Crypto Blamed for US terrorist attack - World Exclusive

[Nick Barnes]

At 2001-09-12 16:23:19+0000, "Owen Lewis" writes:

> The acts yesterday in NY, Washington and near Pittsburgh were purposefully
> designed to kill very large numbers of people. The final death toll may
> never be known with certainty but there is already reason to suppose that it
> will not be less then 50,000.

This is a considerable overestimate; the true figure seems likely to
be between 5K and 10K.  Even on Tuesday there weren't any level-headed
estimates higher than 20K.  I believe that the official unofficial
estimate of the WTC toll is now 5-6K.

> Perhaps only those with experience of military operations will fully
> appreciate the level of planning, discipline, expertise, coordination and
> self-sacrifice required to conduct yesterday's operation so successfully. It
> was a carefully organised and well run operation designed as an act of war.
> It is reasonable to assume that one or more 'terrorist' groups were involved
> in the implementation of the plan but it is improbable that such a plan
> could be brought to fruition without the knowledge of it and connivance in
> it by some state's government.

I see no evidence of this whatsoever.  There seem to have been between
10 and 20 hijackers actually on the planes (3-5 on each: the reports
from the Pennsylvania flight strongly indicate 3).  Given the total
lack of prior intelligence, it seems more likely to me that this was a
mid-sized terrorist group, with no more than 500 active members.
Undoubtedly using crypto to communicate, FWIW.

The key ingredient is pilot expertise.  There are thousands of
type-qualified 757/767 pilots, and experts are suggesting that these
need not even have been type-qualified: the 757 and 767 are famously
easy to fly and this flying, at least at the WTC, was not hard: ideal
weather conditions, no ATC, no takeoff, no landing.  The flying at DC
was more demanding.  The most we can say is that they were probably
commercial airline pilots.  Maybe not even that.  Possibly one real
pilot having trained a number of others on a sim ($100-$200/hour).

I cannot imagine any government anywhere conniving at this.  Iraq?
Libya?  North Korea?  Surely even the Taleban are not so foolish.

Nick Barnes