Airline bomb plotters sought 'truly global impact'

How Britain's biggest ever surveillance operation thwarted a series of suicide bombings that threatened to surpass 9/11
A police officer stands guard outside Walton Drive, High Wycombe
A policeman stands guard in a street after a house raid in High Wycombe in August 2006 by bomb plot investigators. Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

By early August 2006, the goings on in a dilapidated council flat in east London were seen as such a grave threat to the national security of both Britain and the United States that the countries' leaders were monitoring the investigation.

For just a few thousands pounds, a group of British men had turned basic chemicals, drink bottles and everyday equipment, coupled with terrorist know-how gained in Pakistan into much more than the sum of their parts. At the White House, the then-president, George Bush, and his advisers were learning details of a plot that threatened to surpass the September 11 attacks in 2001 in terms of the number of potential victims, the psychological blow it would inflict on the west and the economic damage it would cause.

Bush's counterpart in Britain, Tony Blair, was being regularly briefed. Top officers at Scotland Yard and senior officials in the security services could scarcely believe neither the breathtaking ambition of the terrorists, nor their ingenuity and how close they were to bypassing security measures enhanced since 9/11.

The bombers routes
Liquid bomb plot: the affected routes map Graphic

It was deemed so serious that the US sent senior FBI officials to the UK and deployed its full range of intelligence and eavesdropping assets to track the al-Qaida leaders in Pakistan who were thought to be orchestrating the plot.

Britain's spy centre at GCHQ put huge resources into trying to intercept emails and phone calls between the plot's planners in Pakistan and the cell in the UK. A report from the intelligence and security committee from 2007 said the plot was so serious that "GCHQ temporarily diverted significant resources" to support the investigation.

The plotters were the target of one of the biggest ever covert surveillance operations mounted by Scotland Yard and MI5, involving every intelligence and law enforcement agency in the UK and US.

The two countries rowed about how to handle the investigation. The UK was confident it had the plotters under such tight surveillance that it could "let the terrorists run", gathering more information about their connections and evidence to prosecute them in the courts.

Just five years after 9/11, US officials were nervous about this approach.

The arrests were made on 9 August 2006, but the US had wanted them to be made the previous weekend.

Britain resisted for several reasons. The cell was "quite well penetrated" and intercepted conversations suggested it was worth waiting a few more days, according to an informed UK security source. There was also intelligence suggesting cell members would be in contact within days with someone abroad who was part of the plot.

The US was putting significant pressure on the UK to make arrests, but had Britain caved in, one key member of the plot, Assad Sarwar, would have escaped. Neither he nor the High Wycombe part of the cell had been fully identified.

Then on 7 August, a freak event meant that for a short time the US feared that, despite all the surveillance and investigation, the attack could have been under way. A check on the passenger list of an American Airlines flight from London Heathrow to Boston showed that a person on a list of potential terrorist suspects – the so called no-fly list – was on board.

Michael Chertoff, who was then the head of homeland security for the US, confirmed the scare to the Guardian. Officials feared that rather than being a coincidence the suspect's presence on the flight could have been "part of a larger plot we have not picked up", Chertoff said.

The plane was ordered to return to London and checks on the suspicious passenger revealed he was nothing to do with the plot. US nerves were frayed, and it hardened their determination to neutralise the plot.

British officials believe the US then encouraged or pressed Pakistan to arrest the suspected mastermind of the plot, Birmingham-born Rashid Rauf. The Rauf arrest in turn caused Scotland Yard to "scramble", fearing the UK cell would be tipped off. One informed UK counterterrorism source said there had been "a lot of anger" at the US actions, and that Washington had behaved in a "high-handed" fashion.

By the time of the arrests, the scale of anxiety in London and Washington was high and being exacerbated by almost daily revelations about the cell from the surveillance operation. On 9 August, a covert listening device planted by counterterrorism agents in an east London flat recorded a young British man making an extraordinary and chilling speech.

The flat was suspected of being converted into a bomb factory and the men using it had been watched for weeks by investigators who suspected them of planning to attack civilian aircraft. The bug picked up Umar Islam making a suicide video justifying an act of mass murder he and the other terrorists were planning to carry out.

"We are doing this in order to gain the pleasure of our Lord ... and Allah loves us to die and kill in his path," said Islam, who was wearing a headscarf and appeared against a black flag with Arabic writing in the video.


It was the first time UK officials knew the cell was recording so-called martyrdom videos, to be released after their attack. The discovery was interpreted as a sign the plot was close to being executed, a judgment supported by other intelligence which pointed to the plot being put into effect, possibly within days.

"They were contemplating some sort of dummy run with one individual traveling towards the end of the week," a senior police source said.

That evening officers followed two other cell members as they travelled across London, putting the finishing touches to the plot. Officers were lying in wait as two vehicles, a silver Kia Pride and a red Nissan, pulled into the car park of Walthamstow town hall. Two men got out of their cars, greeted each other, then sat on a wall and began to chat.

Within minutes a team of counterterrorism officers swooped and arrested the pair, who surrendered without a struggle.

They were Abdulla Ahmed Ali, the leader of the cell, and Assad Sarwar, the chief bombmaker. Key evidence found on them was used to convict the men who were today found guilty of the airline bomb plot.

In Sarwar's car, police found a Sony camera used to record the martyrdom videos, as well as the black flag used as a backdrop. A tape containing suicide video recordings from two of the cell was also recovered. One of the recordings was that made by Islam.

Ali was arrested with a USB computer memory stick in his left-hand pocket. It contained timetables for flights to the US, security rules about what items could be taken on flights as hand luggage and which were banned, and other information about Heathrow airport.

In his other pocket was a diary that laid out a terrorist plan that security services fear would have been the most deadly strike on the west since 11 September 2001.

It was a blueprint for how the attack would be carried out, and how the terrorists planned to distract airport security.

It read: "Select date. Five days B4 [before]. All link up. Prepare. Dirty mag to distract. Condoms. One drink used, other keep in pocket maybe will not get through machine, plus keys and chewing gum on the D in the elec device. Keep ciggies. Cameras take. The drinks that you should drink should be dif flava."

As the investigation progressed, it became clear that police had foiled a terrorist plot to smuggle a new type of liquid explosive on to as many as seven transatlantic airliners.

Prosecutor Peter Wright QC said the plan was for a "series of co-ordinated and deadly explosions" which if successful would have had a "truly global impact".

What led investigators to the cell is still not fully known. Ali, one report suggests, was linked to another terrorism suspect by the security services. In the summer of 2006 Ali returned to Britain from one of his almost yearly trips to Pakistan. At the airport his bag was opened. In it police and the security services found materials consistent with homemade bombs. The bag was resealed and, none the wiser, Ali was allowed to continue on his way. But he was placed under surveillance and everyone he met was watched and details about them checked. It was the one of the largest ever UK surveillance operations. Other sources confirm that about two motnhs before the arrests a development happened that made the investigation shoot up list of plots that counter-terrorism officials were investigating. For the weeks before the arrests, one source said: "It was the only show in town."

Even after the arrests, the full extent of the plot took months to come to light. Following Sarwar's arrest searches of the woods in High Wycombe near his home went on for weeks and in September key evidence, namely bomb-making chemicals and equipment, were still being found. The bug inside the bomb factory had picked up discussions suggesting as many as 18 people could take part in the attacks. UK counterterrorism officials believe the amount of chemicals and bomb parts recovered suggested as many as 20 devices were being made.

The bombs were of a new design. The method of concealing the separate parts of the explosives to bypass airport security had not been seen before, senior police sources concede. As a result those screening hand luggage at airports had not been told to be alert for anything resembling the devices. Once on board the components of the liquid bombs could be quickly assembled and tests by UK government scientists showed they could have caused an explosion powerful enough to punch a hole through the body of an aircraft.

After the arrests, scores of raids were carried out and huge amounts of electronic material on computers and discs were seized and examined.

At least seven flights departing from Heathrow airport's terminal three were to be subjected to a co-ordinated attack. The flights were scheduled to leave within a period of just over two and a half hours of each other, the first – a United Airlines flight to San Francisco – departing at 14.15, and the last – an American Airlines flight to Chicago – departing at 16.50.

Shortly after 16.50, the seven flights, each carrying hundreds of passengers and crew, were expected to be at cruising altitude over land or sea.

The handwritten notes and diary entries recovered by police showed the sophistication of their devices and extent to which they had worked out how best to evade post-9/11 airport security.

In court the jury heard that the evidence pointed to a plot that could cause catastrophic loss of life.

"If each of these aircraft was successfully blown up, the potential for loss of life was indeed considerable and there would be little, if any, chance of saving any of them from their impending disaster," Wright said. "For once the mid-flight explosions began, the authorities would be unable to prevent the other flights from meeting a similar fate as they would already be mid-air and carrying their deadly cargo."

Police say the investigation began in May 2006, when MI5 came to suspect some of the men. By then Sarwar had already started buying hydrogen peroxide, a key bomb-making chemical, driving to South Wales to pick up consignments. In April 2006 he used the name "Jonah Lewis" to make his first purchases.

He had returned from a trip to Pakistan in July. Ali returned from a similar trip in May and in July was observed downloading details about aeroplanes and flight times, and the link to aviation targets was made by the security services.

As the scope of the plot became clear an extra 220 officers drafted in from across the UK to help the surveillance operation. On 31 July, MI5 placed devices inside the bomb factory that allowed them to hear and see some of what was taking place.

By now the US government was interested in the investigation, and UK officials were trying to balance the need to let the plot run against the risk of the terrorists attempting an attack.



An undercover officer overheard Gulzar talking in a phone box in east London on 6 August, saying: "I definitely need it to be 8mm". The crown said that referred to the size of video cassettes on which the suicide videos would be recorded or copied. Also on 6 August, Sarwar, Ali and Gulzar were seen meeting together for the first time at an address in Glenparke Road, east London. One cell member was seen studying airline timetables.

Throughout the time that they were under surveillance the men were also seen relaxing together, playing football and tennis.

There are two theories about how exactly the terrorists would execute their plot. In one scenario up to 18 terrorists would board different planes, with maybe two or three on each aircraft, and explode their devices.

But part of a suicide video made by Ali suggested a different, more sophisticated plan. In his video the cell leader talks about "wave after wave" of attacks on the west unless foreign policy was changed, namely the withdrawal of foreign troops and officials from Iraq and Afghanistan.

As the method used to smuggle the bomb components was unknown to western authorities, and the wreckage would have either fallen into the sea or offer miniscule forensic clues as to how the explosions had been caused, other cell members would wait and then strike again.

Officials believe that after the bombings the suicide videos would have been released and the world would see the faces of the terrorists taunting the west from beyond the grave.