I can kinda, maybe see the point of this article...

Now we have news of the recent, supposedly real-world, terrorist plot to destroy commercial airplanes by smuggling onboard the benign precursors to a deadly explosive, and mixing up a batch of liquid death in the lavatories. So, The Register has got to ask, were these guys for real, or have they, and the counterterrorist officials supposedly protecting us, been watching too many action movies?

I suggest reading the whole thing, which goes into some length to describe how incredibly difficult it really is to mix benign liquids together in an airplane, and be able to effectively create a large enough explosion to take down that plane.  And even if that's all true, I still find the author's attitude perplexing, especially when he says:

By now you'll be asking why these jihadist wannabes didn't conspire simply to bring TATP onto planes, colored with a bit of vegetable dye, and disguised as, say, a powdered fruit-flavored drink. The reason is that they would be afraid of failing: TATP is notoriously sensitive and unstable. Mainstream journalists like to tell us that terrorists like to call it "the mother of Satan." (Whether this reputation is deserved, or is a consequence of homebrewing by unqualified hacks, remains open to debate.)
...
We've given extraordinary credit to a collection of jihadist wannabes with an exceptionally poor grasp of the mechanics of attacking a plane, whose only hope of success would have been a pure accident. They would have had to succeed in spite of their own ignorance and incompetence, and in spite of being under police surveillance for a year.

So basically he's trying to claim that they won't smuggle these hard to detect explosives onto a plane because... it's too dangerous?  They're planning to die anyway!  And suggesting that they won't do it because they might die sooner than they want ignores plenty of evidence from Israel and Gaza where there are constant stories of suicide bombers dying before they get to their targets due to poorly constructed vests, or explosions while making the vests.  If the potential payoff is high enough, I can easily see someone who is suicidal anyway trying it.

And suggesting that these jihadists are too stupid to know that their actions won't take down a plane means we should be more worried, not less.  Perhaps they're goal isn't event to take down the plane, but rather they're simply taking advantage of the incredibly confined spaces that a cramped airliner offers to maximize the damage of a smaller explosion, and also put a vital economic resource into jeopardy by scaring the FAA into grounding flights nationwide again if they succeed, even while not downing a plane.  The fact that he wasn't going to bring down a plane didn't stop the shoe bomber a couple years ago did it?