So instead of protesting UK involvement in OIF by holding up signs, marching towards a governmental building, and shouting, these jackasses decided to blow up some CIVIL aircraft on the off chance a government official or soldier will be aboard. What, do they WANT the various European governments to resurrect the Inquisition, with its attendent targeting of minorities, torturing people until they "confess," and burning the "sinners" at the stake?Independent Television News wrote:Plane bomb suspects' 'secret code'
Updated 16.57 Thu May 01 2008
A secret code was found at the home of a ticket inspector accused of plotting to blow up passenger jets, a court heard.
The document listed instructions for the terrorist cell disguised as everyday phrases like "going to have a party", which translated as "someone ready for jihad", jurors at Woolwich Crown Court were told.
The eight men in the dock, all from north and east London, are accused of plotting to launch co-ordinated suicide attacks on passenger jets flying from London Heathrow Terminal Three to the US and CanadaThe list was discovered in the bedroom of Umar Islam, 30, at his wife's home in West Ham, east London, after his arrest on August 9, 2006.
Islam, who was working as a revenue collector for Transport for London when he was seized, is on trial along with seven other British Muslims accused of planning to blow transatlantic flights out of the air.
The court heard how the codes included "found a job" for "travel by Shahid martyr", "car broke down" for "accident happened" and "life is life" for "arrested".
The list continued with "How is your mother?" for "How are you?", "buy a car" for "change email" and "problem at work" for "security problems".
The eight men in the dock, all from north and east London, are accused of plotting to launch co-ordinated suicide attacks on passenger jets flying from London Heathrow Terminal Three to the US and Canada.
Ahmed Ali, 27, Tanvir Hussain, 27, Arafat Khan, 26, Ibrahim Savant, 27, Waheed Zaman, 23, Assad Sarwar, 27, Umar Islam, 30, and Mohammed Gulzar, 26, were arrested following a surveillance operation on an alleged bomb factory at 386a Forest Road, Walthamstow, northeast London.
It is claimed the gang plotted to make home-made bombs by filling Lucozade or Oasis soft drinks bottles with hydrogen peroxide and fruit sugar.
This could then be detonated using the high explosive HMTD concealed inside AA batteries, jurors have heard.
Ali, of Prospect Hill, Walthamstow; Hussain, of Nottingham Road, Leyton; Islam, of Bushey Road, West Ham; Khan, of Farnan Avenue, Walthamstow; Sarwar, of Walton Drive, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire; Savant, of Denver Road, Stamford Hill; Zaman, of Queens Road, Walthamstow and Gulzar, of Priory Road, Barking, all deny conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to commit an act of violence likely to endanger the safety of an aircraft.
© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.
Before you say the defense analyst is crying wolf, remember that at the end of the story, the wolf DID come.The Age wrote:JSF 'at risk' from new Russian radars
May 1, 2008 - 1:24PM
Australia's new Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) combat aircraft could be vulnerable to a Russian radar technology which appears to overcome their key stealth advantage, a defence analyst has warned.
Dr Carlo Kopp, an analyst with the defence think tank Air Power Australia, says the risk was demonstrated almost a decade ago when Serbian air defences shot down a US F-117A Nighthawk stealth aircraft.
That wake-up call evidently was not heeded in the west, he said.
But the Australian Defence Force says stealth technology has advanced significantly since the Nighthawk and JSF will be very stealthy, even against the new Russian radars.
Under present plans, the RAAF is set to buy 100 of the Lockheed F-35 JSF which will enter service around the middle of 2016 and serve as Australia's principal combat aircraft to mid-century.
JSF is a very advanced combat aircraft specifically designed to be virtually invisible to radar.
Australia also is buying 24 Boeing Super Hornet aircraft which provide some stealth capability.
Stealth technology - much of which remains top secret - works by a combination of technologies designed to absorb the radar signal and ensure it doesn't bounce back to the transmitting station.
Radar operates by transmitting a signal, then detecting its return echo when it bounces off a distant aircraft.
Russian publications stated quite bluntly that US stealth designs had been largely optimised to defeat widely-used radars operating in the centimetric and decimetric bands, Dr Kopp said.
Such radars feature wavelengths around 10-100 millimetres, but new advanced Russian digital radars, now being actively marketed, operate in the VHF (very high frequency) band with wavelengths about two metres.
Dr Kopp said stealth technology was very effective at defeating centimetric and decimetric radar but much less so at remaining invisible to VHF radar.
An analysis of JSF suggested it was particularly vulnerable to detection by radars in this band because of its small size and particular design, he said.
"What is abundantly clear is that VHF radars will have much better detection performance against fighter-sized stealth aircraft compared to decimetric and centimetric band radars," he said.
Once the Russians deployed their counter-stealth radars, it was to be expected that other nations such as China would follow, Dr Kopp said.
As well, older widely-used Russian VHF radars and their associated anti-aircraft missile systems, could also be digitally upgraded to provide a substantial capability against stealth aircraft.
"The US has enjoyed an unchallenged technological monopoly on stealth capabilities for almost three decades and the notion that potential opponents would sit by idly is not realistic."
A defence spokesman said the very low observable (VLO) stealth characteristics of the JSF, as with all stealth aircraft, were optimised for specific radar frequency bands.
"However, even outside of these optimised bands a VLO aircraft is much harder to detect than a conventional aircraft," he said.
"The F-117 is an example of an early version stealth aircraft with its distinctive external shapes.
"Stealth technology has progressed significantly since the F-117 design and the latest technologies have been incorporated into the F-35 Lightning II."
© 2008 AAP
