Isn't the Sunday Times owned by News Corp who also own that delightful propaganda engine Fox/Sky News??? They seem to have default settings for all their stories:

"Foreign national detained" = "Terrorist Bomber detained"

"Suspect questioned in child abduction case" = "Paedophile questioned in child abduction case"

oh and anything qualifies for "Breaking News" even if it happened yesterday.

Are widely considered allies of the Pashtun forces in the South of Afghanistan. Maybe these guys are on a watch list of that sort of agent provocateur.

They were deported to keep the so-called terror "threat" alive and save the faces of the incompetent police who arrested them in the first place. As they say there's no smoke without fire, and the myth that if they were deported then they must have been terrorists would be kept alive and the compliant ignorant media follows suit and stops asking questions.

Whilst I'm no fan of the current climate of FUD regarding "terrorism", isn't the occasional false positive inevitable from an active program trying to stop potential terrorist activity? And isn't it much preferable to the other way around?

Oooh, conspiracies! That's original... Not being pedantic, but if they were acting on a tip-off from French/Spanish intelligence agencies, then surely the fault lies with them and not the "incompetant police", since they were arrested leaving the plane and therefore no british police investigation would have taken place at that point...

I hate it when something involving foreign nationals automatically gets turned into the fact that it must be racist policeman and politicians trying to make war on everyone - yes this government sucks, yes its dragged us into wars we shouldn't be in for the wrong reasons, and a whole list of other unforgivable mess-ups, but that doesn't mean that simple mistakes aren't simple mistakes.

But don't worry, I still think you're made of a 50/50 mix of Win and 1337 :p

1. The meaning of the word "conspiracy" when used in conjunction with "theory" has been so debased by misuse anyone with a brain now ignores it and looks at the theory

2. Akbar's theory holds infinitely more water than yours

3. Your first paragraph is pretty pedantic AFAICS - "apologies for being pedantic" might have been more appropriate

4. Apologies for being pedantic but, if you're going to quote people, perhaps try copy and paste so you don't introduce spelling errors that make you look thick - never a good way to prevail in a discussion of rival theories, I find

5. The main thrust of the original story isn't about a mistake, it's about deliberate misrepresentation by The Times, so please take your straw men away, along with your last paragraph

If I were a foreign national arriving at a London airport - all innocent - and was arrested on suspicion of plotting terrorism, when I was eventually found to be innocent I doubt that I'd want to stick around in merrie olde Englande.

Deported? These guys probably couldn't get out of there fast enough.

An intriguing little story. Reminiscent of the USA immediately after 9/11, when quite a few Israeli spies were rounded up and put on planes back to Israel. Is there a conspiracy between MI5 and ISI to procure some islamic terrorism for the UK, and/or is Musharraf wanting to get a message to the US along the lines of Hands-off Pakistan and its nukes, or you'll get more than what you bargained for.

@ Daniel....yes...go on...blame the french!!

False positives like...

Iraq WMD / AQ connection?

John Charles De Menenes?

The Sarin Plot?

Liquid explosives on planes?

No conspiracy at all... right?

I'm not a Muslim but even I think the world has gone crazy. Everyone blames the Muslims for being "fundamentalist" and it smacks of the small Austrian-German bloke with the big paranoia prior to WWII. Ok, we're in a war at the minute, but we picked two countries, one that everyone has tried to conquer since Alexander the great: and FAILED!, and the other is just an oil grab.

I think that all this screwed-up news reporting and Intelligence Service manoeuvring is just to keep the whole country on its toes to remain skeptical about Mid-east Asian cultures because they just don't conform to the "Brit" stereotype.

I think we'll find out in a couple of years that its all about money in the end.

Duh.

"I think we'll find out in a couple of years that its all about money in the end."

Of course its about the money. Should read:

I think we'll find out in ten years that when we are using ethanol to power our cars, no one will care about the middle east any more."

Really. If there wasn't oil there, who would care? No one....

And I have to say, at least the UK gov makes arrests now and then and actually makes attempts to thwart nefarious plots. Here in the US, its business as usual. The goverment efforts are a joke and just cost money with no results.

The guardian article mentions a promise to delete fingerprints and DNA from police databases - why?

Simple mistake based upon faulty third party intel or not, how dare they remove these peoples DNA from the database when any normal arrestee, even if found innocent or not charged will have almost NO chance of having their spuriously collected details removed. Did these people have diplomatic immunity - there was no mention of it, as they were not on any diplomatic mission in England. Maybe it is because they are brown and we can't be seen to victimise non whites - on second thoughts, I don,t think that reasoning holds much water. I would be very interested to know why foreign nationals get a much more reasoned post arrest treatment than the English on our own soil. Pedantry aside, it is no doubt simply becuase they are members of the leading political party of a volatile country - seriously though, bollocks to that. Since when did it become ok for a foreigner to get treatment from the police that an English national could never realistically hope to get? Unless they lied, and won't delete the data - that would bring them back in line the normal state of affairs.

Yay for ass kissing politicos - a permanent fixture in England.

Do you know of any where that does not have arse kissing politicos.

There are Brown Nosers every where!!!!!