confidentiality, said HMTD, which can be prepared by combining hydrogen peroxide with other chemicals, “in theory is dangerous,” but whether the suspects “had the brights to pull it off remains to be seen.”

Your humble and nearly frozen blogger has done some research into HMTD, and has found that its synthesis is remarkably similar to that of TATP (which we discussed last week). In other words, once the chemicals are mixed, the reaction takes a long time -- several hours at least, maybe several days -- to complete, and produces an explosive compound in the form of crystals which must be filtered out before they can be used.

Among the HMTD recipes I have found, the one which seems to take the least amount of time includes the following instructions:

[K]eep stirring for 3 hours and continue to hold the temperature at 0°C [32°F]. Next, remove the beaker from the cooling bath and let it stand at room temperature for 2 hours [...] Finally, pour the solution over a filter to collect the crystals of HMTD, wash them thoroughly with water, and rinse with methyl or ethyl alcohol so they can dry faster at room temperature.

So ... even though we joined the party in progress, we were still five hours away from being able to blow anything up. Do you think the flight crew would leave us alone in the bathroom for more than five hours?

Whether anyone on earth has the "brights" to pull it off -- in the bathroom of a moving airplane and without help from the flight crew -- is extremely dubious.

But let's get back to the New York Times:

While officials and experts familiar with the case say the investigation points to a serious and determined group of plotters, they add that questions about the immediacy and difficulty of the suspected bombing plot cast doubt on the accuracy of some of the public statements made at the time.

“In retrospect,” said Michael A. Sheehan, the former deputy commissioner of counterterrorism in the New York Police Department, “there may have been too much hyperventilating going on.”

Hyperventilating? Possibly. Or maybe -- just maybe -- it was something else.

As for the timing of the arrests, you may recall that serious questions were asked almost three weeks ago, and none of them found satisfactory answers.

British officials said many of the questions about the suspected plot remained unanswered because they were forced to make the arrests before Scotland Yard was ready.

The trigger was the arrest in Pakistan of Rashid Rauf, a 25-year-old British citizen with dual Pakistani citizenship, whom Pakistani investigators have described as a “key figure” in the plot.
...
Several senior British officials said the Pakistanis arrested Rashid Rauf without informing them first. The arrest surprised and frustrated investigators [t]here who had wanted to monitor the suspects longer, primarily to gather more evidence and to determine whether they had identified all the people involved in the suspected plot.

But they didn't get a chance to do that.

[W]ithin hours of Mr. Rauf’s arrest on Aug. 9 in Pakistan, British officials heard from intelligence sources that someone connected to him had tried to contact some of the suspects in East London. The message was interpreted by investigators as a possible signal to move forward with the plot, officials said.
...
A senior British official said the message from Pakistan was not that explicit. But, nonetheless, investigators [...] had to change their strategy quickly.

“The aim was to keep this operation going for much longer,” said a senior British security official who requested anonymity because of confidentiality rules. “It ended much sooner than we had hoped.”
...
British investigators worried that word of Mr. Rauf’s arrest could push the London suspects to destroy evidence and to disperse, raising the possibility they would not be able to arrest them all.

And here we are left with more questions, among the most interesting of which is: Why was Rashid Rauf arrested?

A few days after the arrests were announced, NBC ran a report which said:

One senior British official said the Americans also argued over the timing of the arrest of suspected ringleader Rashid Rauf in Pakistan, warning that if he was not taken into custody immediately, the United States would "render" him or pressure the Pakistani government to arrest him.

Is this what happened?

Did the Pakistanis arrest Rashid Rauf to keep him out of the hands of Americans?

We may never know.

But surely it's becoming more and more obvious that this so-called "plot" was not what we were told it was at the time.

Therefore, it makes good sense to ask: What was it?

Stay tuned, my friends; there's more to come.

===

seventh in a series

Brother of So-Called 'Ringleader' Released Without Charges in Alleged British Bombing Plot

One Other Suspect Charged; One Released; Charity Funds Frozen; more...

The Media 'Lid' Seems To Be 'On' -- But It Can't Contain That Old Familiar 'Fish Market' Aroma!

British authorities investigating the alleged "liquid bombing plot" released two more (suddenly former) suspects last Thursday, charged one person, bringing the total now charged to 12, and extended the custody limit for the remaining suspects who are still being held without charges.

One of the two people released Thursday (August 24) had previously been described as "a potentially important figure" in the alleged plot, since his brother is (or was) supposedly the ringleader.

Allo, London? We're getting mixed messages here!

But then again ... what else is new?

As you remember -- unless you don't -- the alleged plot was reportedly broken up two and a half weeks ago (August 9/10), when 24 people were arrested in England and 15 or more were arrested in Pakistan. At the time, the timing seemed more than a little bit odd, since news of the arrests was accompanied -- one might almost say "preceded" -- by a great thunderous roar from the Republican Spin-And-Noise Machine, all of them yelling "Terrah Terrah Terrah" simultaneously, except for those who were shouting "al-Q'aeda! al-Q'aeda!! al-Q'aeda!!!". Your humble and slightly frozen reporter documented the noise and the smell of that day (August 10) in a subtly-titled post called "An Avalanche of Bullshit".

It soon became obvious that the timing seemed odd for a very good reason: high-level Americans, allegedly having learned of an ongoing British-Pakistani investigation, and badly needing to change the flow of "news" on the "home front", apparently coerced Pakistani authorities to arrest Rashid Rauf, Business Man, Entreprenuer, Author and Research Analyst, the alleged ringleader of the alleged plot -- and its alleged al-Q'aeda connection. Rauf, according to authorities, sent a message saying he'd been captured, and this message was intercepted, which was why the British had made the arrests in haste, earlier than they would have preferred. In other words, this so-called "terror event", if it was an event at all, was timed and manipulated for partisan political advantage, as readers of (August 15th's) "Spin? Counter-Spin!" will remember -- unless they don't.

The following day, the New York Times revealed -- apparently accidentally -- that none of the suspects being held in Britain -- 23 at that point -- had yet been charged with a crime. Your humble blogger picked up on this aspect of the NYT's otherwise innocuous story, and blogged about it (August 16) in "NYT Beats The Terror Drums Again, But Exposes A Vital Fact!"

By the next day, the NYT had changed its story! But it was too late to fool the green-and-yellow regulars, since your cold correspondent had already quoted the vital sentence. Fortunately he had also saved a copy of the original text -- which was true, by the way; the first charges in this case were handed down five days later.

But before the charges were announced, we saw a very weird media-storm in Britain. On Thursday (August 17), word of the alleged plot was everywhere; there were hints of "al-Q'aeda connections", faint whispers about the so-called plotters' alleged intentions to "hatch" the "plot" on the fifth anniversary of 9/11, and "news" of the "discovery" of a suitcase containing a "bomb-making kit" (which was found in the woods, of course!). These stories were flying around all day. But on Friday (August 18), nothing of the sort could be seen.

Your humble blogger noticed the difference between the tone of the British and American coverage (especially the American coverage!) and the attitude of the rest of the world, which seemed quite a bit more skeptical, and wrote about it in Friday's piece: "British News Full Of Terror Revelations; World Opinion Appears Skeptical".

The first charges were announced last Monday (August 21), when eight people were charged with conspiracy to murder and another three were charged with less serious offenses. When the charges were made public, the police announced that they had collected a wide variety of so-called "evidence", including "bomb-making materials", one of which they mentioned by name: hydrogen peroxide.

Why hydrogen peroxide? For the peroxide, of course! It's a key ingredient (the "P") in TATP, otherwise known as "tri-acetone tri-peroxide", a.k.a. "acetone peroxide", a.k.a. "Mother of Satan", a.k.a. The Suicide Bombers' Weapon of Choice.

What's so special about acetone peroxide? Two qualities in particular:

[1] it can be made from materials that are (supposedly) fairly inexpensive and readily available, and

[2] it's a vicious explosive, and an unusual one: it's endothermic (all blast, no heat) and it has an explosive velocity of 5300 meters per second (nearly twelve thousand miles per hour).

Is that enough to blow a hole in an airplane fuselage? I should say so, provided you've got enough of it. But how much would you need? And how much could you make? And how long would it take? So many questions!

If you were a terrorist, or a terrorist wannabe, and somebody told you that you could go into the bathroom of an airplane, mix some common household liquids together, and step back out into the passenger compartment armed with a handful of white crystals that could blow the plane out of the sky, would you be interested?

If you said "Yes", you may now be in a most unfortunate bind. Because it turns out that making a bomb out of acetone and hydrogen peroxide is a much more difficult, hazardous and time-consuming feat than anything one could possibly do on an airplane. Last Wednesday's (August 23) piece, "To Mix The Impossible Bomb", describes in some detail just how impossible it would be to make such a bomb on a plane, and comments on illustrates the barrage of apparently meaningless (or time-managed) stories that seemed to be squeezing this particularly lurid tale out of the major British media schedule.

Why all the pressure? Could it be because this story is falling apart?

Maybe. But it could also be that this story is just starting to get interesting!

Did you ever stop and think about that one?

I did ... and the idea stuck!

We now know beyond any doubt that something very fishy has happened here. And it seems to me we have two choices; to wit:

[a] we can say "Well, that was fishy. But I didn't believe the government before now, so what else is new?" and take a deep breath and "get over it" and "move on"

... or ...

[b] we can try to find out what happened -- and why it smelled so much like rotting seafood -- and what there is to learn from all the fish we've been smelling for the last few weeks.

I like [b], and I don't think it's too hard to follow your nose in an atmosphere such as this.

So ... I've been sniffing into the strange saga of Rashid Rauf, whose reported capture by Pakistani police allegedly sparked the series of arrests that took place in England on August 9/10.

We've been told that Rashid Rauf was the main suspect, the ringleader, the mastermind, a central figure, or maybe just a transmitter of messages; in any event there's hardly ever been any room for doubt that Rashid Rauf allegedly played a key role in the alleged plot, if in fact there was a plot.

Among the various suspects, Rashid Rauf has attracted the bulk of the interest, possibly because his brother (Tayib Rauf) and his father (Abdul Rauf) have both been arrested (and released) during this investigation; or maybe because he is connected to the banned militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), unless of course he isn't!

Or perhaps it was his ties to al-Q'aeda; or possibly his al-Q'aeda connections; or maybe it was his suspected links to al-Q'aeda militants that got everybody so interested. Who can say?

Rashid Rauf's father, Abdul Rauf, was either arrested or simply detained for questioning in Pakistan during all this -- and released without charge very soon thereafter. They could have kept him a lot longer had they wanted to. But they let him go free.

This despite his known connection to a Muslim charity -- Crescent Relief -- that was thought to be linked to Pakistan-based militant groups -- and whose funds have just been frozen. Hmmmm.

We are told that Abdul Rauf co-founded the charity in 2000 but stepped down from his role in 2003. Personally, I would find this story much more convincing if I had seen a claim that Abdul Rauf had severed all his ties with Crescent Relief. But I have not heard so much as a whisper to that effect.

As you will remember -- if you can remember all the way back to the beginning of this post -- Rashid Rauf's brother, Tayib Rauf, was one of the two suspects arrested in the initial raids (August 9/10) and released without charge on Thursday (August 24). By British law, terror suspects can be held without charge for 28 days. Tayib Rauf was held for only two weeks. They could have kept him two weeks longer, had they wanted to. Hmmmm.

Meanwhile, Rashid Rauf is still being held in Pakistan, and the British are anxious to get their hands on him. Is Pakistan likely to cooperate? Up until a few days ago, I would have said: "Not a chance!"

Why? Primarily because of this article:

[Daily Mail, August 19, 2006]
Pakistanis find no evidence against ‘terror mastermind’

The Briton alleged to be the ‘mastermind’ behind the airline terror plot could be innocent of any significant involvement, sources close to the investigation claim.

Rashid Rauf, whose detention in Pakistan was the trigger for the arrest of 23 suspects in Britain, has been accused of taking orders from Al Qaeda’s ‘No3’ in Afghanistan and sending money back to the UK to allow the alleged bombers to buy plane tickets.

But after two weeks of interrogation, an inch-by-inch search of his house and analysis of his home computer, officials are now saying that his extradition is ‘a way down the track’ if it happens at all.

It's not normally possible to extradite a person unless the country currently holding that person is amenable to the idea. And usually they want to see evidence.

Rauf’s arrest followed a protracted surveillance operation on him and his family which, The Mail on Sunday has established, dates back to the 7/7 bomb attacks on London.

The possible link between 7/7 and the alleged plot emerged when this newspaper spoke to Rauf’s uncle, Miam Mumtaz, in Kashmir.

Mumtaz was approached by two members of ISI, the feared Pakistani security service, as he nervously denied any knowledge of his nephew’s alleged activities.

Well, of course. And what about the ISI men? Did they deny everything, too?

One ISI man said it had been monitoring all movement by Mumtaz and the rest of Rauf’s relatives since the 7/7 attacks.

I'll bet they have! Maybe even longer, perhaps?

It is the first official acknowledgement of any suspected link between the London bombings and the plot to blow up planes flying from Britain to America.

So ... it's no wonder the aroma seems familiar!!

It comes amid wider suspicions that the plot may not have been as serious, or as far advanced, as the authorities initially claimed.

Suspicions?

That it was not as far advanced?

As authorities initially claimed?

Oh, puhh-leeeeze!

Suspicions?!

They didn't all have passports yet. They didn't even have plane tickets. And they hadn't made any bombs.

And yet we saw this exchange on CNN [emphasis added]:

BLITZER: How many planes, specifically, were targeted?

CHERTOFF: You know, I don't know that I can give you a definitive answer to that. I think we're still investigating. We've uncovered a lot of material. The British have, and so it may take awhile before we get a precise picture. It's clear that the plan was multiple planes at about the same time.

Now, whether the exact number had been decided upon or whether that was going to depend upon some factors has not yet resolved. We don't know. But it was, under any circumstances, an attack which had the potential to kill hundreds of thousands of people.

This is our chief of homeland insecurity talking. Look at all the things he says he doesn't know. Now look at what he doesn't know, but thinks he does know. How many people would have to fit on an airplane before you could kill "hundreds of thousands" of them by knocking 10 or 12 planes into the ocean? Tens of thousands, right? And it's an easy calculation, too.

But this Chertoff character, who allegedly wields all sorts of power, who supposedly is doing everything possible to keep us all safe, clearly has no idea what he's talking about. Or else he's a stone-cold liar.

Either way, how could we not have suspicions?

Quoting the August 19th Daily Mail again:

Analysts suspect Pakistani authorities exaggerated Rauf’s role to appear ‘tough on terrorism’ and impress Britain and America.

Well, that's what "they" always do, don't they?

And "we" do it too, no? But still ...

A spokesman for Pakistan’s Interior Ministry last night admitted that ‘extradition at this time is not under consideration’.

... which is why I would have said "The Brits won't be seeing this Rauf character in person anytime soon!"

A couple of days ago.

But maybe I would have been wrong.

Here's the latest from the Times of India [emphasis added]:

[August 26, 2006]
Pakistan set to extradite Rauf to UK

ISLAMABAD: Top security officials of Britain and Pakistan are negotiating the extradition of Rashid Rauf, the key suspect in the plot to blow up US-bound passenger aircraft from London, although there is no extradition treaty in place between the two countries.

Britain is waiting expiry of the physical remand of Rauf, whose arrest was registered in Airport police station for holding tampered travelling documents, The Nation said.
...
Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam confirmed the possibility of shifting Rauf to Britain where he is required in the extensive probe into the London terror plot.
...
A tip-off from Rauf through a phone call is believed to have been the green signal for the plot that was foiled by the timely arrests in Pakistan and in London suburbs.

Right.

"Timely" arrests indeed.

And what did "the green signal" say?

Here's my guess:

Dudes And Dudettes Of The Crescent: Let's Roll!!!!

Start applying for your passports now, but don't all go in together.

Don't buy any airline tickets until you all have your passports. Doh!

Remember what I told you about making a bomb on a plane: It's really, really easy!

And above all, don't believe the crazy French website that says

"Après trois jours (ou plus), il est temps de filtrer les cristaux!"

It doesn't really mean:

"After three days (or more), it is time to filter the crystals!"

Honest, it doesn't! Would I lie to you?

Ok, Good. Praise the Will of Allah!!

And repeat after me:

Rashid Couldn't Possibly Be An Agent Provocateur!

Rashid Couldn't Possibly Be An Agent Provocateur!

Rashid Couldn't Possibly Be An Agent Provocateur!

Agent Provocateur:

a secret agent who incites suspected persons to commit illegal acts

===

sixth in a series

To Mix The Impossible Bomb: Suspects Charged, Arraigned In Alleged Bombing Plot

An enormous investigation continues in Great Britain, where eight people were charged with conspiracy to murder on Monday and lesser charges were laid against three others. All eleven of the suspects who were charged Monday appeared in court on Tuesday.

From Monday's account in the Mirror: 11 Charged Over Airline Bomb Plot, police described the alleged evidence as follows (with my emphasis):

Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke said this afternoon: "First there is evidence from surveillance carried out before August 10.

"This includes important, indeed highly significant, video and audio recordings.

"Since August 10 we have found bomb-making equipment. There are chemicals, including hydrogen peroxide, electrical components, documents and other items.

"We have also found a number of video recordings. These are sometimes referred to as martyrdom videos."

As for the charges...

Susan Hemming, head of the Crown Prosecution Service Counter Terrorism Division, said: "Eight individuals [Ahmed Abdullah Ali, Tanvir Hussain, Umar Islam, Arafat Waheed Khan, Assad Ali Sarwar, Adam Khatib, Ibrahim Savant and Waheed Aman -- WP] have been charged with two offences relating to an alleged plot to manufacture and smuggle the component parts of improvised explosive devices on to aircraft and assemble and detonate them on board.

"Those individuals have been charged with conspiracy to murder and the new offence of preparing acts of terrorism contrary to Section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2006.

"In addition, three have been charged with other offences under the Terrorism Act 2000.

"One has been charged with possession of articles useful to a person preparing an act of terrorism and two with failing to disclose information of material assistance in preventing an act of terrorism."

Tuesday's news reports concerned the arraignment. From the New York Times British Plot Suspects Are Arraigned in Court:

A British court today began arraigning the people who have been arrested and charged in connection with a suspected plot to blow up United States-bound airliners.

Eleven of the 23 people arrested in the case were charged on Monday; the first four of them to appear before a judge today were all ordered held in custody. Prosecutors expect to arraign the rest of the 11 before the end of the day.
...
So far, Mr. Clarke said, the police have found bomb-making chemicals, including hydrogen peroxide and electrical components, recalling earlier British and American accounts that there was a plan to mix liquids into an explosive cocktail once they had been carried aboard airliners heading for American cities.

Mr. Clarke went on to say: “We have also found a number of video recordings — these are sometimes referred to as martyrdom videos. This has all given us a clearer picture of the alleged plot.”

The NYT offers some additional details:

The 11 suspects who were charged Monday seemed to be mostly British Muslims of Pakistani descent, but one was identified as Umar Islam, also known as Brian Young, a convert to Islam. Another was Ibrahim Savant, also a convert.

The eight people charged with conspiracy to murder were also charged with planning “to smuggle the component parts of improvised explosive devices onto aircraft and assemble them and detonate them on board.”

Why hydrogen peroxide? It's a key ingredient (the "P") in TATP, which is short for "Tri-Acetone Tri-Peroxide", also known as "Acetone Peroxide". It's the explosive the accused would-be bombers were allegedly trying to mix and detonate aboard airlplanes.

According to Global Security dot Org:

A new terrorist explosive, triacetone triperoxide (TATP), has recently appeared as a weapon in the Middle East. TATP has been used by suicide bombers in Israel, and was chosen as a detonator in 2001 by the thwarted "shoe bomber" Richard Reid. It can be as or more powerful than military analogs. TATP is one of the most sensitive explosives known, being extremely sensitive to impact, temperature change and friction.
...
TATP can be easily prepared in a basement lab using commercially available starting materials obtained from, e.g., hardware stores, pharmacies, and stores selling cosmetics. TATP is a fairly easy explosive to make, as far as explosives manufacturing goes. All it takes is acetone, hydrogen peroxide (3% medicinal peroxide is not concentrated enough), and a strong acid like hydrochloric or sulfuric acid. I don't recommended mixing up a batch for Independence Day celebrations because it's easy to blow yourself up when you make it.

The graphic at the top of this post shows the chemical structure of TATP. It's probably a familiar diagram to some of our British friends, because last summer -- in July of 2005 -- TATP was allegedly used in the London subway bombings.

Philippe Naughton, writing last summer for Times Online, told us TATP is suicide bombers' weapon of choice:

In the occupied Palestinian territories, you can tell who the 'engineers' are: they are the ones covered in burn marks who might be missing fingers, or even a whole hand.

The engineers are the bomb-makers for the young suicide bombers sent to kill Israelis by the Islamic militant organisations such as Hamas. And their explosive of choice, triacetone triperoxide or TATP - named today as an explosive used in last week's London bombings - is the reason for their disfigurement.
...
as the Palestinian bomb-makers will attest - 40 Palestinians are thought to have been killed making or handling the explosive - it is highly unstable and sensitive to heat and friction. Not for nothing is it known as "Mother of Satan".

As one British explosives expert said today of the news that TATP was involved in the four London blasts: "Frankly, I wouldn't like to be wandering around with 10lb of TATP on my back."

Thomas Greene in The Register asks: Mass murder in the skies: was the plot feasible?

First, you've got to get adequately concentrated hydrogen peroxide. This is hard to come by, so a large quantity of the three per cent solution sold in pharmacies might have to be concentrated by boiling off the water. Only this is risky, and can lead to mission failure by means of burning down your makeshift lab before a single infidel has been harmed.

But let's assume that you can obtain it in the required concentration, or cook it from a dilute solution without ruining your operation. Fine. The remaining ingredients, acetone and sulfuric acid, are far easier to obtain, and we can assume that you've got them on hand.

Now for the fun part. Take your hydrogen peroxide, acetone, and sulfuric acid, measure them very carefully, and put them into drinks bottles for convenient smuggling onto a plane. It's all right to mix the peroxide and acetone in one container, so long as it remains cool. Don't forget to bring several frozen gel-packs (preferably in a Styrofoam chiller deceptively marked "perishable foods"), a thermometer, a large beaker, a stirring rod, and a medicine dropper. You're going to need them.

It's best to fly first class and order Champagne. The bucket full of ice water, which the airline ought to supply, might possibly be adequate - especially if you have those cold gel-packs handy to supplement the ice, and the Styrofoam chiller handy for insulation - to get you through the cookery without starting a fire in the lavvie.
...
Once the plane is over the ocean, very discreetly bring all of your gear into the toilet. You might need to make several trips to avoid drawing attention. Once your kit is in place, put a beaker containing the peroxide / acetone mixture into the ice water bath (Champagne bucket), and start adding the acid, drop by drop, while stirring constantly. Watch the reaction temperature carefully. The mixture will heat, and if it gets too hot, you'll end up with a weak explosive. In fact, if it gets really hot, you'll get a premature explosion possibly sufficient to kill you, but probably no one else.

After a few hours - assuming, by some miracle, that the fumes haven't overcome you or alerted passengers or the flight crew to your activities - you'll have a quantity of TATP with which to carry out your mission. Now all you need to do is dry it for an hour or two.

Edgar J. Steele has more on the feasibility angle:

A friend with a doctorate in chemistry sent me the following:

"According to the official government story, TATP (triacetone triperoxide) was the explosive these conspirators were planning to manufacture aboard the airliners.

This story is not plausible for a number of reasons, but let's take a quick look at just enough of the science so as not to provide anybody with a guide to making an actual bomb: TATP is made from hydrogen peroxide solution, acetone and sulfuric acid. The reaction can be carried out with just about any concentration, but is best done with concentrated solutions of both peroxide and acetone.

The peroxide and acetone can be pre-mixed, but the acid must be added, a drop at a time, to the solution, all the while continuously stirring it and keeping it continuously chilled. This step of the process will take several hours, during which the fumes given off will be substantial and quite overpowering, thus a lab-quality air evacuation system is required. (ES: right here, the whole idea of a TATP bomb becomes ludicrous. Difficult in a lab, but impossible in an airplane due to the environment - the toilet - and the time requirement.)

"One then must let the resulting solution stand for an extended period at temperatures above the freezing point, but definitely below 10 Celsius (50 Fahrenheit). Above 10 Celsius, the TATP does not form; instead, diperoxide forms, which is so unstable it cannot be worked with. The time required for the reaction to go to completion is at least 24 hours and often several days.

Once the TATP forms, it crystallizes as snowflakes from the solution and must be harvested by filtration and the liquid discarded. The TATP then is dried and carefully stored until needed. It must be stored below 10 Celsius or it converts spontaneously to the unstable diperoxide.

There is neither the time, the workspace nor the other materials required to make TATP on an airliner. The time required, the temperatures required, the workspace required and the need to dry the chemical prior to use preclude this story being reasonable. This chemical process is much more sensitive than making, for example, nitroglycerin."

The technically proficient reading this will recognize that a necessary step has been omitted and some others have been altered in critical ways. None of these purposeful camouflages alter the ingredients or the time, care and equipment required. Nor will I describe how TATP can be fabricated beforehand and then detonated aboard an airliner in flight. After all, though we want to demonstrate the impossibility of what has been claimed, we don't want anybody actually trying this at home...

What can we conclude from this report, if it's true?

Steele has some ideas:

[i]t's impossible to make TATP as claimed, yet still they confiscate liquids from us, including sodas and baby formula, not to mention toothpaste and, even, lipsticks? Even if possible to make TATP as claimed, the individual smells of peroxide, acetone and sulfuric acid are obvious enough to preclude people having to be shaken down and terrorized by the airport Gestapo in this fashion. You have to wonder: Just exactly what is going on?

Steele apparently thinks it means there was no plot and Bush and Blair are lying. I'm not about to vouch for their truth-telling skills, but I beg to point out that there are several possibilities at this point. And they seem to fall into three main categories:

[1] There was no plot: Bush and Blair are lying.

[2] There was indeed a plot but we don't know much -- or anything -- about it because Bush and Blair and many other people are lying.

[3] There was indeed a plot and it was exactly as described in the charges, but the alleged plotters were too clueless about TATP to realize that their plan couldn't possibly work ... not for one plane, not for one in a dozen, certainly not for a dozen planes simultaneously.

If I were investigating this, I would want to look much more closely before I said very much more.

But of course there's no need for me to investigate this, because ... because ... because ... did you hear about the mutiny??

Daily Mail [Sunday, August 20]
Mutiny as passengers refuse to fly until Asians are removed:

Passengers refuse to allow holiday jet to take off until two Asian men are thrown off plane

British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny - refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed.

The extraordinary scenes happened after some of the 150 passengers on a Malaga-Manchester flight overheard two men of Asian appearance apparently talking Arabic.

Passengers told cabin crew they feared for their safety and demanded police action. Some stormed off the Monarch Airlines Airbus A320 minutes before it was due to leave the Costa del Sol at 3am. Others waiting for Flight ZB 613 in the departure lounge refused to board it.

The incident fuels the row over airport security following the arrest of more than 20 people allegedly planning the suicide-bombing of transatlantic jets from the UK to America. It comes amid growing demands for passenger-profiling and selective security checks.

It also raised fears that more travellers will take the law into their own hands - effectively conducting their own 'passenger profiles'.
...
The trouble in Malaga flared last Wednesday as two British citizens in their 20s waited in the departure lounge to board the pre-dawn flight and were heard talking what passengers took to be Arabic. Worries spread after a female passenger said she had heard something that alarmed her.

Passengers noticed that, despite the heat, the pair were wearing leather jackets and thick jumpers and were regularly checking their watches.

Initially, six passengers refused to board the flight. On board the aircraft, word reached one family. To the astonishment of cabin crew, they stood up and walked off, followed quickly by others.

[BBC: Sunday, August 20]
Passengers explain pair's removal:

Passengers on a Manchester-bound flight have described how two men were removed from the plane because other travellers thought they were speaking Arabic.

Heath Schofield, a passenger on the flight from Malaga, described it as being a "bit like Chinese whispers".

Monarch Airlines said passengers had demanded the men were removed because they were acting suspiciously.

Birmingham MP Khalid Mahmood said it was disgraceful the pair seemed to have been judged on their skin colour.

The men - reported to be of Asian or Middle Eastern appearance - were taken from Wednesday's flight ZB 613 and questioned but were allowed to fly back to the UK later in the week.

[Mirror: Monday, August 21]
Wearing a Coat Doesn't Make You a Terrorist:

MUSLIM leaders yesterday blasted British passengers who staged a mutiny on a holiday jet after accusing two innocent Asian men of being terrorists.

The packed flight from Malaga to Manchester was delayed more than three hours after worried trippers stormed off and refused to fly until the British-born Muslims were removed.

The pair - later cleared by police - aroused suspicions by speaking Arabic and wearing heavy overcoats in the Mediterranean heat.

But yesterday angry Muslim elders slammed airline chiefs for over-reacting. Muslim Association of Britain spokesman Ismail Farhat said: "Wearing a coat in summer doesn't make someone a terrorist. It's absolutely disgraceful.

[Telegraph: Monday, August 21]
Jet scare over Asian men 'helps terrorists':

An airline yesterday stood by its decision to remove two Asian men from a holiday jet bound for Britain despite criticism from a Muslim group.

The two passengers were asked to leave Monarch flight ZB613 from Malaga to Manchester, apparently because other passengers became alarmed that the men were wearing heavy clothing and kept checking their watches. Cabin crew informed the Spanish authorities of the passengers' fears and the men were taken off the flight.

One of the passengers told a Sunday newspaper: "Some of the older children, who had seen the terror alert on television, were starting to mutter things like 'Those two look like they are bombers'. Some of the passengers were in tears."

After security checks the men boarded a later flight.
...
Patrick Mercer, the Conservative homeland security spokesman, described the incident as a victory for terrorists.

"These people on the flight have been terrorised into behaving irrationally. For those unfortunate two men to be victimised because of the colour of their skin is just nonsense."

[National Ledger: Sunday, August 20]
Passengers on a Plane:

A Tory Homeland Security spokesman Patrick Mercer blasted the passengers’ actions with: “This is a victory for terrorists. These people on the flight have been terrorized into behaving irrationally!” But, was their behavior irrational?
...
[H]ow are passengers supposed to protect themselves and their loved ones from the radical Islamic terrorist menace? Apparently, the head-in-the-sand syndrome has even spread to this most currently vulnerable airline industry. It appears that if “we the flying public” are going to be safe, no one but ourselves is going to save us. The hell with political correctness! We need more mutinies of this nature. It’s our money paying for these trips and, ultimately, our lives that are in jeopardy. If the airlines and our “PC” brethren don’t like it, I say “Then follow your own rules!”

I now doubt that anything will bring the so-called “moderate Muslims” out from their hiding places, in order to speak against their suicidal and homicidal brethren. But, at least a few, or many, more of these mutinies might just get the airlines to step up and listen. Contrary to politically-correct opinion, profiling is a good thing—at least if you want to have your best chance of remaining alive.

It's clear that this story is much more interesting than the detailed analysis concerning the conditions under which TATP can be mixed, and its prominence in the British press is entirely understandable -- especially since the "mutiny" was largely ignored when it happened on Wednesday, with most of the press coverage coming along several days later. But even the Mutiny of the Airline Passengers became old news very quickly, nudged aside not so much by the charges laid Monday but by something else that happened between England and Pakistan: something much more important. So important, even the New York Times couldn't fail to notice:

Cricket Imbroglio Offers Diversion in Britain:

For anyone who considers the laws of English cricket to be incomprehensible, or, indeed, for anyone who thought the mildly outraged term “it’s just not cricket” might imply a certain decorum, think again.

On Sunday, an umpire presiding at a high-profile game between England and Pakistan, ruled that, in his belief, Pakistani players had been tampering with the ball and he told Pakistani players of his suspicion, awarding England five bonus runs, or points.

By way of protest, the Pakistanis refused to leave their dressing room after a scheduled break for tea. The Australian umpire, Darrell Hair, a person known for contentious rulings against some Asian teams, then removed the “bails” — those little wooden bits that fit horizontally across the top of the larger wooden stakes called stumps — denoting that Pakistan had forfeited the game.

The Pakistan team, nonetheless, walked back onto the field of play. But by this time the umpires had walked off, having ruled that Pakistan’s no-show constituted a terminal offense. Game to England — the first time in 129 years of so-called Test matches between national teams that a game had been forfeited in this way.

After days of worry here about the role of Pakistan and Britons of Pakistani descent in Britain’s latest terrorism alert, the cricketing imbroglio offered something of a diversion. It covered the front pages of newspapers in England and Pakistan — where cricket took root during the colonial era of the Raj — banishing such competitors for attention as the Lebanon crisis or the airliner bomb plot.

I certainly have to admit that the NYT got that last bit right, even though I could quibble about some of the rest of their piece. But why bother? Let's get closer to the source:

England v Pakistan 4th Test:

FOURTH TEST, THE OVAL (DAY FOUR STUMPS)
England 173 & 298-4 v Pakistan 504
Pakistan forfeit match

Pakistan have forfeited the fourth Test against England after play on day four was sensationally abandoned after a ball-tampering row.

The umpires ruled Pakistan were guilty of doctoring the match ball and awarded England five penalty runs and let them choose a replacement ball.

The day's play finished early when Pakistan stayed in their dressing room after tea in protest.

Although they did briefly return, they later had to forfeit the match.

Fascinating, isn't it? I can't get enough of it, myself. I've been thanking my lucky stars that I was able to find a live-blogged report of the fourth day of the match, Day four: How the controversy unfolded, which says:

1414: WICKET Cook lbw bowled Gul 83
Cook's luck runs out at last as Gul's inswinging yorker traps him plumb in front. He looks absolutely gutted. That's a big blow for England - that partnership was looking tasty. In comes Collingwood.

1420: Pietersen flays Kaneria through cover for four as the leggie finally tires of his leg-stump line. There's a heavy burden on his shoulders now - and you can bet that he fancies it.

1426: Collingwood plunges forward to Kaneria and gets a big inside edge onto his pad - but the ball flies wide of Faisal Iqbal at short square leg. Iqbal turns up the volume on the chat.

1430: Gul's getting a bit of reverse swing here. Collingwood pushes him for two into the off-side.

Did you catch that? A bit of "reverse swing"? What's happening here?

1434: Inzi's not happy about this - the umpires have picked up the ball and are examining it closely.

"Inzy" is Pakistan's captain, Inzamam-ul-Haq.

They call Trevor Jesty on with the box of spare balls, and we could have a diplomatic incident here. They're changing the ball, and that can mean only one thing - the umpires think the Pakistan team have tampered with the ball.

Lordy - Inzamam's furious. To him this is tantamount to being called a cheat. A five-run penalty has been given against Pakistan, and this one's going to run and run.

1439: It's all booting off. Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer has marched straight into the match referee's office, and he didn't look happy. Good luck Mike Procter...

Mike Procter is a former great player for Gloucestershire and South Africa, currently a test referee, and in charge of this match.

Out on the pitch, Pietersen cracks the new 'old' ball off the back foot for four to move on to 73.

1445: Up in the match referee's office, Mike Procter is frantically leafing through what looks like a rule-book. Woolmer has now marched off, and is back on the Pakistan dressing-room balcony, scratching another ball while talking animatedly with bowling coach Waqar Younis.

1452: Pietersen plays a lovely late cut off Kaneria to move to 80, and the drinks come on. Behind the scenes, the tampering row is only just beginning...

1502: Asif has replaced Gul. Read into that what you will. Collingwood, possibly wearing Cook's lucky box, jabs down late on an inswinger and watches in horror as the ball bounces down behind him and misses the stumps by a bail's thickness.

and so on...

So many questions remain unanswered:

Who, if anyone, told those suspects that they could mix TATP on a plane? And why?

Who were the two suspicious men in Malaga and why were they acting so suspiciously?

Or were all the stories about two suspicious men simply fiction?

Was Gul in fact caught doctoring the ball?

Did the suspects pull a fast one, pretending that they were going to try to mix TATP on a plane when in fact they were planning to do something else?

And if so, why would they do this?

What would you do if you were on an airplane, or about to board one, and you saw some Middle-Eastern men acting strangely?

Would you get on that plane?

Was Inzamam-ul-Haq protesting too much because he knew they were caught red-handed?

Or was he furious because he felt Pakistan was unfairly penalized?

And why was Gul replaced immediately?

Was he righteously ticked and too steamed to bowl well, or was he feeling humiliated after his foul deed was exposed?

And perhaps most importantly: What will this do to the tour?

Pakistan put tour match in doubt:

Pakistan players may skip Thursday's match against Middlesex at Uxbridge, on the day before skipper Inzamam-ul-Haq's disciplinary hearing.

But coach Bob Woolmer has moved to quell fears the one-day series against England could be in danger.

Woolmer stopped short of guaranteeing the series would go ahead if Inzamam is banned for all or part of it.

"We are all trying to get our heads around what has happened but we are keen to play cricket," he said.

A sad sign of the times: you can't tell the cricket coaches from the politicians...

"We need the one-day series to prepare for the World Cup.

"We need to get rid of this polarisation and we want to bring the two parties [Pakistan and England] together again."

Speaking of politicians ...

Are you still wondering about that TATP? So am I.

I'm still wondering about a few other things too, and you know what that means: We have not yet heard the last word about the people who allegedly plotted To Mix The Impossible Bomb.

===

fifth in a series