64. Terror Strikes London: The Al-Qaeda Mastermind (Ep 3)

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0:56Breaking news we're getting from the PA Newswire that there's been reports of an explosion outside Liverpool Street Station. Well, there may be a fatality. We need ambulance. We need ambulance. We need ambulance. We need ambulance. We need ambulance. We need ambulance. We need ambulance.

1:18Most Londoners actually are not going to be afraid by this. I think they're going to continue their daily business. We consider the attack last week on British soil an attack on the civilised world. And what we are confronting here is an evil ideology. It is not a clash of civilisations. all civilized people, Muslim or other, feel revulsion at it. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail. We are at war, and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation. Your democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people, and your support of them makes you directly responsible.

2:03Until we feel security, you will be our target. Until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment, and torture of my people, we will not stop this fight. Well, welcome to The Rest is Classified. I'm David McCloskey. And I'm Gordon Carrera. And that was the video testimony of bomber Mohamed Sadiq Khan, MSK, released after he died, killed himself in the July 7th attacks, which killed 52 people in London in 2005. And last time, Gordon, we looked at who the bombers were, how they had appeared in another MI5 counterterrorism investigation, albeit kind of obliquely. And we left with MSK and his accomplice Tanweir involved in jihadist activity in the UK, but really not, it seems, planning an attack in London.

2:55they when we last left were headed off to pakistan and they are going to go there in late 2004 and everything is going to change that's right and i think the pakistan connection is crucial to understanding 7-7 and to understanding really what was going on in in kind of terrorism in the uk in that period because it is out in pakistan that the plot that's going to become 7-7 comes to fruition. It's where Mohammed Sadiq Khan and Tanwur are going to meet the key figure who's behind not just 7-7, but also a series of other attacks, not just that year, but into the future. Some of the biggest actually that were planned in the post 9-11 period.

3:37So it is significant, and it's going to show that link really to Al-Qaeda, which took a while to become clear, I think, at the time. So yeah, the two Brits, Tanwur and Mohammed Sadiq Khan, are going to go in November 2004. Worth saying, I think we touched on this last time, Mohammed Sadiq Khan actually leaves a video for his young daughter suggesting he's never going to see her again. So he is going out there with the expectation he's going to kind of fight and die probably in Afghanistan, but not come back. And his wife, Asina Patel, is witting that he may not return. Well, that seems to be the implication, yeah.

4:13So she sees the video and sort of understands that he's gone. The video is being left basically saying, I'm not coming back. Now, it is interesting because we also touched on this last time, that it's not his first time out there to the camps. And it's worth saying, isn't it, that these camps have existed. And we talked about them in our Bin Laden episodes, didn't we? That these were there from the 90s, Bin Laden and others. And it's not just Bin Laden. They're running these camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan, jihadist camps. And the lure of the camps is quite strong for people who are jihadist sympathizers.

4:43It's that idea you can go out there and you can fight and be involved in the struggle in some different way. And we should say that this period when he goes to Pakistan, I guess the mental model maybe for listeners would be there are settled areas of Pakistan where the Pakistani government, which is a sort of frenemy of the US and UK, which sort of in one sense is helping us in the counterterrorism fight and in another sense is sort of double dealing. But there are settled areas in which the Pakistani government actually has control, where its security forces could operate. And then there are tribal areas, for example, in northwest Pakistan, where it's essentially ungoverned.

5:21And that's where you can get into Pakistan. You can then be brought up to these tribal areas. The mental model here is where these guys are headed, eventually, is going to be a completely ungoverned space on the globe. And it is interesting because some of those jihadist groups which are operating there, there is al-Qaeda, but there are also other groups. So for instance, Pakistani jihadist groups who are being trained to go fight in Kashmir, which is a big cause for people. So the first thing which has attracted Muhammad Sadiq Khan to this cause is the kind of Kashmiri cause, which is a big one for Pakistanis.

5:56And he's gone out there pre 9-11 to get involved with those camps rather than, if you like, Al-Qaeda. Then 2003, he's out there at the same time as we looked at last time with some of these crevice plotters. But again, he's at some of these jihadist camps, but not necessarily being trained to carry out attacks to the UK. And now this would also be before the tempo of that conflict really increases. So a lot of these spaces would be relatively safe for Al-Qaeda members. And going back to your frenemy point, of course, to some extent, some of those groups are quite closely aligned and used by Pakistani intelligence in the Pakistani state, like the ISI.

6:35The Kashmiri groups are always thought to have a kind of relationship with them. So, you know, it's complicated how far this is something which the Pakistanis know about and have got a grip on. I don't think it's easy to say. So he's gone out there. Now, what changes out there? And the crucial thing is he basically meets one person. And this person is really significant in our story. And it's a person called Rashid Ralph. Best detail on this comes from Raffaello Pantucci's book, We Love Death As You Love Life, which looks at this. Now, Ralph is a really interesting, significant figure because he's an example of the kind of close links between the UK and Pakistan, which have become a feature of this period.

7:16So he's born in Pakistan in a place called Mearpur around 1981. and then his father brings him over to Birmingham as a child. Now, Miripur is a really significant part of the Kashmiri region over which India and Pakistan have fought these wars, including recently. There's a large number of people displaced and lots of them make their way to the UK. So actually, at one point, there are estimates that something like 60 % of the Pakistani community in the UK is somehow linked to Miripur. So it's got really strong connections with the UK. And so what that means is that the issue of Kashmir, the kind of Kashmiri fight and jihadist struggle against India has more purchase in that UK community.

7:56And so what you see is, I mean, from the 80s, but especially from the 90s, it's really impacting on that community. And you're starting to get people going back and forth from the UK to Pakistan and Afghanistan to training camps. And is MI5 obviously is cognizant of this dynamic, but is it just an issue of, well, 99.9 % of the people who are going between the UK and Pakistan are doing so because their extended family is there? Yeah, 400 ,000 visits a year around this time to Pakistan, 400 ,000. So, you know, you've got, that's too many to kind of investigate who they are. And yeah, tiny, tiny, tiny proportion might be going to these camps.

8:35but of course until you get to this period there's no sense that that's a particular threat but you're also getting then jihadists coming to britain places like birmingham in the 1990s raising money for cashmere and jihadist groups so it's starting to have an impact in the community and rashid ralph this figure is in that community where kind of radical jihadist thought is pretty normal but then he's also a bit of a black sheep in his family and in spring 2002 he flees britain back to Pakistan with a friend. Now, the reason is interesting that he and the friend are implicated in the stabbing to death of one of his own uncles.

9:12Nice guy. Was he a black sheep before the stabbing? Yeah, I think he was. Okay. Do we know why he was a black sheep? No, I think the proclivity towards stabbing. Yeah, it's maybe one side of it. And it isn't quite clear. I don't think everyone's quite worked it out. If the stabbing was kind of jihadist related or if it's just family politics, arranged marriages, some kind of clash. So he's left Britain and that community for Pakistan. And there he gets even deeper into this jihadist world. So he marries into a radical circle of preachers and he starts to come into contact with Al-Qaeda. So he's stabbed his uncle.

9:47Yeah. Is MI5 or is anyone interested in getting him back from Pakistan? Yeah, you'd think so, wouldn't you? But there was no attempt to sort of extraday him? Doesn't seem like it. And I think he's then gone to the tribal areas. He's effectively fled. And he's moving around, actually. So he's not just in the tribal areas, because we'll see he's in Ra 'lpindi as well. But he is in that period after he flees, then coming into contact with al-Qaeda. Now, he's quite low level, but his role becomes connecting Britons who are coming over to al-Qaeda. So he is putting them in touch with the right people.

10:20He's almost like a kind of talent scout who's spotting Britons coming over who are interested in maybe getting involved in jihadism somehow and going, you're potentially useful to Al-Qaeda. And of course, it makes sense because he knows Britons enough to kind of vet them, to check them and work out that they're not, for instance, spies. Pretty valuable to Al-Qaeda. It's quite valuable. And he's trusted by the kind of Al-Qaeda bloc because he's married into that world and he's part of it. So he is this kind of bridge. So he is looking for Brits. And then in late 2004, Mohammed Sadiq Khan and Shahzad Tamwir arrived.

10:57Now, Rashid Raaf is given their phone numbers, but he waits a couple of weeks before making contact to kind of watch them, observe them, you know, see if they're being followed. How does he get their numbers? That's not clear. Interesting. One of a lot of mysteries. Again, I think the feeling when you read about this and when you look into it is that there is a kind of, there are other people involved in this. There's a wider community of jihadists and extremists who are connecting people up and doing things. And who've never been publicly identified. So eventually, after a few weeks, he calls them.

11:29Ralph meets them in a car which is owned by Tanwirs, one of the two who have come out, uncle. and it's got a driver which suggests they're reasonably well off. The music is turned up loud so that the driver can't hear what they're talking about as they're in the car. And Mohammed Siddi Khan apologises about the loud music, saying Tamwia's family would disapprove if they found out about this conversation. So Ralph is effectively recruiting them and then he takes them to the tribal areas and he's going to introduce them to someone called Haji, now who we think is Abu Abed al-Masri, an Egyptian operational commander and part of al-Qaeda and someone who's going to be involved in plots.

12:06Now, he seems to be the one who persuades them that rather than fighting and dying out there, he's going to attack the UK. Do we have any sense of how he made that argument? Because it does seem to be a pretty significant job. Maybe not, but I think, distinct from the mentality of MSK or Tanwir, that there would seem to be a pretty big difference between going, for example, into Kashmir and being part of an actual backcountry battlefront. Versus going back to London and killing fellow Britons. I know they don't really see themselves as Britons, but yeah, it seems like that wouldn't happen overnight.

12:45No. I mean, it's a good question. I think, of course, we don't know what happened inside their heads. I guess they're totally isolated. Yeah, they're totally isolated. I mean, you could imagine a few things. I mean, one is, to some extent, being taken to the tribal areas and meeting these Al-Qaeda leaders. There's a sense of like, this is a big deal. And you're being kind of told this is a big deal and you're being introduced into this world where suddenly you're being told, no, you can have a mission to do something bigger than you thought rather than just going and being a random soldier there.

13:14The context is interesting. So this is, you know, you read a bit at the start from the video that Mohammed Sadiq Khan is going to record and he's going to record that out there at this time, we think. And you get a bit of a flavour for the arguments that have infected him. He is saying Western governments are responsible for invasions of Muslim lands and the people, ordinary people, are legitimate targets because they've elected those governments. That's the argument. I think it's worth saying Iraq has just happened in 2003. The Iraq war has just started. So I think that as a factor, and he and others refer to that and that context.

13:53So you can see why that argument that Al-Qaeda is pushing has more purchase at that time, I think. It's an extension of the Bin Laden argument that because the West has sort of attacked and invaded the Islamic world, the West needs to be attacked at home to sort of feel that pain and pull back. I guess we also have, we mentioned it, I think in the last episode, that we also have the example of what happened in Madrid, where attacks on civilian infrastructure led to a change in government that then withdrew the Spanish contingent from the Iraq war. The other thing that I think we talked about this a bit in the Bin Laden series that I don't think listeners should forget is that what these guys think they're signing up for, which to us looks like a death cult, to them is worship.

14:43They don't believe that they're killing innocent people. They believe they're worshiping God. And so what they're doing here is a sort of intimate religious act that is going to get them immediately taken to paradise, which I think we should not forget this, that this is the mentality here of these guys, I think, when they leave the tribal areas. I mean, you must have looked into these videos and the kinds of people who did that in your CIA time to try and understand it. I mean, it's hard to understand. It's hard to understand. I think I still kind of struggle with the mentality, right, of what's actually in these guys' heads when they do this.

15:17But I really do think the mentality is worship and it's worship through death, which is why I think the Raffaella Pantucci book title is great. We love death as you love life. There's this sort of connection between death and worship in this part of the jihadist world that is really powerful. I think hard for us to understand. Because, yes, it's so out there. He's going to record this tape, which is going to emerge later. And from something that emerges, Ralph's kind of leaves some notes, which are later found. You know, Ralph is supposedly annoyed because it's hard to film the video. There's no natural light.

15:50And they're reluctant to make the recordings because they were supposedly shy, but agreed because Hadji had ordered them to. So it's kind of, again, you get that sense in which, not suggesting they were coerced in any way, but, you know, this is a powerful figure who is telling them you need to do this. This is what you should be doing. This is your duty, if you like, of what you should do. And some measure of coercion, even if it's unstated, I think is often part of these stories, too, of like, you're up there in the tribal areas. Are you going to say no? Are you really able to say no? I'm not saying that they're doing this at their own will.

16:25But there is something hanging over here, which is you're sort of isolated. We, Al-Qaeda, can do things to you if you don't want to. I think even recording the video here, and part of the reason why I'm speculating, they're sort of reluctant, is you're kind of boxed in. There is some history of people going out there, recording videos or being told to do stuff and then go back and go, I don't want to do this, you know, and chickening out. Maybe because they feel that pressure. But in this case, of course, they go ahead with it. So RAF also takes them around the tribal areas and, interestingly enough, introduces them to a Syrian bomb maker.

16:53And that is also a crucial part of the story because that Syrian bomb maker is going to teach them how to prepare the hydrogen peroxide devices. And, you know, you remember from our earlier episodes that these are unique devices. when they go off in Britain and they kind of recover the parts. The Metropolitan Police Bomb Squad have never seen devices like this. So that is an important part of the story. How did they get to understand how to make these bombs? Well, the answer is they're being taught by a bomb maker in the tribal areas. I would imagine that they've picked an explosive device for the fact that you could source the material in the UK.

17:30For a lot of these external operations planners in Al-Qaeda, I mean, this is the trick is how do you find people who have passports to get you into the West? And also, how do you create a situation in which they also have the bomb making, not just the expertise, but the ability to source those materials in a way that's not going to draw the attention of the authorities? We saw with the crevice plot in the last episode, the fertilizer. So you want to find things you can buy without raising attention. Yeah. So this is all in this period from November 2004 to February. And it's interesting, at one point, Mohammed Sadiq Khan suddenly tells his wife, who thinks he's not coming back, that actually he's coming back.

18:06And she records that in her diary. Ralph says he was actually eager to return to the UK with Mohammed Sadiq Khan and Tanwar, but it was too difficult for him to re-enter because he's wanted for that murder and he can't get a clean passport. But Mohammed Sadiq Khan and Tanwar themselves do return to the UK on February the 8th, 2005. So I'll be there with MSK and Tanwar headed back to the UK. Let's take a break. When we return, we'll see how they get on and stay under the radar when they return from Pakistan.

18:42Well, welcome back. MSK and Tenwere are back in the UK from Pakistan. And I guess Gordon now with this idea planted, this plot hatched to actually conduct the 7-7 attacks. They're now trying to fly under the radar as much as possible. Yeah. And that's a very deliberate decision by them. And they're going to change their behavior. So we've had the arrests of the crevice plotters, which was March 2004. So about a year earlier. And of course, Mohammed Sadiq Khan and Tamwia know that they were linked to them and that therefore there is a risk that they might be somewhere in the databases. So they are worried about surveillance the signs are and they they actually start acting in a slightly different way they do stuff like going to the cinema things they wouldn't normally do just to not look like radical jihadists so they are trying to go dark they also start to use 15 operational phones now these are separate from their normal mobile phones and they just use these for contact between them they change them regularly so only used for their kind of closed group as that group comes together of four people and for planning the attack, which seems to be quite good security in some ways.

19:56And I think probably reflects, I mean, I'm thinking back to the bin Laden series here of in the early 2000s, this set of successes that we had, the UK had, the Pakistanis had in Pakistan, disrupting sort of al-Qaeda senior leadership that was living in the cities. A lot of it had to do with cell phone management. So I think there's probably been some lessons learned in how you manage phones. This is where the threat comes from people going from the UK to then get this training in Pakistan is that they come back with some trade graft that they would not have had before. I mean, you see when they're dealing with the crevice plotters, they're getting in and out of the car with them.

20:38There's a connection that MI5 potentially could have made. Now it's going to be a lot harder to sort of draw patterns out of their behavior. Now, I mean, it probably is worth a refresher for our listeners on what does MI5 actually know about these guys? Yeah, because we did look at that last time, but it is worth just thinking about it in those terms. Good question, because I think MI5 do not know they've been to Pakistan. They know that there were some people on the edges of crevice who, if you like, on their list to look at, but not as top targets. But they are still kind of unidentified males, you know, D &E.

21:15MI5 would not have their names connected to that investigation. And you remember, they followed some cars which have suggested a Sadiq Khan, but also a Haseena Patel, his wife. So they've got these little bits of traces, but none of them connect back to this trip to Pakistan or the previous trip. Because you'll remember Jhenei Baba, this guy in American custody, has seen pictures, but he didn't identify them. So badly cropped pictures of MSK that he's shown and he says, basically, I don't know these guys. Yeah. MI5 know that there were some people on the margins of Crevice who were talking about doing stuff in Pakistan, Afghanistan, but they haven't linked it fully to either the name, the other traces of Mohammed Sadiq Khan, or the fact that they've now gone to Pakistan.

22:00So they've got pieces of the puzzle, but they're not there together. And presumably somewhere in the British system, there would be their names attached to a flight manifest that went to Pakistan. But again, that's happening in the context of half million people a year who are going back and forth. And at this point, there's nothing to flag those two, Tanwar and MSK, as being particularly of interest. So you've got, I guess, in theory, dots that you could connect that are scattered throughout the British system. But there's no sort of like red flag that would exist to sort of connect these guys to Al-Qaeda or to a plot in the UK.

22:38Now, it is true if MI5 had started surveillance of them now, they might have caught the plot. But the question is, what would it have taken for MI5 to put them under surveillance now? Were there enough of those red flags to do that? Well, only if you put all those things together and maybe had a lead that they were doing something. If they had not shown Junaid Babar, the jihadist in US custody, a picture that had MSK cropped out of it. Yeah. True. He might have said, oh, he was in the camps in 2003. But they're going to show him another picture later and he still doesn't recognize him. I'm slightly suspicious whether he wanted to recognize him or not.

23:18So they do come back and they do try and fly below the radar. They rent one flat, then another. The one in Alexandra Grove we talked about previously where they're going to build the bombs. We're not going to get into the bomb making. It's best not to kind of give away the details on how to build the bombs. But I think, you know, going to your point earlier, what's crucial is they can purchase most of the raw materials from hairdressing supply shops. So it's kind of hydrogen peroxide based. And actually during this time, people notice that the hair is kind of discoloured. and that's because they're cooking up this hydrogen peroxide in the flat and you know they come up with cover stories about swimming pools now interestingly enough and this is also important muhammad sadiq khan is still in contact with rashid ralph on his operational phone so separate from his normal mobile multiple times now ralph seems to call from a phone booth in ralpindi there's text other messages they use code words to avoid detection now crucial this that rashid Ralph is giving Mohammed Sadiq Khan advice when he's struggling with aspects of the bomb making.

24:22Yeah. Particularly on the concentration of the hydrogen peroxide. And the last call is thought to be just five days before the bombing. And this is important that he is able to kind of remotely guide him on what's going on. And I guess at that point, they're not under surveillance and Rashid Ralph is not under surveillance. You know, in a way, that's the more interesting question is if you'd had Ralph under surveillance by MI5, MI6 and Pakistanis or someone, that would have been the way to kind of spot this. Because if you're seeing him making calls to the UK and you know he's a jihadist, in a way, I think that's the point of weakness on this, perhaps.

24:57Which would have been particularly challenging if he's using phone booths. It's not like our friend Abu Abed al-Kuwaiti in the Bin Laden, who's actually got his mobile that he's using to call his family. So in this case, we've got, I mean, he's literally showing up at different phone booths and not calling on a mobile phone. So even if GCHQ had had his selectors, in this case, it might not have helped. So these calls are going back and forth. The bombers are making the bombs. Looks like they do a recce reconnaissance run about a week before the bombing, thought about the Bank of England or even going up to the G8 at Glen Eagles in Scotland at one point, but they picked the transport system.