The Bush administration arrested three men and charged a fourth with attempting to blow up fuel tanks at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City. Federal authorities said the plot could have caused "unthinkable devastation".Didn't Israel bomb the Beirut airport just last summer? The picture above shows the results of that bombing. CNN reported:
Israeli airstrikes and artillery hammered hundreds of targets in Lebanon, including two strikes on the Beirut airport, where helicopter gunships left craters in runways and turned fuel tanks into fireballs. (Watch the strike on Beirut's airport -- :44)
While the fuel tanks at JFK could be larger than those at Rafik Hariri International Airport, don't we have some idea of the kind of damage such explosions cause? Haaretz reported the following:
IAF helicopter gunships late Thursday unleashed missiles on Beirut international airport, setting fuel tanks ablaze, in the second attack on Lebanon's only international air facility, Lebanese security officials and the Israel Defense Forces said.
One helicopter gunship raked the fuel depots with machine gun fire while three others fired air-to-surface missiles, the officials added.TV footage showed flames shooting up from the airport.
"We attacked fuel containers near Beirut airport that were used by the airport. As with the runway attacks, this was aimed to prevent the transport of weapons and the hostages from the area," an IDF spokesman said.
Israel sent three missiles into the Beirut airport in addition to the helicopter gunships mentioned above. The Guardian has a picture of that from afar.
"An Israel air force major general said the Lebanese offensive was Israel's largest ever in the country "if you measure it in number of targets hit in one night [and] the complexity of the strikes".
The Israeli military said it targeted Beirut airport because it was a "central hub for the transfer of weapons and supplies to the Hizbullah terrorist organisation". It was the first time since the 1982 invasion that the airport had been struck by Israel and flights were diverted to Cyprus.
How does the Israeli firepower launched over a series of days from planes, helicopters and ships compare to the 4 plotters' plans? As for unthinkable damage, I believe Americans can envision its horrific scope, but my guess is people in war torn countries have a much better idea...
One helicopter gunship raked the fuel depots with machine gun fire while three others fired air-to-surface missiles, the officials added.TV footage showed flames shooting up from the airport.
"We attacked fuel containers near Beirut airport that were used by the airport. As with the runway attacks, this was aimed to prevent the transport of weapons and the hostages from the area," an IDF spokesman said.
Israel sent three missiles into the Beirut airport in addition to the helicopter gunships mentioned above. The Guardian has a picture of that from afar.
"An Israel air force major general said the Lebanese offensive was Israel's largest ever in the country "if you measure it in number of targets hit in one night [and] the complexity of the strikes".
The Israeli military said it targeted Beirut airport because it was a "central hub for the transfer of weapons and supplies to the Hizbullah terrorist organisation". It was the first time since the 1982 invasion that the airport had been struck by Israel and flights were diverted to Cyprus.
How does the Israeli firepower launched over a series of days from planes, helicopters and ships compare to the 4 plotters' plans? As for unthinkable damage, I believe Americans can envision its horrific scope, but my guess is people in war torn countries have a much better idea...
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