Sunday, August 13, 2006

How imminent was the threat?

How This Old Brit Sees It points us to an interesting report on the NBC site:

NBC News has learned that U.S. and British authorities had a significant disagreement over when to move in on the suspects in the alleged plot to bring down trans-Atlantic airliners bound for the United States.

A senior British official knowledgeable about the case said British police were planning to continue to run surveillance for at least another week to try to obtain more evidence, while American officials pressured them to arrest the suspects sooner. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.

In contrast to previous reports, the official suggested an attack was not imminent, saying the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports.

2 comments:

Joe Otten said...

Sigh.

How soon before we find out that many had "not yet":

-learned how to make explosives
-gone rafting together
-made contact with any terror groups
-become radicalised

Lobster Blogster said...

High profile arrests are the UK's speciality. High profile convictions are a rarity.

The Romans dragged out their empire on circuses (circii?) and bread. In Britain we have high profile arrests and reality tv.