3 Guilty in '06 UK Bomb Plot

Three men were convicted today of conspiracy to commit murder with homemade bombs, the BBC reports, but neither they nor five others were found guilty of plotting to blow up transatlantic flights in 2006. Their arrests, hailed as a major blow against terrorism, occasioned new airport regulations on liquids—soda was a key ingredient in the explosives—and caused vast scheduling chaos.

While British home secretary says “countless” lives were saved by disrupting the Al-Qaeda-inspired group, seven of the defendants who made so-called martyrdom videos say they planned only to make a political statement and did not intend to take lives. The home secretary says he might seek a retrial for some of the men. (More counterterrorism stories.)