British-Pakistani effort thwarted terror 'dry run'

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British and Pakistani officials stepped up an eight-month investigation to prevent a "dry run" of a terrorist attack to blow up more than 10 U.S. airplanes flying between the U.S. and the United Kingdom arresting 24 suspects.

The terrorist suspects had been under surveillance since December and the plot could have been carried out "within days," officials said.

U.S. officials publicly congratulated Britain for the arrest, but privately two officials suggested that electronic surveillance of terror suspects in Pakistan and Britain provided the initial clues to the plot. Several news organizations, including ABC, Fox and CNN, reported last night that a British undercover agent was able to penetrate the terrorist cell.

British authorities decided to take action and arrest as many people linked to the plot as possible Wednesday before they could carry out the planned "dry run" to determine whether they could smuggle the contraband onboard, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

British security officials "decided that no way were they going to allow those guys to get on the planes, because what if they were not doing a dry run?" said one federal security official.

As of yesterday, 24 suspects had been arrested and more were thought to be at large. Officials declined to specify a number, but suggested that a plot to blow up 10 planes would likely involve about 50 terrorists.

The scheme sought to cause maximum psychological damage by using TATP -- the material thought to have been used in the July 2005 attacks on London's mass transit -- to explode the planes in flight and make the recovery of bodies difficult.

"The psychological impact of not knowing where your loved ones are is devastating," the official said. "The goal was to curtail international commerce because people would be so scared to fly internationally."

The introduction of TATP (triacetone triperoxide) to the aviation arena is a new development in the terrorist arsenal, the official said.

"It could cause catastrophic failure. Rest assured, these guys did their homework on where to place it," the official said.