We thought we were surely dreaming when we heard over the radio this early morning that Scotland Yard had successfully foiled a terrorist plot to blow up nearly a dozen airplanes in mid-flight.

The plan evidently revolved around liquid-based explosive devices, to be smuggled on board in hand luggage. After 21 people were arrested in London and surrounding areas, a nation-wide "critical" threat level was announced by UK security service MI5. This status is meant to indicate that "an attack is expected imminently and indicates an extremely high level of threat to the UK."

Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson, from the BBC [link]:

"We are confident that we have disrupted a plan by terrorists to cause untold death and destruction and to commit, quite frankly, mass murder," he said.

"We believe that the terrorists' aim was to smuggle explosives on to aeroplanes in hand luggage and to detonate these in flight. We also believe that the intended targets were flights from the United Kingdom to the United States of America."

Here in the states, the Department of Homeland Security increased our threat level to Red (Severe), for all "commercial flights originating in the United Kingdom bound for the United States."

Anyone traveling today can expect to encounter significant delays at the airport, as well as heightened security details.

[Londonist]
[The Statesman blogs about ABIA]
[Q&A on Liquid Explosives]
[Collected Articles from Google News]

* Photo by Phillip Capper from flickr