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| Arabia |
| British MP: Saudis Foil Attack on British Air Jet |
| 2003-12-28 |
| EFL Saudi Arabia has arrested two Islamic suicide pilots who were preparing to fly two light aircraft into a packed British Airways (BA) jet. The suspected suicide pilots were arrested in the last few weeks after they were found red-handed with aircraft loaded with explosives near Saudi Arabia’s main airport in the capital Riyadh, The Mail on Sunday said. "My understanding is that they were found on the flight line and that the plan was to fly them into a passenger jet either about to land or take off," said Patrick Mercer, the opposition Conservative spokesman for Homeland Security, according to the newspaper. Mercer, who said he had been informed of the plot by an "unimpeachable" source, intended to raise the matter at the House of Commons immediately after MPs returned from their Christmas break on January 5. Mercer claimed, according to the same source, that the Saudi authorities tried to cover up the incident near King Khalid International Airport and withheld information from authorities abroad. Both BA and the Foreign Office, which said it had checked with "relevant agencies," were unable to confirm the arrests. A BA spokesman later said the airline had no knowledge of the incident described in the paper. "We are in regular contact with the Saudi authorities and the British government and we wouldn’t fly unless it was completely safe to do so," a spokesman said. BA suspended flights to the oil-rich Gulf kingdom in August citing a security threat, but the airline resumed flying the following month after a review. Mercer was not available to elaborate on his remarks and the British Foreign Office said it was not aware of the incident. |
| Posted by:Pappy |
| #3 BA, make that "inncocent non-Muslim lives"... |
| Posted by: Pappy 2003-12-28 7:11:18 PM |
| #2 Atta boy, Al Qaida. Piss off more people by inflicting another large-scale loss of innocent lives. If and when very high-ranking Al Qaida members are found, I'm all for showing their summary execution live on national TV. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2003-12-28 3:01:00 PM |
| #1 Dang, Paul beat me to it! |
| Posted by: Pappy 2003-12-28 12:28:43 AM |