Thursday, September 06, 2007

Bomb plot in Germany.

Slate has all the details of the various stories. But if you want a summary, here it is.

The leader of the cell is a 28 yr old German born Muslim convert. He and the other suspects trained with a Uzbek militant group affiliated with Al Qaeda. The U.S. intelligence took notice and started monitoring their cell phone conversations. (you know, the monitoring the Democrats don't want us to do)

Back in Germany the suspects started "acquiring 200 gallons of concentrated hydrogen peroxide, enough to make several crude but powerful car bombs. In July, the German police secretly managed to break into the cell's storage space and switch in canisters of harmless diluted peroxide. According to the LAT, investigators had planned to let the plot play out for a little while longer, but a routine traffic stop spooked the alleged conspirators, and police learned through "undercover methods" that an attack attempt was imminent."

The Washington Post says they "were aiming at American facilities or sites likely to result in American casualties but that it was unclear whether they had settled on a target. Security officials said evidence indicated that Ramstein Air Base, a major U.S. and NATO installation, and Frankfurt's international airport ranked high on the list of sites under consideration."