“Terror cops fear petrol tanker plot,” by Jon Clements for The Mirror:
Police are stopping and searching petrol tankers amid fears terrorists could use them as giant car bombs.
Senior officers think British extremists may copy Iraqi tanker attacks after viewing them on jihadi DVDs and websites.
“British extremists.” The extremely British? Or religious “extremists” (a tiny minority, mind you) residing in Britain whose affiliation must not be named?
They have ordered the Metropolitan Police’s traffic divisions to be alert for suspicious vehicles while on routine checks.
An attack could involve terrorists hijacking a tanker on a route into Central London and driving it into a tourist attraction.
Each vehicle contains up to 9,000 litres of fuel or chemicals and can reach 60mph.
Dhiren Barot was jailed in 2006 for 40 years for planning attacks which included tanker strikes.
And the vehicle stops come just months after Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair admitted his worst nightmare was “Baghdad style vehicle-borne bombs”.
Det Supt Glyn Jones said: “The operations are now a regular part of our work.
“We change the places where we make the stops. We also use motorcycle riders to look for lorries in the area to shepherd them to stop points where they can be thoroughly checked.”
The checks are part of a wider safety operation monitoring the safety of heavy goods vehicles.
There has been no specific intelligence warning of an attack involving tankers – but in 1996, a tanker attack on the Khobar Towers housing project in Saudi Arabia claimed the lives of 19 American servicemen.
September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed plotted to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago using fuel tankers.