Ah, yes, thanks for the source ajay - though that sounds like a scientist speculating without knowing what the real attempt was based on. But if respectable scientists are talking about it, then there's a good link to the story starting.
As to the 'murder on an unprecedented scale' question, the 9/11 attacks killed 2,973 people (according to wikipedia). A standard 747 holds 416 passengers, so the ten (if fully laden) would have been a good deal more. But I have no idea how likely it is that they'd get ten full 747s whenever they tried their plan.
In any case, the scale is only unprecedented for certain values - it doesn't begin to compare to the holocaust, for example, unless we mean 'number killed in one day': even then, I wouldn't be surprised to find the holocaust was worse.
That line is just hysteria. And it just adds to the general hysteria, which is doing a huge amount of damage! I'm not sure it's worse than if the plan had worked - then we'd have all this and more. But it's certainly worse than any rational response to this threat, given that that would be "woohoo, we got them!" and on with our lives.
I'm with Jules. There are certainly binary explosives, but where does the suggestion that these guys were going to use them come from?
All the news I've seen has 'liquid explosives' in drink containers - not binary liquids or such.
I'm not saying that's not what the plan was, but I'd like to know the source of the idea we can all agree is ridiculously badly thought out.
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