129. Al Qaeda’s Deadliest Plot: Why You Can’t Bring Liquids On Planes (Ep 4)

14:13David:because everyone's going on holiday all the poor people going on holiday and it was, I mean I can remember this it was total chaos that day because suddenly I mean flights are getting stopped people are being told they can't take any liquids on people are throwing stuff away people don't know the rules and of course the airlines and airports knew nothing about it's not like they'd been pre-briefed on this because it was a really sensitive piece of intelligence about the plot that you weren't going to start telling people well, we know there's a bunch of people who could bring on liquid explosives.

14:43David:That's going to blow the thing. So from zero knowledge, you're having to tell the whole airline industry to stop liquids getting on planes.

14:52Gordon:I guess that does bring us back, Gordon, to the plots disrupted. The arrest has been made in the UK. You need to charge them. This gets back to that central question of why was MI5 waiting and what were they waiting for? Because now you have to go through an entire legal process in order to put these guys away.

15:15David:Yeah. And it's worth just reflecting on that because they had a big wall chart at the police headquarters. And every time they got a piece of evidence which could be recorded against that defendant, they would note it on this wall chart to try and build enough for each suspect until they got the threshold to charge them. and the problem is they're under time pressure because you can only detain people it's just been raised i think from 14 to 28 days before you could charge people so you're now able to do searches of premises and of people's phones and all those kind of things and try and collect evidence and interview them to get together their story but you've got a lot of defendants we talked about a couple of dozen being arrested and the police are saying you know long hours of fatigue, endless trips to fast food joints, probably more Monster Munch, because they're trying to see how many of these people they can actually build a case against.

16:12David:And in some cases, the evidence is pretty good. You've got the USB stick that Ali had, you know, with the flight times. In Sarwar's house, you find hidden in the roof of the garage was suicide, more martyrdom videos. It takes a full week to find Sarwar's suitcase, which he'd hidden in the woods. Remember, he struggled to...

16:28Gordon:It was whole.

16:30David:He finally got around to hiding it well. I think he put it in a fallen tree trunk in the end because he struggled so much with digging. And they're going to find the peroxide, but that's going to take a week to find. But the problem is this is where they've got a problem in doing this. And I think the problems caused by that early arrest are borne out in the trials that come. Because you'd think, and I think I found this fascinating looking back on it, you'd think it would be easy to get convictions in this case. But actually it's not. One of the problems is no actual bombs have yet been built.

17:02David:So you've had them talking about it, you haven't been doing all these things, but Sawa hadn't concentrated the hydrogen peroxide. You know, you don't have a workable bomb. And that was one of the things I think the police and MI5 were hoping they'd get by waiting a bit longer till you've got something. Then you've got the fact that the men, as we talked about, had been surveillance aware. You know, Ralph had warned them, they're always speaking in code about plans. There was never that one explicit line which says, we're making a bomb, which is going to take down an air crawl.

17:32Gordon:He stared at the pinhole camera. Yeah, and said, that's my plan. In the ceiling of his house, and gave the plan. I guess also, I mean, they do have the martyrdom videos, right?

17:43David:Yeah, but even there, they claim they're going to be propaganda after some demonstrative act. So they claim they're going to do something like a public demonstration. Rhythmic dance. Well, you want to believe that. And that was the point of the videos, was then the statement of that. The problems of evidence are really clear. And there was a lot of scepticism about the case. I mean, it seemed extraordinary at the time. And so they don't get as many charged or even the verdicts they expected. Initially, 2008, eight men on trial, only three, Ali, Sawa and Tambir Hussain, are found guilty of conspiracy to murder.

18:20David:And the jury then can't reach a verdict on the specific charge of plotting to blow up an aircraft. So in 2009, they go back for another trial where they are convicted of conspiracy to kill by blowing up an aircraft. Another person convicted of conspiracy to murder. Jury deadlocks against others. Two others convicted of conspiracy to murder, but not the airliners. And then there's a third trial in 2010 where three additional men were found guilty of conspiracy to murder. So you can see that it takes multiple trials to get convictions of some of the men who'd been arrested. And we should say anyone who wasn't found guilty is obviously, you know, there's no allegations against them, he says legally.

19:00David:But there was real anger and shock from the UK side when they don't get the guilty verdicts first time. I mean, and some of them blame the Americans. You know, they do, they kind of go, the fact we didn't get these verdicts was because we didn't have those extra two, three days to really have them bang to rights, as it were.

19:19Gordon:And Jose Rodriguez, I think it's fair to say in his memoir, Hard Measures, sort of doesn't care. Is that right? Yeah, I think that's a fair way. He wrote, the Liquid's plot saga turned out to be emblematic of my CIA career. If there was a common thread during my lengthy time at the agency, it was that no good deed went unpunished. The Liquid plot incident further drove home to me the importance of swift action, of nimble decision-making and of being able to hold and interrogate key terrorist suspects ourselves without relying on surrogates who have different and uncertain agendas.

19:50David:Wow. There's a call for unilateral action. I think that is a sign of where the tensions were when it came to counterterrorism and Jose Rodriguez, who, of course, had triggered that arrest of Rashid Ralph. That's right. And Rashid Ralph.

20:06Gordon:That's a good cliffhanger. We have to come back.

20:08David:Oh, yes.

20:08Gordon:Because there's a wild story of what happens to Rashid Rao. That's right. And it involves McDonald's as a little tea up. So let's take a break. When we come back, we will see what happens to the evil mastermind of this plot.

20:25David:Hello, everybody, and welcome to The Book Club, a new podcast from Goalhanger, hosted by me, Dominic Sandbrook.

20:32Gordon:And me, Tabitha Syred. As some of you may know, I've been Dominic's producer on The Rest is History. And we even did a mini-series last year about all things books.

20:42David:And since we enjoyed that so much, we have decided to roll it out as its own show. So it'll be coming out every Tuesday. We'll be doing a different book each time and digging into all the stories behind them.

20:53Gordon:And we are going to be talking about the historical contexts behind some of the greatest and most famous books of all time. We're going to be digging into the remarkable people behind them, the unexpected stories behind the stories, and also unravelling the plot of each book a bit and delving into the depths of the story.

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21:28Gordon:We will be looking at thrilling Gothic bodice rippers like Wuthering Heights and Frankenstein, as well as iconic stories like The Great Gatsby or Little Women. And then also some more modern stuff. So Game of Thrones, Normal People, The Hunger Games, Hamnet, all manner of exciting stories.

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22:09Gordon:I'm R.J. Decker, a private investigator uncovering the sunshine state's darkest secrets.

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22:44Gordon:Welcome back. We left off with this cliffhanger of what in the world has happened to Rashid Rauf, who had been arrested in Pakistan in 2006. But the weird saga of Rashid Rauf, the mastermind of this attack, does not end there.

23:00David:Oh, no. I mean, it is a kind of weird, wild story. He's arrested in 2006 at the instigation, perhaps, of the CIA. Remember? He gave a false name, but the search of his room reveals a passport he'd used to flee the UK in 2002. He's also got other passports in different names, but with his photo, one British, one South African, five mobile phones, stun guns, 29 small bottles of hydrogen peroxide. And again, feels a little bit suspicious. Pretty damning. He's initially held in military detention. This is important. And now this is where the first bit of murkiness comes. He'll later claim he was tortured for two weeks before being hooded, taken from a prison, put on a plane, flown for about three hours to another prison where he will claim he was questioned for two days by British intelligence officers.

23:49David:Now, the Brits and Americans, meanwhile, say they never had access to him. Now, I mean, Rodriguez, Jose Rodriguez of the CIA says, you know, they refused to hand him over to the Brits and insisted that any questions we or the British had for Ralph be funneled through the ISI. Happy as we were to have Ralph off the streets, he was not under our control. So the Brits and the Americans say we did not access him. Ralph will later say, I was tortured and the Brits were there, which he would say. But, you know, that's an interesting question.

24:24Gordon:At that point, 2006, it's almost impossible for me to imagine a British intelligence officer being there. Yeah. While he's being tortured. He's being tortured. And knowing.

24:36David:Don't you think? Because already by then, the whole rendition torture thing is a thing in Britain. the complicity with the US, with other... But, you know, he's a top suspect. Do you question someone and not know what's happened? You could certainly pass questions to the ISI to put to Ralph. We should be clear that the Brits and Americans say we did not have access to him. And it's quite interesting why. Because Ralph himself later claims that Pakistani ISI get very nervous about him. And the reason is that they find out that he trained in Kashmir as a jihadist. If you remember, Ralph had been kind of motivated by Kashmir.

25:20David:He'd also married into jihadist groups. And the problem is these are Kashmiri jihadist groups whom ISI and Pakistani had quite deep connections with because they'd used them as surrogates against India. and so there is this issue that the ISI might have gone having picked him up maybe having realized if he talks to the Brits and the Americans or gets out he's going to point the finger at us as having perhaps supported some of the groups who he was associated with who trained with that whole issue of how Pakistan's complicated relationship with these particularly groups which had their roots in Kashmir, but which became allied to Al-Qaeda.

26:04David:So you can see that that would be awkward. And so it feels quite plausible that the ISI, Pakistan, are worried that letting the Brits and Americans talk to him would lead to some blame coming to them for having had links. And he's very well connected through marriage to these jihadist groups. So it is also plausible to me that the ISI were like, this guy, we've got a problem with him. We don't want people to talk to him.

26:33Gordon:Yeah. And maybe we, the ISI, don't actually want him in custody.

26:39David:Yeah, exactly. So this is where things get really crazy because Ralph's family file a petition in Pakistan's high court questioning his detention. He's moved from army to police custody. Three months after his capture, Pakistan moved to drop a terrorism charge against him, allegedly for lack of evidence. They're still holding him on some counts to do with false identities and explosives that they found with him. There's talk maybe about extraditing him to the UK on the original murder charge, 2002. Here's the crucial day. December 15th, 2007, he's being transferred for a court appearance. Now, here's one story of what happens.

27:16David:Ralph arrives at court in Islamabad around midday after the appearance is over. His uncle talks to the two police... Not the murdered uncle. No. Good point. A different uncle talks to two of Ralph's police escorts. Ralph's uncle convinces them to ride in his car instead of the police van. Hmm. Back to the prison. So the four men, Ralph, his uncle, and the two policemen, leave the courthouse with Ralph's uncle driving. Ralph's uncle is driving the police. As I said, this is one account. They're on the road around 3 p.m., well past lunchtime. Everyone's hungry. So Ralph asks his guards if they could stop at a McDonald's.

27:59David:Ralph's uncle generously offers to pay for everyone's McDonald's. The constables agreed. It's then afternoon, prayer time. Ralph and his uncle ask to make a further stop at a mosque in Ralpindi, which is just outside Islamabad, on the road to the prison on the way back. Ralph enters the mosque with his uncle, but the cops are asked to stay in the car. His leg shackles are taken off. The police wait 20 minutes, and then he suddenly doesn't come back. Amazing. two and a half hours later, senior police chiefs are told. Two and a half hours. There were no messages on the police radio alerting any on and about it.

28:33David:And the caretaker of the mosque says he never saw any manhunt in the area. Hmm. What do you think?

28:38Gordon:Well, I also like this detail, which is his lawyer, Rashid Rao's lawyer will say he was told of his client's escape hours before it actually happened.

28:48David:And also predicted his client would eventually be dead. Well, that will prove it. So there are other versions of this story which have him escaping earlier in the day, right after the court hearing. There's all these stories that one police officer's phone pings off a cell tower off the route they were talking about. And he's actually calling the other officer when they're both supposed to be with him. There's a British diplomatic cable which says that a probe concludes that he fled with the collusion of the police and some militants from one of these kind of groups, JEM. so there's a bit of a debate about how far there's an official role in his escape because of course as we said he could have said a lot about Pakistani complicity supporting groups you know the fact he's linked to 7-7 and he's linked to groups backed by Pakistan so one theory is ISI organized the escape and then blamed the police officers others and people I've spoken to say it was just money changing hands and the police officers being bought off but either way he's gone

29:49Gordon:Well, and he goes back to his old ways of terrorist planning. He goes right back to the tribe. Straight back to it. And I guess, I mean, he continues, I mean, by late 2008, he's involved in three new al-Qaeda

30:04David:plots to attack the West. Including one against New York, a suicide bombing on the New York subway that's being planned for 2009, which the FBI eventually bust. Plot against Manchester. Yeah. Yeah.

30:16Gordon:A plot against somewhere in Scandinavia. Yeah. So all over the place. And I guess though by the summer of 2008, the US-Pakistan relationship is really starting to break down. And the US is pushing to do much more unilateral operations. I think we could say, which some have reported as being drone strike. Which some press outlets have reported ended up becoming a massive predator campaign in the tribal areas. and is, you know, the CIA really, I think, starts to, we're obviously still in liaison with ISI. Yeah. But rely much less on the Pakistanis to deal with the counterterrorism situation inside Pakistan.

30:57David:Yeah. I mean, we're talking a lot about liaison here, mainly about US-UK liaison, but here with the US-Pakistan liaison, it's fundamentally changing, isn't it? Because of the frustrations we were talking about on both sides. the US is suddenly like, we're just going to use, allegedly, predator drones to kill those Al-Qaeda commanders and do our own thing. And there's all kinds of other tensions between the US strike. And eventually, November 22nd, 2008, they come for Rashid Rao, or at least we think they do. There's a drone strike on a mud and brick structure in North Waziristan in the tribal areas, hits a compound of a Taliban commander, killing him, but also an Al-Qaeda bomb maker and also, it's thought, Rashid Ralph.

31:42David:Now, there are people in Pakistan who think he escaped. You know, some reports, as ever, we've had this with so many of these characters, that he's still alive, he's still wanted. So he's never quite conclusively identified. But other people I've spoken to seem pretty confident that they got him and that he's dead.

31:58Gordon:Yeah, I think we can say that he's dead.

32:01David:I think we can say he's dead. Right. Reliable sources have told the rest is classified that Rashid Ralph has passed. He's passed. That's what we're led to believe, as his lawyer predicted when he escaped. So he met the end that was deserved for a man who plotted some pretty awful terrorist attacks. Because some, of course, this one didn't come off, but some like 7-7 did. And this was a guy responsible for it.

32:24Gordon:You know, I was struck as we're going through this, that this plot could have dramatically reshaped the transatlantic relationship, led to the death of thousands and thousands of people, had a massive economic impact. And it also seems like it's just out of another era. I guess it's kind of, in some ways, the sort of high watermark of this Al-Qaeda plotting against the US and the UK that's coming out of Pakistan or getting pretty close to it.

32:54David:I think that's exactly right. 9-11 obviously is the big moment. But in those years afterwards, out of the tribal areas, Al-Qaeda was able to recruit and was still able to organize big plots. I mean, it was able to organize this big plot with sending people back and forth, with organizing bombs, something more ambitious than 9-11, and still focused with that 9-11 feel, I think, on airplanes. That's one of the interesting things about it. But yes, I think this was the high watermark. And after that, you see the attrition, partly because of those alleged CIA drone strikes. But it's true, though.

33:28Gordon:The safe haven in Pakistan gives space to plot and organize. And 2007, 2008, that starts to diminish, to go away.

33:39David:And the Al-Qaeda operational leadership is basically droned into disappearing, is that thing. Every few months, the latest planner was being killed from Al-Qaeda. So they Their ability to do those big plots, I think you're right, this is the high watermark. This is the peak. And very fortunately, it didn't come off because it would have been absolutely enormous if it had come off. I mean, really, really, as I said, in some ways bigger than 9-11, perhaps. Maybe less of a shock than 9-11 because you'd had 9-11. But in terms of the consequences for US, for UK, for counterterrorism, it would have been just massive.

34:14David:Yeah.

34:14Gordon:I think it also, as we've teed up and alluded to throughout the series, this story says something I think important about the nature of the US-UK intelligence relationship. Because throughout the story, you see the tremendous intimacy between the two surfaces, but also I think how some of that intimacy can create enough surface area so there's friction. if there are even slight differences, not even strategic differences, because I think with the Pakistanis, you know, in that relationship between CIA and ISI, there are big strategic differences in your priorities that leads to a kind of a double game.

34:51Gordon:Here, in between the US and the UK, you don't see that. But you do see still these opportunities for there to be mistrust injected into the relationship, because we might not see eye to eye on how a counter terrorism investigation should run or sort of at what speed it should go.

35:09David:That's right. I think it's always said, oh, we have a really close relationship and lots of intelligence sharing. Counterterrorism and terrorism is really close. That's true. But it's also more complicated than that. Because even if you, whatever the tensions might be today, where you've got strategic political differences, even back then, 20 years ago, this is a reminder that we've had some of those differences in the past. In that point, it was tactics over counterterrorism. Were you going to use rendition and things like that? But also, how much were you willing to let things run? How much risk are you going to take?

35:44David:There are tensions in the relationship. There's no point pretending there aren't. This is a good example of that and of the Americans effectively throwing their weight around. I think at the end of the day, they are the bigger partner in this relationship And they can do that. And they did that in this case. And the Brits basically had to deal with it. But that's the reality of it. It's no point pretending there isn't friction in these relationships.

36:06Gordon:And that power imbalance is still the same today, I would argue. I think what is different and what is maybe an interesting question to kind of close this on is, have the strategic priorities changed a bit? Because 20 years ago, both countries are really in lockstep on the geopolitical situation. Bush and Blair are close. Exactly. And now, are we in a different world where there are strategic differences over the way you resist the Russians in Ukraine or Greenland or tariffs? China or China, where what I think about is, are we in a situation where some of those strategic differences actually could go down and kind of get into the depths of the relationship and affect how it operates at a working level so that there's more mistrust, more friction or disconnection in some cases.

37:10Gordon:Now, that's a lot easier said than done, but I do wonder about it because we're not in the world for 2006 anymore in this liaison relationship.

37:17David:No, I think that's exactly right. And we both talk to people who know this relationship very well, including at the moment. The people I speak to say, on an operational level, things are still going. The US, UK, the people operationally, whether they're dealing with counterterrorism or whether they're dealing with the Middle East, they're still talking, working with each other. But you're right, the kind of top level strategic tension is there, which is the difference from this time. and you do wonder when you speak to people how long will it take before that the strategic difference between the us and uk the the wider political and policy difference starts to feed down into the intelligence relationship and where the points of tension will start to come where you'll be like actually can we share with them about this thing or that thing i'm not sure it's breaking down yet no but you wonder how sustainable keeping that close relationship is going to be in in this very different environment where however much they try and pretend they're not there are big differences you know between the two sides that's right and 20 years on you haven't been

38:20Gordon:able to take liquids on planes although it's starting to change yeah so yeah i think that's

38:26David:a good place to end because it's 20 year legacy 20 years of this story and of mi5 busting this plot which we're only now it feels getting over that's right well i think that's the right place

38:39Gordon:to end this story, Gordon. We'd be remiss, of course, if we didn't say, go on, you've listened to this whole series, jump in and join the Declassified Club. Do that at therestisclassified.com. We'll also say we have a really exciting series coming up next, which is we are going to be digging deep into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, actually getting beyond the politics of it to say what did the Russians do and not do in an attempt to affect that election. So we're going to be digging into that. And we'll also have a really exciting miniseries for members looking at the connections, again, in a really in-depth and fact-based way, looking at the connections between Trump and his team and Russia, and again, getting beyond the noise of the politics to say what's actually going on.

39:35Gordon:It's going to be a good series. It's going to be a good series. Looking forward to that one.

39:38David:But in the meantime, we'll see you next time. See you then.