Scotland Yard Foils Terrorist Plot

The lowdown:

A plot to blow up planes in flight from the UK to the US and commit "mass murder on an unimaginable scale" has been disrupted, Scotland Yard has said.

It is thought the plan was to detonate explosive devices smuggled in hand luggage on to as many as 10 aircraft.

Okay, so my first question is: How were the explosives smuggled onto 10 planes, and how (I misread; they weren't on the planes, apparently) were they all caught? What kind of explosives were they?

Prime Minister Tony Blair, on holiday in the Caribbean, paid tribute to the police and the security services.

He said they had tracked the situation for a "long period of time" and had "been involved in an extraordinary amount of hard work."

They tracked it for a long period of time, but didn’t stop it until the explosives had already been smuggled onto the planes? Does that strike anyone else as weird? And what happened to Tony Blair delaying his vacation?

BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera said the plot was thought to have involved a series of "waves" of simultaneous attacks, targeting three planes each time.

He also said the plan "revolved around liquids of some kind".

Hmm. Okay.

This bust is being hailed as foiling “mass murder on an unimaginable scale.” And I know I’m one seriously jaded chick, but I’ve got say it indeed does seem unimaginable, as in, I can’t imagine how this massive plot, which was thwarted with the help of US authorities, came so close to unfolding that explosive liquids were already on the planes, but 21 people were pulled off “as many as 10” planes just in time. Maybe this really is the most unbelievably awesome bust of all time, but I’d certainly like more details about how it came to pass before I crack open the bubbly.

UPDATE: Jill reports:

Bob Orr just said on The Early Show on CBS that the U.S. government has known about this for a few days. He wonders why, if knowledge of this plot is a few days old, additional safety measures to protect travelers have not been put in place until today.

Why indeed. Why, if you know that travelers are at risk because of a plot to blow up airliners in midair, do you not advise travelers the minute you know?

Good question.