UPDATE UK/US Terror Threat

from Breitbart
Attack was dry run

The plot folied on Thursday was merely a dry run. The actual attack would have followed within days. The suicide attackers planned to use a peroxide- based solution that could ignite when sparked by a camera flash or another electronic device. The test run was designed to see whether the plotters would be able to smuggle the needed materials aboard the planes.

from Time
US intelligence picked up chatter, passed along to UK

U.S. picked up the suspects' chatter and shared it with British authorities. Senior U.S officials have confirmed details of the plot that led the Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to ratchet up the color-coded security alert for British-U.S. flights to an unprecedented red for "Severe." A total of 24 individuals were arrested in Britain overnight and five still remain at large. Their plan was to smuggle the peroxide-based liquid explosive TATP and detonators onto nine different planes from four carriers — British Airways, Continental, United and American — that fly direct routes between the U.K and the U.S. and blow them up mid-air.

Intelligence officials estimate that about 2,700 people would have perished, according to the official. Britain's MI-5 intelligence service and Scotland Yard had been tracking the plot for several months, but only in the past two weeks had the plotters' planning begun to crystallize.

In the two or three days before the arrests, the cell was going operational, and authorities were pressed into action. MI5 and Scotland Yard agents tracked the plotters from the ground, while knowledgeable American intelligence provided London authorities with intercepts of the group's communications.

from ABC News
Explosive gel was to be concealed in sports drink

The suspected terror plotters arrested in Britain had planned to conceal their liquid or gel explosives inside a modified sports beverage drink container and trigger the device with the flash from a disposable camera.

The plotters planned to leave the top of the bottle sealed and filled with the original beverage but add a false bottom, filled with a liquid or gel explosive. The terrorists planned to dye the explosive mixture red to match the sports drink sealed in the top half of the container.

This, they thought, would ensure that they would be able to pass through security -- even if they were asked to unseal and drink the beverage.

The flash in a disposable camera has enough electrical power, they apparently believed, to set off the homemade explosive.