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That's the key to understanding this. Makes less and less sense as a security measure, maybe it makes sense as an economic measure directed at middle eastern airlines?

fwiw http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35521646 a laptop bomb blew a hole in a Somali plane last year

That's good to know, but I don't see how this stops them doing it from other countries? Maybe it is just to make it a little bit harder to do?

I don't really know,

it might be a function of them having better confidence in the screening of people on watch lists in other countries

or it might truly be security theater

or maybe it is economically motivated

the people who make these decision are working with non-public data, so its hard to know

Just because you depart from a country doesn't mean your laptop is dangerous. Moreover, up til now there hasn't any paper or statistics claiming laptops are dangerous on flights. I am sure they are trying to hide the discrimination that lies underneath the ban.

The UK restrictions do affect BA, EasyJet, Jet2, Monarch, Thomas Cook and Thomson.