Merry Christmas: Jihadis plotting to blow up the Chunnel
posted at 2:13 pm on December 24, 2006 by Allahpundit
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It won’t flood, says the guy who built it. Not unless they’re planning to use a lot of explosives.
Which doesn’t mean they couldn’t still kill boatloads of people.
The plan, which the French DGSE foreign intelligence service became aware of earlier this year, is revealed in a secret report to the French government on threat levels. The report, dated December 19, indicates that the tip-off came from the American CIA. British and French intelligence agencies have run a series of checks of the security system protecting the 31-mile tunnel but the threat level, the DGSE warns, remains high. British security services remain on high alert throughout the holiday period.
According to the French sources, the plan was put together in Pakistan and is being directed from there. The plotters are believed to be Western Europeans, possibly Britons of Pakistani descent. The DGSE say that levels of ‘chatter’, the constant communication that takes place between militants, has not been so high since 2001…
American security sources told The Observer that the threat was ’sky high’.
Thanks to Gateway Pundit for the tip. The Observer’s got a companion piece today on Blair’s failed effort to ban the “nonviolent” Islamic supremacist group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, because, after all, “[i]t is not an offence to hold extreme views.” Which is true for the moment, but only for the moment.
The news comes as the Conservatives expressed fresh concerns that Britons determined to martyr themselves in the name of jihad are being released into the community because police lack powers to prosecute them.
Up to a dozen people suspected of being en route to join the fight against British forces in Iraq or Afghanistan, or to become suicide bombers overseas, have been detained by one major police force alone in the past year. But because evidence gained by covertly intercepting conversations by phone or email is not admissible in British courts, they could not be charged with any serious offence. Patrick Mercer, the Conservative homeland security spokesman, said he was told by Greater Manchester police there was now a persistent pattern of such suspects causing serious concern.
‘They were graphically described to me as men who have come to terms with death, who are then going back into the community,’ Mercer told The Observer. ‘The police are convinced that these are the sort of people who will pull an incident, probably in Manchester but maybe in London or Birmingham or elsewhere.’
Eventually the Brits will relax their evidentiary standards for terrorism charges and pass the religious hate-speech bill that was defeated earlier this year. Neither one of which will be something to celebrate, but both of which will be inevitable after one of these savages they released for want of admissible evidence turns around and blows up a bus. If you thought the Patriot Act was bad, wait until you see where the Brits are headed.
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looks like they aren’t taking the christmas off. Those Jihadis, does anyone work harder than they do?
mainmann on December 24, 2006 at 2:16 PM
Yeah our Military does!
RichSchein on December 24, 2006 at 2:23 PM
I love the Patriot Act and I don’t think the Brits are heading anywhere bad. In fact, I admire their flexibility. I remember when they had secret trials because the IRA was killing people, killing wits, killing prosecutors, killing judges. What else could they do? Yet, the civil libertarians whined.
EF on December 24, 2006 at 2:25 PM
Michael Moore: There is no terrorist threat.
RightWinged on December 24, 2006 at 2:28 PM
The Jihadists clearly know nothing of history because they keep making the same mistake that the Nazis did. Just like Hitler foolishly began bombing London and halted his attacks on British airfields, the Jihadists keep selecting “political” targets (calculated to invoke terror in the populace, I suppose, in the hopes that the West will lose its resolve). Even if they manage to destroy their selected targets, that in no way impedes our ability to make war on them. They want to bomb the Chunnel? Fine. We should respond with aerial attacks on the oil pipelines that ship all the oil out of Iran and into China. Besides, not only would this cripple Iran’s economy, but the Chinese would then face the same oil crisis that the West does. And that might not necessarily be a bad thing. Anybody have a better idea?
CyberCipher on December 24, 2006 at 2:36 PM
Are the jihadists feeling inferior or something? The chunnel, after all, is just a phallic symbol anyways
How so, you say?
(okay well I can’t find the clip, but its the family guy episode where Peter sees Chris’ unit and its so much bigger. so he buys a big car and drives in and out of a tunnel over and over – saying “you like when its inside you, dont you?”)
Well, you know the clip!
lorien1973 on December 24, 2006 at 2:43 PM
Lets put all muslims in the chunel. Then send in the boreing bit the drilled the original diamater hole. Wait on the other side and then presto its the Muslum Chutney mmmmm goes good sittin on a ritz!
sonnyspats1 on December 24, 2006 at 2:52 PM
I bet it was the Quakers, wasn’t it? Rastafarians, maybe? What, Muslims AGAIN?!
ReubenJCogburn on December 24, 2006 at 2:52 PM
The ancient Afghan Bhudda statues, the Twin Towers, the Chunnel. You libs out there that think we can “talk” to these terrorists, tell us which world land marks you’re willing to fight to preserve. The Louvre? The Eiffel Tower? Big Ben? The Collusium? The KREMLIN? Mt. Rushmore? The Golden Gate Bridge? What is worthy of your anger? What are you willing to fight for? To kill for? To die for?
Tony737 on December 24, 2006 at 2:59 PM
Yeah, add Syria to the list, and hit their ports, factories, and military installations as well. Then seize any ship that’s in or out bound to or from Iran. Sink any ship that’s Iranian and confiscate the rest.
When they declare war, and the UN starts whining pull all of our funding, and ask them if they’d prefer we act more like the “Palestinian victims” and start randomly firing rockets into civilian areas, and remind them that our rockets are often armed with nuclear warheads.
When Al Jazeera starts broadcasting their propaganda declare them an enemy of the state and start targetting their various offices, and arrest every one of their reporters we can get our hands on. Slap the NYT with a 500k dollar fine for publishing classified information the first time, 1m for the second, and tell them in no uncertain terms that they’ll do jail time in Gitmo if they do it again. Do the same with the rest of the papers.
Fine Reuters for it’s Dr’d photos, and prosecute them, the AP, the NYT and anyone else who has participated in their habitual purposeful public deception for Sedition, and have their editors jailed.
After all of that’s done tell Afganistan and Pakistan that they have one month to produce Bin Laden before we go in and find him ourselves, and any resistance to our efforts in any part of their countries will be met with desimation of their military forces.
After Bin Laden is captures publically hang him in the middle of Times Square, and shoot his henchmen while he’s dangling.
Some how I think Russia will STFU after that, and China will quit with the waffling over dealing with north korea, but instead we’re stuck with this limp wristed Foriegn policy and a bunch of PC idiots who’re going to get us all killed.
Yay for spineless whelps encouraging people to blow us up. Some body please make it stop.
Is Australia taking in US refugees? Someone’s going to have to eventually.
One Angry Christian on December 24, 2006 at 3:01 PM
Yeah, let’s piss China off. This would most likely be the absolute WORST move we could make.
I realize that Allah hates it when anyone suggests that we nuke Mecca, and that’s why I’m not going to suggest that we actually do it. But the “threat” that we will retaliate by doing exactly that in response to the next terror attack … just might have a profound effect in turning Muslim opinion against terror groups.
The simple reality is that we’re not going to win this war by battling it out with insurgents on the ground. We now see Somalia calling for all Muslims to join the jihad in Ethiopia and the response is indicative of what we face. As the war goes on, it seems there are unlimited supplies of brainwashed, brain dead, Islamic zombies willing to give up their life for their warped cause.
The only “good” to come of this would be the opportunity for us to use it as an excuse to reduce the Islamic male population.
Hate that reality all you want, but we’re not going to win this war without it getting extremely ugly.
Gregor on December 24, 2006 at 3:06 PM
I love this idea and I’ve never understood why we continually feel it’s necessary to dump money into our enemy’s pockets. The U.N., the French, The Russians, and the Chinese would all suffer greatly if we suddenly said “we’re sick of it” and cut off all financial aid and business negotiations. Suddenly, I believe these governments would start to lean our way when making political decisions regarding terrorist nations.
Gregor on December 24, 2006 at 3:14 PM
When will the French wake up? Isn’t one end of the Chunnel in France? I suppose rioting Muslims in their suburbs and terrorist plots against their interests aren’t enough to get the French into the game.
It’s really very sad to think that the French would rather be anti-American than pro-French. Afterall, we both face the same threat and all they can do is ban religious headwear, block meaningful sanctions against Iranian extremists, and hide in their homes when their cars are burned.
cmay on December 24, 2006 at 3:22 PM
It makes no sense to me either. This sort of philosophy is common among people when dealing with individual conflict on a social scale as well.
One person comes into a group of friends. First they settle themselves in and establish themselves as a friend in the group. They then attack another individual whom they dislike. When the person retaliates and defends themselves you’ll often see this whole “UN” mentality where the victim defending themselves is labled a trouble maker, and the person who created the problem in the first place uses that ideology to remove the victim from the circle of friends completely.
It’s a psychological ploy. It uses the apathy of a group of people to empower an attacker to destroy, eliminate, or paralyze their victim.
It’s pretty effective. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen it done in my office, social circle, and/or online.
It’s really sad how much we enable vicious, violent, malicious people in the name of “keeping the peace”.
One Angry Christian on December 24, 2006 at 3:25 PM
Which is exactly why I asked if someone else had a better idea. Then, on the other hand, who could subjugate or control millions of Jihadists better than billions of Chinese people?
CyberCipher on December 24, 2006 at 3:40 PM
Of course, this approach would bring about global depression– with the American economy in the tank as well. But you already knew that, right?
CyberCipher on December 24, 2006 at 3:48 PM
I think you’re wrong about that for one reason and one reason alone: greed.
Those nations would never let it actually happen. They always do what is in their financial interest. Which is why they backed Saddam.
One Angry Christian on December 24, 2006 at 4:08 PM
Yes, I understand that and agree. That’s why it would never get that far. China is only going to alter their stance when it financially benefits them to do so. A military action on the oil supplies feeding China would be taken as an act of war, and possibly cause them to strengthen their position with our enemies.
But simply cutting off all financial dealings with any country which does business with terrorist nations would be a diplomatic move that would be easy to defend, which would force them to change allegiance. Same with France. Same with Russia.
I don’t believe it’s likely they’ll simply ignore it and press on as usual, which is why I don’t believe it would lead to any world wide depression.
But we all know this will not happen. Our government is just as corrupt as any of these others, and our leaders have proven to be just as willing to base their political decision on personal finances. This is the real reason we fail to do what’s needed to win this war.
Gregor on December 24, 2006 at 4:20 PM
1) It’s misleading to refer to this scum as “Western Europeans”, “Britains”, and so forth. They aren’t, by their own admission.
2) Oil is their stength but also their weakness. There will come a point when the other 4 billion people on earth will become tired of being held hostage by this crew of nuts, thugs and dangers to public sanitation who happen to sit over so much of the world’s oil. I can’t think of a more profitable conversation to have with China than one that invites them along with India, the USA, Japan, and the EU to simpy take the damn oil.
3) Merry Christmas all.
dhimwit on December 24, 2006 at 5:26 PM
Iran’s weakness is refining capacity. Bomb what refining capacity that they have, and they have great difficulties in moving things around.
I’m all for helping china get into the same boat as the rest of us, but I’d like to see Iran suffer first.
quax1 on December 24, 2006 at 5:32 PM
Flexible principles are abandoned principles. The UK already is a surveillance state (with pervasive warrantless electronic monitoring of citizens’ activity). The next step is allowing said surveillance to be used to prosecute people. You know, to make sure terrorists aren’t set free. Flexibility. See, if the government can watch everyone all the time, people will be less likely to commit crimes, and when they do, they’ll be swiftly brought to justice. It’ll be marketed to the proles with phrases like “for our children’s future” and “building safer communities.”
They might even work flexibility in there.
They’ve already taken the first step toward ensuring that patriots that object won’t be able to resist: citizen disarmament. Additionally, citizens in the UK have lost freedom of speech. Not heading anywhere bad? How would you feel if the First and Second Amendments were axed? Here’s something that requires flexibility: grabbing your ankles.
Mark Jaquith on December 24, 2006 at 5:35 PM
The ironic thing about that “Racial and religious hatred act” is that it would almost assuredly never be used against the worst offenders, which would no doubt be Muslims. You can almost guarantee that it’s only use would be to punish any Christian or Jew who dared to defend themselves against Islam, either verbally, physically, or in writing.
So far it’s failed to pass, but Mark is probably correct that it’s only a matter of time.
Gregor on December 24, 2006 at 6:02 PM
The Racian and religious hatred act was pushed by leftards – not conservatives. As far as suspending certain civil liberties as they were forced to do with the IRA, again, I have no problems with that.
EF on December 24, 2006 at 6:18 PM
Very soon we are giving $400 million US Dollars to the Untited Nations to rebuild their stinking building in New York, because they demand a better building. How do I tie this tot he Islamic War? The U.N. refuses to stop and kil the Islamic terrorists, yet we support the U.N. by bowning tot heir every wish. WTF are we still in the U.N. ??
retired on December 24, 2006 at 7:15 PM
I would so swim before I ever went through that death tube. No way in Hell. Never. Not if my very life depended on it. Because, actually, it would.
seejanemom on December 24, 2006 at 9:50 PM
I wouldn’t complain about their being released, if they were being released to me.
Kralizec on December 25, 2006 at 12:38 AM
The threat to the Chunnel, and all the other fresh signs of new muslim threats to the peace, ratify my view that no one who believes the Ninth Sura of the Koran is the inspired Word of Allah and the Prophet should be allowed to live–at least not in a liberal democracy. And one of the unfortunate features of the “War” on “Terror,” aside from its not having so far been a proper War Against Those Who Believe in the Divine Inspiration of the Ninth Sura, is that almost no individual, local action has been allowed under law, despite an abundance of worthy opportunities.
For example, the English and French peoples could rise up and lawfully protect their countries, if they were deputized to require any and all muslims to swear before Allah and the Prophet that the Ninth Sura’s contents are Satanic verses. They could be authorized to require muslims to prove their peaceableness by ripping the Ninth Sura out of every copy of the Koran they have handy. Of course, they’d have to be given a chance to ritually cleanse their hands first.
The questions of the penalty for refusal and of some use to which to put the waste paper would have to be settled, I admit. However, readers may enjoy thinking up their own proposals regarding these details, so I’ll do my part to promote individual initiative by leaving that to them.
Kralizec on December 25, 2006 at 2:36 AM
When will we start blaming the religion and not the mainstream “extremists”?
The History of Islamic Jihad Against Humanity
Prophet of Doom: A Doctrinal Study of Islam
Tim Burton on December 25, 2006 at 4:43 AM
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