Authorities in Britain recently announced they had disrupted a major terrorist plot to blow up passenger flights between the United Kingdom and the United States using liquid explosives.

British Police said 21 people had been arrested in England after a long investigation into what was described as a plan for "mass murder on an unimaginable scale."

While the authorities have not concluded that the alleged perpetrators were members of Al-Qaeda, the Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism ( FMC) believes that current events and the set backs experienced by Al-Qaeda has put them in a position where they feel they must attack the United States or risk becoming totally irrelevant.

Over the last five years, Al-Qaeda has experienced numerous setbacks and strategic blunders that have caused it to lose a substantial number of its followers. In addition to the destruction of their infrastructure in Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda lost substantial support when it turned its murderous attacks against Muslims and Arabs. In fact, over the last three years, the majority of Al-Qaeda's victims were Muslims who were killed in places such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Indonesia, Egypt and various other countries. Consequently, most Muslims, including extremists came to see Al-Qaeda as a perpetual killing machine. Even designated terrorist organizations and radical groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, HAMAS and Hezbollah have criticized Al-Qaeda as a murderous organization.

Most recently the emotional and bloody conflict between Hezbollah and Israel has caused many in the Muslim world, even the extremists, to criticize Al-Qaeda even further by asking "what has Al-Qaeda done for the Muslims other than kill us and other innocent people." FMC has read numerous web sites and editorials from the Islamic world where Al-Qaeda is regularly criticized.

No doubt, Al-Qaeda leaders recognized this trend when Al-Qaeda's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, criticized the late Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, Al-Zarqawi, for killing Shiite Muslims. FMC believes that the recent conflict in the Middle East has made Al-Qaeda even more desperate and more irrelevant. Thus, FMC fears that in a desperate attempt to protect itself from extinction that Al-Qaeda will attempt a major terrorist operation against the United States and possibly even Israel although the latter is less likely.

In light of the danger posed by Al-Qaeda, FMC calls on the United States and the entire civilized world to be even more vigilant and to step up the effort to discover and root out Al-Qaeda's members and supporters.