TERROR IN THE AIR ANALYSIS ANALYSIS SEVEN-PAGE SPECIAL REPORT PART

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Aug 13, 2006 | by NEIL MACKAY

Every aspect of the bomb teams' lives was put under secret scrutiny as the level of surveillance increased in line with the growing confidence within Britain's anti-terror units that these men were the real deal. Tabs were even kept on which launderette they used to have their clothes dry cleaned. It's an old spy trick to monitor the laundry of terror suspects in the hope of picking up telltale traces of explosives or other incriminating forensics on dirty clothes and bed sheets. Analysis of bank accounts also apparently revealed that several of the team had far more money than people of their age and status could have earned legitimately. Considerable funds were allegedly being channelled to the UK from Pakistan.

The alleged bomb team were under surveillance for more than a year, during which time Pakistani intelligence uncovered evidence of links to organisations and individuals, including Kashmiri extremists, who were part of the international al-Qaeda franchise. At least two suspects were tailed to Pakistan last year, and it is believed there were attempts to infiltrate part of the gang.

Some involved in the British arm of the investigation felt the plot was outlandish.

Once the connection to known terrorist operators was established, however, Scotland Yard's anti-terror squad was brought on board and the level of surveillance was ratcheted up considerably.

Telephone interceptions underlined just how serious these men were about pulling off what would have been the worst terrorist atrocity in British history.

Like any plot, however, it can take just one minor glitch to throw years of planning into disarray. For the British bomb team, that glitch came around two weeks ago when an Islamic militant was arrested on the AfghanistanPakistan border. He provided intelligence which helped "unearth the plot". US Homeland Security said that it was only two weeks ago that British and American intelligence found out that the plotters were targeting planes flying from the UK to America.

It is not known how much this operative knew about the British plot, but he did give up information under interrogation by the Pakistan intelligence service, the ISI, that led to further arrests in Karachi and Lahore a week last Wednesday. Among the seven men arrested in Pakistan in the followup operation were two British- born Pakistanis, one has been named as Rashid Rauf, the alleged operational planner of the terror group, and the brother of Tayib Rauf, now in police custody in the UK. It is thought that an informer paid by British intelligence was behind the tip-off that the UK passed to the ISI that lead to Rashid Rauf 's arrest. His family has been under surveillance since December. A number of the Pakistani men arrested are thought to have connections to the terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Pakistan interior minister Aftab Khan said Rashid Rauf had ties to al-Qaeda:

"We arrested him and on his disclosures we shared the information with British authorities which led to further arrests in Britain, " Khan said. Rauf, who was in frequent text message contact with the UK, appeared before a Pakistani judge on Saturday and was remanded in custody for further interrogation.