Angry in the Great White North

August 21, 2005:

SCOTLAND YARD believes it has thwarted an Al-Qaeda gas attack aimed at ministers and MPs in parliament. The plot, hatched last year, is understood to have been discovered in coded e-mails on computers seized from terror suspects in Britain and Pakistan.

Police and MI5 then identified an Al-Qaeda cell that had carried out extensive research and video-recorded reconnaissance missions in preparation for the attack.

The encrypted e-mails are said to have been decoded with the help of an Al-Qaeda “supergrass”. By revealing the terrorists’ code he was also able to help MI5 and GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre at Cheltenham, to crack several more plots.

November 5, 1605:

Guido Fawkes (April 13, 1570—January 31, 1606), most commonly called Guy Fawkes, was a member of a group of Roman Catholic conspirators who attempted to assassinate King James I and all the members of both branches of the Parliament of England by blowing up the building while they were assembled in the House of Lords building for the formal opening of the 1605 session of Parliament. The Gunpowder Plot was uncovered and the barrels of gunpowder defused before any damage was done.

It's been 400 years since the Gunpowder Plot was foiled. Here's hoping it's 400 years before the next try. Somehow I doubt it.