Europe might have gotten another jolt of terorrism, but for diligent work by British authorities. They arrested eight suspected Islamic terrorists in connection with a half-ton of ammonium nitrate fertilizer (used in bombs) stored in various locations near the London region's major commercial airports.

The suspects are linked to Islamic terrorism, Sky News said earlier, citing unidentified police....Sir John Stevens, head of the London police force, has said a terrorist attack on London is 'inevitable' and that the bomb attacks in Madrid, which have been linked to al-Qaeda, should act as a 'wake-up call' to Britain and Europe.

...Car and truck bombs have been made using between 80 and 5,000 pounds of the chemical, according to the National Academy of Sciences in Washington. Fertilizer has been used in bomb attacks on New York's World Trade Center in 1993, in Oklahoma City in 1995, London's Canary Wharf building in 1996 and the Indonesian resort of Bali in 2002....The men are being questioned at an undisclosed high-security police station in central London, police said.

Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden ordered a strike on Heathrow airport months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., the London-based Sunday Times reported in its latest edition, citing transcripts of interrogations of an al-Qaeda operations chief.

Today's operation 'is a timely reminder that the U.K. and its interests abroad remain a target,' Home Secretary David Blunkett said in an e-mailed statement.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at March 30, 2004 08:15 AM

---

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.rosenblog.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/188

---

---

---

---