Islamist plot to kill British Prime Minster Theresa May foiled.

UK Prime Minster Theresa May. Sky News. 

An Islamist plot to kill British Prime Minster Theresa May has been foiled. Sky News. Two men were arrested for the plot and are scheduled to appear in court. The plan was to detonate an explosive device at 10 Downing Street and then stab May to death in the ensuing chaos. The plot is the latest terror plot in the UK that has been foiled. Nine other plots have been disrupted in the past year but several others, including attacks on the Westminster bridge and the Manchester arena. British Prime Minsters have been targets for terrorist plots before and have quite a bit of security. 

My Comment:

A very serious plot disrupted by the Brits. I don't think it was going to be successful, but that's fairly irrelevant. Even if the plot failed in its goal in killing the Prime Minster, it would have likely caused quite a few deaths. Setting of a bomb at 10 Downing Street would have caused a huge amount of chaos and could have killed quite a few people. And the emotional impact of having a world leader targeted, even if it failed, would be huge. 

Was the Prime Minster in any danger? I don't doubt it. While Theresa May is well protected there is no predicting what could happen during a major terror attack. It isn't very likely but it is possible that these guys could have gotten extremely lucky. She very well could have been wounded or killed. 

Still, it seems fairly unlikely that she would have been killed unless she somehow got caught in the initial blast. May has armed guards and there are gun units protecting any major government building in the UK. Two men trying to charge the Prime Minster would likely get shot before they got anywhere near her, even in the aftermath of a major bombing. And that's assuming that they could find where she was, which is no sure thing. It's even possible that their attack would happen when she wasn't there. 

It is unclear if these terrorists were working for a larger group. If they were I bet this was an ISIS plot. It is possible that this was al-Qaeda or some other terrorist group, but I find that unlikely. ISIS has long considered world leaders a legitimate target and have made threats against them before. Most famously during the Paris attack, one of the terrorist targets was French president Francois Hollande. That attack only failed because the attackers couldn't get into the stadium that he was in. 

I do think that this was probably part of a larger plot and not a lone wolf attack. Generally speaking when explosives are involved it's pretty rare to have a lone wolf. Explosives are not something that is easily obtained anywhere so you have to have connections to get them. A lone wolf attack is possible but I find it unlikely. If this was a lone wolf attack I am guessing trying to secure explosives is why they were caught. 

I have long predicted that ISIS would eventually attack a world leader. I personally thought it would be the Pope, but I am not surprised it was Theresa May that was plotted against. Her country has a huge problem with Islamic Extremism and attacking here would be a propaganda coup for ISIS or any other terrorist group. I doubt this will be the last plot targeting a world leader and I would not be surprised at all if one eventually succeeds. 

I also don't know how far along this plot was. It is possible that this was just the initial plan. The attackers may have eventually realized that their plan was a bit over ambitious and picked an easier target. That has long been a problem with terrorists. They often go for spectacular attacks that are much easier to detect and prevent. Had these guys simply used knives to stab a bunch of people there is almost no chance that they wouldn't have at least hurt someone. Instead they are heading to jail having accomplished next to nothing.  

I do have to say that it seems as though the UK has their priorities backwards. Recently they have been furious with Donald Trump for tweeting out some anti-extremist videos. Those videos were just actual records of bad behavior by Muslims (one of the videos is disputed) but the UK treated it as a international incident. Trump famously told May that she should focus on terrorism and extremism. It seems as though Trump was pretty obviously right. Whatever you think of his tweets, he was right when he said May should focus on terrorism since she was a direct target of a foiled attack...