In the summer of 2006, a group of British citizens of Pakistani descent were arrested for planning to use liquid bombs on multiple trans-Atlantic passenger flights. After long trials, many were convicted and sentenced to long prison terms. It was one of the largest counter-terrorism investigation in United Kingdom (UK) utilizing all law enforcement resources. UK faces unique challenges as more than seventy five percent of plots against the country originated from Pakistan. UK citizens and residents of Pakistani descent make a significant portion of the minorities living in UK and every year over 200’000 travel to Pakistan for short or prolonged visits. Overwhelming majority are law abiding citizens contributing towards country’s economy and good representation in the political system. A tiny minority succumbing to extremist ideology has caused enormous damage to the community. Balancing the need for surveillance of suspects and civil liberties is a difficult task. Any meaningful surveillance of suspected extremists is a nightmare scenario for British law enforcement.

In early 2006, one of the plotters Ahmad Ali Khan came on MI-6 radar due to his connection with some other targets under surveillance. During his visit to Pakistan, he met Rashid Rauf. In 2002, Rashid Rauf left UK for Pakistan when he came under suspicion for involvement in murder of his uncle. He was known to have close contact with al-Qaeda. When Ali returned on 28 June, he was put under 24/7 surveillance by MI-6. As he started to recruit more conspirators, they all came under surveillance that helped intelligence agencies to understand the scope of their devastating plot.

MI-6 asked Pakistani intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for surveillance of Rauf. He was shuttling between cities and tribal areas. ISI activated human intelligence on him, but it was intermittent as it was not logistically possible to have him under 24/7 surveillance especially in tribal areas. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was also brought into the loop for monitoring his communications, but it was also intermittent as he would stop use of electronics for extended period.

In UK, surveillance cameras were placed at the apartment where they were experimenting with chemicals and their activities and recovery of material from garbage bags helped to connect the dots. By the end of July, audio surveillance of the apartment picked up conversation talking about favorite British holiday destinations in United States like Los Angeles, Washington DC, Miami, and Philadelphia. When it became clear that suspects were looking at flights to US and audio surveillance suggesting that they were preparing suicide videos, alarm bells started to ring in Washington. Americans start pressuring British to round up all suspects as there was risk of running the operation too long. British wanted to run it a bit longer to gather evidence to make a watertight case in the court. ISI was caught in this tussle between UK and US.

In July 28 meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, President George W. Bush expressed his concerns about the progress of the plan and asked him to round up the suspects. Blair had come prepared as heads of both MI-5 and MI-6 had warned him that Washington will push him to wrap up things before enough evidence was collected. Blair argued for more patience with the hope that such a big plot would need approval from high leadership of al-Qaeda and will help in leads to al-Qaeda leaders.

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney decided otherwise. In early August, a high-power CIA delegation visited Pakistan. It included Director Michael Hayden, his Chief of Staff Larry Pfeiffer, and Head of Clandestine Operations Jose Rodriguez. They were joined by CIA Islamabad Station Chief for several meetings with their Pakistani counterparts. First meeting was at ISI headquarters where all were present. Second one probably the same day in the evening at DGISI Lieutenant General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s (later General and Chief of Army Staff) house where Hayden & Rodriguez were present. In this meeting, Americans asked for Rauf’s arrest. Hayden and Pfeiffer then left for Afghanistan leaving Rodriguez behind. ISI director, Brigadier Azmat took Rodriguez and Station Chief in a helicopter for aerial tour of Waziristan. This is a common practice of fly by tour arranged for foreign visitors. In the evening a dinner meeting was scheduled. Local electronic surveillance picked up Rauf’s cell phone signal and CIA technical guy embedded with ISI team positively confirmed that it was Rauf’s phone. Rauf was travelling in a bus and at a railway crossing ISI roadblock stopped the bus and arrested Rauf.

Americans kept their UK counterparts in the dark about their plan to press ISI for Rauf’s arrest. Americans and Pakistanis both informed their British counterparts about Rauf’s arrest. UK authorities scrambled to arrest all suspects before the news of Rauf arrest became public. There is some confusion regarding British claims that they were caught off guard and blamed Americans. Andy Hyman and Pater Clark claim that plan was to arrest the suspects in few days. Hyman also claims that they had contingency plan in place in case suspects needed to be arrested suddenly. However, details of arrest suggest that there was no existing arrest plan that was activated. They had to scramble at the last minute and even could not get armed police in time and arrests were made by unarmed surveillance officers.

Rauf case was complicated. He was not involved in any act of terrorism in Pakistan; therefore, he was not on the radar of ISI. He was put under surveillance at the request of MI-6 and later arrested at the request of CIA. His interaction with ring leaders was through e-mail and cell phone in cryptic words that could not be used in a UK court to convict him. His experiments in FATA with liquid bombs were also reported but with no evidence to be produced before the court for prosecution. There was no conclusive evidence with UK, US, and Pakistan to prosecute him, so he remained in ISI custody. US claimed that Pakistanis did not give them access to Rauf. ISI claims that both CIA and MI-6 were given access to Rashid. They had no hesitation as he had no connection with ISI’s previous projects in Afghanistan or Kashmir.

In 2006, Rauf’s family filed a habeas corpus petition in Lahore High Court. Family members of many arrested suspects had also approached the court. Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry took up the missing persons case and forced some concessions from the army. General Kayani ordered ISI to hand over these suspects including Rauf to police. In December 2007, Rauf escaped from police custody. Over a dozen more terrorists were also released on court orders. They went back to join militants and later involved in many acts of terrorism in Pakistan.

Rauf after his escape went back into the fold of Al Qaeda, which kept him moving from one place to another. He jumped the que of US kill list. He was finally detected, monitored, and taken out by a drone strike in November 2008. In the environment of mutual mistrust, Washington believed that Pakistan let Rauf escape. Pakistanis were angry at both UK and US that they were hesitant to take custody of ‘damaged goods’ and blamed all failures on Pakistan. Pakistan’s policy regarding foreign extremists was that after arrest they would ask authorities of their country of origin. This included Egyptians, Yemenis, Saudis, Libyans, and others. In most cases, these countries were not interested in bringing this ‘infected lot’ of their citizens back home. After refusal by their countries, Pakistan would hand the foreigners to Americans. In the early phase, Guantanamo Bay prison was filled but later US shifted towards elimination by drone strikes rather than incarceration.

Tug of war between CIA and MI-6 was a constant issue for ISI. Each side wanted ISI to share information with it exclusively and they would then share with their trans-Atlantic partner as deemed fit. Personality conflict was also at play. Then DGISI Lieutenant General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani did not like director of MI-6 and kept his interaction to minimum. On the other hand, Pakistanis had a robust relationship with CIA in the early days of post September 11 world. Later, this relationship became difficult due to diverging interests of both countries.

All three intelligence agencies had their strengths and weaknesses. CIA had immense resources especially its global eavesdropping capabilities and able to monitor every electronic communication. They could bring high grade electronic surveillance to the table. UK ran a complex surveillance net of over a dozen key suspects and used surveillance camera grid of London to its advantage and ISI dominated human intelligence spectrum inside Pakistan. All these assets complemented each other giving good guys an edge over the bad guys. This operation was a tightly sealed show with very limited number of people in UK, US, and Pakistan in the loop. Even briefing inside the Department of Homeland Security headquarters was held at a super secure room called Top Secret Special Compartment Information (TSSCI).

In this case the division of labor was where MI-6 share was eighty percent, CIA twenty percent and Pakistan ten percent. Each agency has its own culture and modus operandi of tackling terrorism cases. UK approach towards terrorism cases is of a criminal investigation and they do not act until they have collected enough evidence that can be used in a court of law. In the aftermath of September 11, US approach is viewing terrorism threat as a military conflict, and they view suspects as unlawful enemy combatants who do not have any legal rights. They simply rounded up suspects and kept them at overseas secret sites out of the authority of law and later killing them in drone strikes. Pakistan’s legal system is broken and it neither has the resources, experience or will to prosecute terrorism cases. In this environment, ISI has been operating outside the legal circle where suspects are kept at its own detention facilities. Blacks have been convicted in military courts and sentenced and greys either released after few years or kept indefinitely in detention.

There is an inbuilt culture of hesitation to share critical information even among friendly intelligence agencies. A senior Pakistani intelligence officer has correctly summed up this phenomenon that all intelligence agencies “project themselves to be twelve feet tall, hiding critical information, non-cooperation, taking credit for everything that goes right and blaming failures on others”. Many of these factors were at play in MI-6, CIA and ISI tango while working on this file. Despite the blame game, this case also highlights the dividends that can be reaped by all when intelligence agencies cooperate, each bringing its own A game when faced by a common foe.

Counterterrorism is an art where collection of intelligence is interwind with taking a timely action to prevent a violent act. The three key elements of this exercise are collection, analysis, and disruption. The very nature of the work of counterterrorism generates controversy in every society. CIA director Michael Hayden is correct in his statement that people complain that “intelligence agencies have not done enough when they feel in danger and then complaining that they have done too much when they are feeling safe again”.

I came across additional information after completing the article. British police wanted to question Rauf in investigation of the murder of his uncle in 2002. However, a former special branch British police officer told me that he was not on their radar for any extremist activities. His transformation occurred over the years in Pakistan, and he ended up in al-Qaeda fold. In liquid bomb case, they had no concrete evidence of his links for which he could be successfully prosecuted. As late as 2009, in its report to lawmakers, British law enforcement could only state that Rauf may have met two of the 7/7 bombers and two members of the liquid bomb plot. In addition, the e-mail sender under the pseudo name Paps to some of the liquid bomb plotters may be Rauf.

Human Rights Watch in its report on UK involvement in overseas interrogations and torture interviewed anonymous UK and Pakistani counter-terrorism authorities. Four British citizens of Pakistani descent who were in ISI custody later told Human Rights Watch that British security personnel met them during their detention in Pakistan. A cellmate of Rauf also told Human Rights Watch that Rauf told him that British law enforcement officers visited him during his detention. A British counter-terrorism source confided to Human Rights Watch that Rauf’s torture was a ‘disaster’ that made any “successful prosecution in Britain most unlikely”.

There are at least three known cases where UK citizens of Pakistani descent who were arrested by ISI at the request of UK authorities were later deported back to UK. Salahuddin Amin was arrested by ISI in 2004 and about ten months later deported to UK. In 2007, he was convicted on terrorism charges. Rangzieb Ahmad was arrested in Pakistan in August 2006. A year later, Supreme Court ordered his release as after one year in detention no charges had been filed against him. A week later, he was deported to UK where he was tried and convicted on terrorism charges. Zeeshan Siddiqi was arrested in Pakistan in 2005 and in early 2006 deported to UK. He was placed under a control order, but he later disappeared in UK and in 2007 authorities declared him an al-Qaeda suspect. Control order was a kind of house arrest used for individuals deemed threat to the society but could not be prosecuted. In 2011, it was replaced by Terrorism Prevention and Investigations Measures (TPIMs). Siddiqi was harbored by a British man of Libyan descent for few years before he made his way to Somalia and joined militant group al-Shabab. In 2012, he was killed in a drone strike.

Another twist in the story is secret negotiations between UK and Pakistan about swap of Rauf for some Baloch exiles in UK. In 2007, The Guardian reported that Pakistan agreed to extradite Rauf only in exchange for Baloch dissidents. These talks were held during Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett’s visit to Islamabad. This was also confirmed to me by a Baloch exile in London with firsthand information about the incident. These talks failed and there was no exchange. In 2012, a memory stick containing documents was retrieved from a German suspect who was arrested for links with al-Qaeda. In this cache was a set of documents believed to be written by Rauf as post-operation assessment reports. This posthumous discovery sheds light on his active involvement in different terrorist plots and his journey with al-Qaeda.

Dramatis Persona

• Eliza Manningham-Buller – Head of British Domestic Intelligence MI-5 2002-07

• John Scarlett – Head of British Foreign Intelligence MI-6 2004-09

• Andy Hayman – Assistant Commissioner Metropolitan Police Service 2005-2008

• Peter Clark – National Coordinator Terrorist Investigations Metropolitan Police Service – 2002-2008

• Lord John Reid – Home Secretary 2006-20

• General Michael Hayden – Director CIA 2006-09

• Charlie Allen – Homeland Security Intelligence Director 2005-09

• Michael Chertoff – Secretary of Homeland Security 2005-09

• Senior ISI Officer – 2006

Acknowledgements:

Author thanks many for information and answering my questions. All errors and omissions are author’s sole responsibility.

Notes:

• Peritz, Aki. Disruption – Inside the Largest Counter-Terrorism Investigation in History (Potomac Books), 2021

• Andy Hyman & Margaret Gilmore. The Terrorist Hunters: The Ultimate Inside Story of Britain’s Fight Against Terror (London: Transworld Publishers), 2009

• Hayden, Michael. Playing To The Edge. (New York: Penguin Press), 2016

• Suskind, Ron. The Way of The World (New York: Harper-Collins Publishers), 2008

• Crime Documentary. Liquid Bomb Plot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIJFiqy35KM&ab_channel=RealStories

• Raffaello, Pantucci. Terrorism Focus. Volume: 5. Issue: 41.
https://jamestown.org/program/u-s-missiles-target-suspect-in-transatlantic-airliner-plot/