The drama unfolded last Wednesday on the 3am Monarch flight from Malaga. Several passengers, many with young families, refused to board after spotting the two Asian men in coats and jumpers in the departure lounge.

And more stormed off the Airbus 320 shortly before take-off when word spread that they had been overheard talking in Arabic. The men - in their 20s - were then escorted off flight ZB613 by armed Spanish airport police and quizzed before later being cleared to return to Britain.

The packed holiday jet, with 150 passengers and seven crew, was emptied and searched.

Passengers later defended their actions and said the pair had also continually checked their watches before boarding.

College lecturer Jo Schofield, 38, said: "People had been talking about them. They looked dodgy." Husband Heath, 40, added: "Some passengers were panicky and in tears. There was a lot of talk about terrorism."

Muslim Council of Britain boss Muhammad Abdul Bari said last night: "While it is sensible for all of us to be vigilant, it is not sensible to pick on Muslims simply because they happen to dress differently or appear to be speaking to each other in Arabic."

A Monarch spokesman said: "The captain was concerned about the security surrounding the two gentlemen and the decision was taken to remove them for further security checks."

Cabin crew informed Spanish authorities and the men were ordered off the Monarch Airlines flight and questioned by police for several hours. They were eventually cleared and put on an alternative flight.

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said the incident demonstrated the "the high level of suspicion that ordinary Muslims are often being unfairly subjected to" and said that many Muslims were being treated as if they were "guilty unless proven innocent".

Similar incidents in which people of Asian or Middle Eastern appearances have been targeted by fellow passengers have been reported on pilots' and cabin crews' websites, including one in which two British women with young children on a flight from Spain apparently complained about a bearded Muslim man - even though he was security checked twice before boarding the plane.

Mr Bari said he hoped it would not lead to a growing culture of targeting Muslims. "While it is of course sensible for all of us to be vigilant, it is not sensible to pick on Muslims simply because they happen to dress differently or appear to be speaking to each other in Arabic," he said.

The plane bound from Malaga, which had 150 passengers on board, was due to take off at around 3am, last Wednesday, but was delayed by around three hours after three families refused to enter the Airbus 320 aircraft unless the men were removed, and a further two families with children left the plane in protest

Heath Schofield, an industrial chemical salesman from Cheshire, who was travelling with his wife and two daughters, Emily, 15, and Isobel, 12, said some passengers had become alarmed by the men's appearance. "We were coming back to Britain with a load of people in flipflops and shorts but the two men were wearing jumpers and leather jackets," he said.

His wife, Jo Schofield, a college lecturer, said there was a "pin-drop's silence" when the men entered the cabin, and that theywere eventually led off by police, with their heads bowed, as people watched in silence. She said suspicion was aroused after a passenger had earlier claimed to have heard them say something alarming in Arabic.

She said she was "frightened" by how quickly people's attitudes had changed and was worried for the future. "For years we have put a lot of time and effort as a society into making Britain culturally diverse and politically correct with equal opportunities and now people are changing their opinions.People are becoming frightened and are judging and labelling people," Mrs Schofield said.

Muslim community leaders in Manchester were outraged. Councillor Afzal Khan, a former lord mayor, described the incident as the "rule of the mob" and said that he was "disappointed" at the decision to eject the men from the flight

But a spokesman for Monarch defended their decision. "The captain was concerned about the security surrounding the two gentlemen on the aircraft and the decision was taken to remove them for further security checks."

© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited

The shootings occurred despite heavy security measures imposed by US and Iraqi forces that included a weekend driving ban in the capital. About 1,000 people were killed during the Shiite holiday last year when rumors of a suicide bomber triggered a stampede.

The killings on Sunday highlighted tensions between Sunni and Shia Muslims that is claiming about 100 lives a day in Iraq and stoking fears that the country is moving towards a full-blown civil war. In July alone, the Baghdad morgue reported more than eighteen hundred violent deaths.

In a sign of how routine the killings have become, the US military reported "relatively little violence" following Sunday's attacks.

Earlier this month, a delegation of peace activists from the United States met with Iraqi parliament members in Amman Jordan to discuss issues concerning Iraq's reconciliation plan as well as the withdrawal of US troops. The delegation met with representatives of the largest Shia and Sunni groups as well as with religious leaders and human rights organizations.

We speak with Raed Jarrar, the Iraq Project Director for Global Exchange about his trip to the Middle East. But first he talks about how he was barred from boarding a flight at JFK airport because he was wearing a T-Shirt bearing Arabic script.

* Raed Jarrar, Iraq Project Director for Global Exchange. He is an Iraqi blogger and architect. His runs a popular blog called "Raed in the Middle."

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate - $25, $50, $100, more...

AMY GOODMAN: Raed Jarrar joins us in a studio in San Francisco, the Iraq Project Director for Global Exchange. He is an Iraqi blogger and architect, who runs a popular blog called "Raed in the Middle." Before we talk about the latest in Iraq, Raed, I wanted to ask you about -- well, starting at the end, your trip home, how you made it back to the United States.

RAED JARRAR: I made it back to the United States in a very easy way. In fact, the incident that happened in JFK was not related to my trip, because I went back to D.C. I spent a day in D.C. Then I took the bus to New York. I spent a couple of days in New York. There was an event there. Then I was supposed to take my airplane, my Jet Blue airplane from JFK to Oakland in California last Saturday. So I went to the airport in the morning, and I was prevented to go to my airplane by four officers, because I was wearing this t-shirt that says "We will not be silent" in both Arabic and English. And I was told by one of the officials that wearing a t-shirt with Arabic script in an airport now is like going to a bank with a t-shirt that reads, "I am a robber."

AMY GOODMAN: That's what the security said to you?

RAED JARRAR: Yeah. I was questioned by four officials from -- I think some of them were from Jet Blue and others were maybe policemen or FBI. I have no idea. I took their names and badge numbers, and I filed a complaint through ACLU against them, because I asked them very directly to let me go to the airplane, because it's my constitutional right as a U.S. taxpayer and resident to wear a t-shirt with Arabic script. And they prevented to let me exercise this right, and they made me cover the script with another t-shirt.

AMY GOODMAN: So they said you could not fly if you wore your t-shirt that said, "We will not be silent"?

RAED JARRAR: Yes. They said that very clearly.

AMY GOODMAN: I was just looking at another piece in the Daily Mail of Britain, which says, "British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny -- refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed. The extraordinary scenes happened after some of the 150 passengers on a Malaga-Manchester flight overheard two men of Asian appearance apparently talking Arabic. Passengers told cabin crew they feared for their safety and demanded police action. Some stormed off the Monarch Airlines Airbus [...] minutes before it was due to leave the Costa del Sol at 3am. Others waiting for [another flight] in the departure lounge refused to board it [until the men speaking Arabic were taken off the plane]."

RAED JARRAR: And, Amy, there was a similar story from San Francisco last week, with a Canadian doctor called Ahmed Farooq, who was prevented to complete his airplane, because he was praying in his seat. So, I think, you know, these incidents are increasing, because of the latest alleged terror attack.

AMY GOODMAN: Also in this article it talks about others, as you were just talking about. "Websites used by pilots and cabin crew were [...] reporting further incidents. In one, two British women with young children on another flight from Spain complained about flying with a bearded Muslim even though he had been security-checked twice before boarding." Raed Jarrar, let's talk about the larger context right now of the Middle East and what's happening. Can you talk about your trip, why you went on this CODEPINK-sponsored trip to Amman, what you learned there? And then we'll talk about the latest in Iraq.

RAED JARRAR: The trip was an answer for what Mr. al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, have done when he came to the U.S. Global Exchange and CODEPINK and other organizations, United for Peace and Justice, we tried to contact Mr. al-Maliki before he came to the U.S. during his last visit and requested a meeting with him. We asked him to meet with representatives of the antiwar movement and to speak with them about, you know, some proposals or ways of supporting the Iraq reconciliation plan, and, you know, what can be done from the U.S. side to finish the occupation of Iraq. Unfortunately, Mr. al-Maliki prefers to just go have some meetings with the U.S. Bush administration's officials and maybe he met the troops and thanked them for, quote/unquote, "liberating Iraq," and he denied -- he refused to meet with the representatives of the peace movement.

That's why we put together a meeting with Iraqi representatives from the Iraqi parliament to discuss with them alternative solutions for the current occupation in Iraq. So we put together three major meetings with representatives from the biggest Sunni coalition in the parliament, the biggest Shia coalition in the parliament, and the biggest working secular and liberal group in the Iraqi parliament, because we wanted to find other channels in dealing with the Iraqi government, other than al-Maliki and the few people around him, who are repeating the same Bush administration's lies and excuses for keeping the troops there.

So our meetings were very fruitful, in fact, especially the one with the mainstream Sunni and Shia parties, because we got this strong united message from Iraqi Sunnis and Shia demanding a timetable for pulling out the U.S. troops. And they were very clear about demanding to take their country back. They said, "We want our country back. We want the U.S. troops to put a timetable for withdrawing the troops, because our country is deteriorating. The situation is getting worse, and the U.S. has proven that they cannot control Iraq. So we want our country back. And we want the U.S. to leave." And this contradicts completely with al-Maliki's shameful position, when he came to the U.S., you know, and gave the exact different or opposite image.

So I think the visit was important for us as representatives of the peace movement, to deliver this important message, even from the Iraqi government, that many people are still calling it a puppet government in the U.S. When you come to the Iraqi parliament, there is a vast majority of parliamentarians who are requesting an end of this war and dealing with its consequences by either compensating Iraqis or fixing the destruction that happened because of the illegal war.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Raed Jarrar, the Iraqi Project Director for Global Exchange, runs the popular blog, "Raed in the Middle." We'll be back with him to talk about some newspaper reports of private meetings President Bush has been having, discussions of whether democracy should be supported in Iraq and also questioning why the Iraqi people aren't expressing more gratitude. We'll also play a clip of John McCain calling for more troops in Iraq and get Raed Jarrar's reaction. Stay us with.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is Raed Jarrar, joining us from a studio in San Francisco, just back from a trip to the Middle East. Raed, I wanted to get your response to Arizona Senator John McCain, who said this Sunday he still thinks more troops are needed on the ground in Iraq. His comments came in an interview on NBC's Meet the Press. Host David Gregory asked McCain about U.S. troop levels in Iraq.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: The question is, are we going to be able to bring the situation under control now? I still believe we can. I think part of it has to do with the Mahdi Army and Sadr. Sadr has got to be taken out of this equation, and his militia has got to be addressed forcefully.

DAVID GREGORY: But to do that, do you need more U.S. soldiers on the ground now?

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: I think so. I think so. We took troops from places like Ramadi, which are still not under control, to put them into Baghdad. We've had to send in additional troop, as they are. All along, we have not had enough troops on the ground to control the situation. Many, many people knew that. And it's -- we're paying a very heavy price for it.

AMY GOODMAN: Raed Jarrar, if you could respond to Arizona Senator McCain.

RAED JARRAR: I don't know that there is a lot to be responded to, because it seems that, you know, many people in the administration are still not getting it. They're not getting that the situation in Iraq will not get any better by sending more troops and by killing more people and by increasing the violence in Iraq. And then, the only way out of Iraq is to depend on Iraqis and believe in the right of Iraqis in ruling themselves, to believe in democracy for Iraqis, for real, not the American way.

So sending more troops will make things more complicated. It will increase more clashes. And this myth of destroying al-Sadr's movement is just a big joke, because al-Sadr movement is expected or, like, estimated to contain around five million Iraqis. So, I don't know how many U.S. troops have to be sent to destroy five million Iraqis.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the latest violence in Iraq? It's painful, it seems, that any question you ask about Iraq has to talk about the latest violence there, but this weekend, the shooting of the Shia pilgrimage.

RAED JARRAR: Yeah. In fact, the violence was even bigger, because there are people who are trying to trigger more sectarian violence in Iraq. So what happened is that there were attacks against Shia pilgrims from Sunni neighborhoods. And, you know, no one claimed responsibility, because of these things. And in the same time, there were attacks on Sunni mosques from people who were, you know, just gathered or joined the pilgrims moving. So there are people who are trying to interfere in this relationship between Sunnis and Shia to, you know, destabilize Iraq or to justify the foreign troops' presence in Iraq, because it seems that it's the only -- the last excuse for the Bush administration and other administrations that are trying to stay in Iraq, to say, "We are there to prevent a full-scale civil war," and "We are there to protect Iraqis from each other."

Why don't you go and talk to any Iraqi in the street or talk with Iraqi leaders, elected officials or civil society leaders? All of them blame the occupation for the current sectarian violence, and all of them realize that Iraqis have been living in harmony and peace for the last 1,400 years. And none of these incidents used to happen before the occupation started in Iraq. So people blame the occupation there, and people say, "The day that the occupation will leave Iraq, this sectarian violence will go down. We know how to deal with our problems by ourselves. We know how to take out these people who are trying to increase the civilian conflict and civilian and sectarian tension in Iraq."

So mostly people are accusing the U.S., unfortunately, of interfering to increase the sectarian violence, because they see that it's the Bush administration's benefit to increase this violence and justify longer presence in Iraq, longer interference in Iraq. And, like, you know, it's widely used now as the only justification.

AMY GOODMAN: Raed Jarrar, I wanted to read you a few paragraphs from the New York Times. It says, "Some outside experts who have recently visited the White House said Bush administration officials are beginning to plan for the possibility that Iraq's democratically elected government might not survive. 'Senior administration officials have acknowledged to me that they are considering alternatives other than democracy,' said one military affairs expert who received an Iraq briefing at the White House last month," and agreed to speak on condition of anonymity. He said, "Everybody in the administration is being quite circumspect," the expert said, "but you can sense their own concern that this is drifting away from democracy." Your response?

RAED JARRAR: My response is that this is very expected since the day that the U.S. entered Iraq. There were many observers who were expecting another Algeria case to happen in Iraq, where the U.S. would reach to a position and discover that the majority, or the majority ruling Iraq, the Shia majority that is ruling Iraq now, it will turn into anti-occupation, and they have better and stronger relationships to their neighbors in Iran than their relationships to the U.S. So it's not in the benefit of the U.S. to let this, you know, even a very primitive and weak democracy in Iraq to be growing.

We shouldn't forget, by the way, that the U.S. was against building a democratic system from the beginning. When Paul Bremer first went to Iraq, he just selected 13 people and made the governing council. And the Iraqi Shia went to the streets, and they demanded to have elections. They wanted to have an elected government, instead of the selected government that the U.S. brought -- you know, some of these usually imported puppets that the U.S. brought with. So the U.S. did not really come with a democratic project, because they knew that they will end up having nationalists, anti-occupation people, who, if they wanted to have any good relationships with someone from outside Iraq, it would not be the U.S. It would be Iran, or it would be other Arab and Islamic countries.

So the U.S. now is realizing this, especially after the war on Lebanon, where Iraqi Shia, like especially al-Sadr movement, spoke very, very strongly against the attack on Lebanon, and the people went in the streets in big demonstrations, carrying Lebanese and Iraqi flags and saying, "We want to fight against the occupations of the region. We want to fight against the British, the American, and the Israeli occupations." So it's clear now for the U.S. that what happened in Iraq during the last three years actually produced an anti-occupation government, and all of the attempts of claiming this government and saying, "We are there because the Iraqis want us," are failing now.

So the U.S. will try to go back to their original plan and put -- just insert yet another dictatorship in the Middle East that will be -- that will listen to what the U.S. will be saying, another dictatorship like Egypt or Jordan or Saudi Arabia or like, you know, the many other dictatorships supported by the U.S. So they want to insert yet another dictatorship regime in Iraq and forget about all of these big slogans of democracy, because, you know, it doesn't work for them.

AMY GOODMAN: Raed, you also traveled to Syria, where you visited a number of Lebanese refugee camps. Thousands of people fled to Syria following Israel's attack on Lebanon. Can you talk about what you saw there and the level of support for Hezbollah in Syria?

RAED JARRAR: The level of support of Hezbollah in Syria and in Jordan is unbelievable. I mean, I lived all of my life between Jordan and Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and I have never seen so much support of Hezbollah or, like, supporting Hezbollah this much, at least. But this time, especially in Damascus, you can't go to a street without finding a Hezbollah flag. You can't go to a place without finding Hezbollah posters, Nasrallah posters with Bashar al-Assad, and even sometimes the Iranian President Ahmadinejad. They have all of these pictures, like all around the streets.

And people were furious against the U.S., people were furious against Israel. And, I mean, even for me, I mean, it was such a, like, catch-22, because even for me as an Arab and Muslim who just immigrated to the U.S. last year, I was shouted at, because I'm a U.S. taxpayer, and I was accused with other people in the delegation who went to visit one shelter where Lebanese refugees were staying. We were accused of funding the war and buying these bombs by our money. So we were kicked out of these refugee camps, because they told us, "If you are good Americans, go and try to stop your government. Don't come here and apologize in our shelters."

So you can feel that even the sense of anti-Americanism and, like, hatred to the U.S. increased very much in a very unfortunate way that even prevents us, as people who are representing the antiwar or peace and justice movement, from going there. It's like burned bridges with many countries in the Middle East. And like, you know, it made Israel and the U.S. less secure, made Hezbollah, as a means or tool for armed resistance, one of the only choices that people are supporting. So what happened there during the last one month's war against Lebanon is so tragic. It's just a tragic, devastating political mistake that turned the region into more extremism and into more potentiality to have violence.

AMY GOODMAN: Raed Jarrar, I want to thank you very much for being with us, Iraq Project Director for Global Exchange, Iraqi blogger and architect. His blog is called "Raed in the Middle."

To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click here for our new online ordering or call 1 (888) 999-3877.

A spokesman for Pakistan's Interior Ministry last night admitted that 'extradition at this time is not under consideration'.

Wow, who would have thought it? You mean there might be less than meets the eye about the Great London Bomb Plot, when George W. Bush single handedly foiled the imminent death of thousands of people by using his super-president powers of warrantless wiretapping? (That is how the story is being pitched by Bush minions like the cadaverous Michael Chertoff and the chubby-cheeked enabler of torture Al Gonzales, right?)

But if even the CIA's old running buddies in the Pakistan secret services can't wring enough plausible evidence out of Rauf with their renowned methods of information extraction, could it be that the whole great googily-moogily is about to unravel? Wise man William Blum has this take:

"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear -- kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor -- with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant funds demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real." -- General Douglas MacArthur, 1957.

....From what is typical in terrorist scares, it is likely that the individuals arrested in the UK August 10 are guilty of what George Orwell, in 1984, called "thoughtcrimes". That is to say, they haven't actually DONE anything. At most, they've THOUGHT about doing something the government would label "terrorism". Perhaps not even very serious thoughts, perhaps just venting their anger at the exceptionally violent role played by the UK and the US in the Mideast and thinking out loud how nice it would be to throw some of that violence back in the face of Blair and Bush. And then, the fatal moment for them that ruins their lives forever ... their angry words are heard by the wrong person, who reports them to the authorities. (In the Manhattan flood case the formidable, dangerous "terrorists" made mention on an Internet chat room about blowing something up.)

Soon a government agent provocateur appears, infiltrates the group, and then actually encourages the individuals to think and talk further about terrorist acts, to develop real plans instead of youthful fantasizing, and even provides the individuals with some of the actual means for carrying out these terrorist acts, like explosive material and technical know-how, money and transportation, whatever is needed to advance the plot. It's known as "entrapment", and it's supposed to be illegal, it's supposed to be a powerful defense for the accused, but the authorities get away with it all the time; and the accused get put away for very long stretches. And because of the role played by the agent provocateur, we may never know whether any of the accused, on their own, would have gone much further, if at all, like actually making a bomb, or, in the present case, even making transatlantic flight reservations since many of the accused reportedly did not even have passports. Government infiltrating and monitoring is one thing; encouragement, pushing the plot forward, and scaring the public to make political capital from it is quite something else.

For more on the Bush Gang's penchant for manufacturing terror for fun and profit, see:
Into the Dark: The Pentagon Plan to Foment Terrorism
Darkness Visible: The Pentagon Plan to Foment Terrorism is Now Operative


The original Daily Mail story came to us via Kurt Nimmo, who adds this telling gloss:

How fortuitous, especially for the neocons and Bush's Ministry of Homeland Security, busily working to trounce the Constitution and turn America into a snoop and police state.

"Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff called on state legislators Thursday to embrace new federal driver's license requirements to strengthen security," reports the Associated Press. "Starting three years from now, if you live or work in the United States, you'll need a federally approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments, or take advantage of nearly any government service. Practically speaking, your driver's license likely will have to be reissued to meet federal standards," explained CNet News in March. In addition to name, birth date, sex, ID number, a digital photograph, and address, "Homeland Security is permitted to add additional requirements-such as a fingerprint or retinal scan-on top of those." In short, without this new card, slotted to go online by 2008, you will be unable to function in society.

Yeah, but with all the extra security keeping us so safe, they'll probably let you take your Metamucil on a plane. That's enough freedom for anybody, right?

Chris Floyd is an American journalist. He is the author of the book, Empire Burlesque: The Secret History of the Bush Regime. He has been a writer and editor for more than 20 years, working in the United States, Great Britain and Russia for various newspapers, magazines, the U.S. government and Oxford University. Visit his website www.chris-floyd.com

A passenger on the flight, Heath Schofield, explained the suspicions. "It was a return holiday flight, full of people in flip-flops and shorts. There were just two people in the whole crowd who looked like they didn't belong there."

Were these legitimate fears or is this group hysteria? How did not wearing flip-flops become a danger sign?

"What's happening informally is that people are applying their own version of terrorist profiling," says psychologist Gary Fitzgibbon.

"It's filtered down to the public that anyone who looks like a Muslim is potentially a terrorist. And what happens in groups is that you get people saying that somebody fits the profile."

Mass hysteria?

This type of airline queue speculation might usually be dismissed, but a combination of heightened security fears and group pressure can turn such fears into a much stronger and more volatile force.

"Rumour gets raised to the level of fact. People forget that this is just people talking among themselves... and if someone pretends to know something, they get more attention, which in turn makes them seem more authoritative.

"And the group itself becomes an authority and legitimises its own behaviour. It becomes judge and jury. Group pressure can make individuals lose all sense of objectivity."

Once the group has identified somebody as behaving strangely, this can then become self-fulfilling, says Dr Fitzgibbon.

"There's the 'audience effect', which means that if people are aware that they're being looked at, their behaviour can become awkward and self-conscious."

Judgement call

But this doesn't necessarily mean that people are paranoid, says an expert in fear, psychologist Emma Citron. Instead she says that people who are already stressed by safety fears and the pressure of air travel are trying to make sense of the information they've received.

"We all gather information and make judgements. You're making a decision - and you want to make sure you're safe. And given all the hype about terror in the media, you do feel that you're under threat, that you are in a dangerous situation, therefore it's not surprising that there are extreme reactions."

But when feelings are running so high, the way information is used becomes distorted: "Not lying as such, but people will invent things, put together a story."

And airports are unlike most other settings. Bristling with security, surrounded by warning signs, with passengers constantly reminded of the threat, with long queues and long looks - it's a pressure cooker for such suspicions.

There are psychological tools which could be useful for improving security, says Dr Citron, such as observing passengers' physical movements. There are types of behaviour that are indicative of threat - someone with high levels of adrenaline, who looks to be in a highly-charged state, is likely to exhibit more body movements, be less relaxed.

Ethical dilemma

But if innocent passengers are being thrown off flights, doesn't it suggest that suspicions can soon descend into a type of mob rule?

Ethicist Daniel Sokol, of Imperial College London, says moral judgement can be distorted by strong emotions - including fear. If passengers are afraid, they can lose their rational sense of weighing up evidence.

"For the arachnophobic, the sight of a tiny spider can override any rational beliefs about their harmlessness. In times of psychological stress and anxiety, it becomes particularly difficult to strike a balance between reason and emotion."

Philosopher and author, Julian Baggini, says that "from the outside these [situations] always appear appalling".

But he says that it's a "sad fact of human nature" that when people feel under threat they often behave differently towards those they perceive as strangers.

Transatlantic passengers found their position unchanged with all cosmetics and liquids banned from the flight cabin, even if they were bought at duty free shops before boarding.

It emerged last night that the BAA directive was its interpretation of the instructions issued last week by the Department for Transport.

Some airports were taking a different line. Cardiff, for example, allowed passengers to take talcum powder, lipstick and eyeliner through security as long as they were X-rayed before being allowed into the departure lounge.

Birmingham airport's website said it was still allowing passengers to take lipstick on board. However, it explicitly banned gel-filled bras.

A spokesman for the airport said that talcum powder could be brought through security but any liquid "which moves about" - such as mascara, lip gloss, blushers and perfume - could be taken on board only if bought after security checks.

The discrepancy in airports' policy meant that passengers flying on airlines such as British Airways, KLM or bmibaby were finding that different rules applied depending on where they started their journey.

Thomsonfly was advising its passengers to refer to the relevant airport's website, rather than imposing restrictions of its own. But last night the airline added: "If in doubt leave it out."

BA said it was telling its customers that they should check with the airport itself.

On the other hand, Ryanair was trying to enforce the same rules at all United Kindom airports. It interpreted the department rules as banning lipstick and all cosmetics on all flights.

There was even more confusion as a result of airlines imposing their own rules. These included Onur Air, a Turkish company, which has banned all liquids being taken on to an aircraft.

The varying manner in which the restrictions has been enforced has annoyed the passenger watchdog body the Air Transport Users' Council.

A spokesman said: "We are really looking for more clarification because at the moment people are turning up for flights not knowing what they can take on board."

Last night thousands of holidaymakers were facing the prospect of travelling with only hand luggage because of the bank holiday strike threatened by ground staff employed at Stansted airport. - Channel Tunnel rail services were suspended for more than three hours yesterday after a smoke alarm was activated on a freight shuttle.

FBI sources confirmed to The Observer that the bureau had been ordered to stop briefing at the request of the British authorities. 'The shutters have come down,' a bureau source said. 'We have been told not to discuss the case any more.'

The request for silence by the British authorities is an early sign that those involved in the investigation have concerns at the way their evidence-gathering is proceeding. It is understood that British anti-terror police wanted to prolong their observation of the suspects for as long as possible in a bid to gather sufficient evidence. There are now fears among some Scotland Yard officers that they may have acted too hastily when deciding to arrest the 24 suspects earlier this month. Although martydom videos and the components of a bomb have been recovered in the investigation, linking such evidence to all those arrested could still prove difficult.

The Home Office maintains the police had no choice but to act when a key suspect, Rashid Rauf, was arrested in Pakistan earlier this month, triggering concerns the alleged terrorist cell would either scatter or look to implement the plot as soon as possible. A call from an unknown person to a suspect in Britain - alerting him to Rauf's arrest - is believed to have been intercepted by Pakistan intelligence.

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has hinted several of those arrested will not face major charges. So far there has been one further arrest while two have been released without charge.