The Arabist

The Arabist

By Issandr El Amrani and friends.

The liquid explosives plot

Being rather busy with work, I have paid rather scant attention to the "liquid explosives" airplane plot except to figure out how to carry all the expensive electronics I usually carry with me when I travel. I did hear, notably from people in Lebanon, many people express a fear that this is a diversionary tactic from the war on Lebanon and thus an invented plot. I have no idea about this, but when you get someone like Craig Murray, the courageous former British ambassador to Uzbekistan who revealed British collaboration with the rather nasty regime of Islam Karimov. What he has to say is quite revealing. (See also this MSNBC report.) I mean, none of the alleged terrorists had bought plane tickets and some of them didn't even have passports! And it seems the US pressured the UK to arrest the suspects sooner rather than keep them under surveillance.