Sunday Express : MI5 Foil Bombers By Cracking Email Code

MI5 FOIL BOMBERS BY CRACKING EMAIL CODE

By Brendan Abbott | August 15, 2009

MI5 believes it foiled an Al Qaeda attack in Britain after intercepting emails using “wedding” as code word for bomb, it was revealed yesterday.

Intelligence officers were convinced a series of ordinary-sounding messages actually referred to a planned terrorist strike around Easter, and that references to the bride “Nadia” was code for a vital component in an explosive device.

The emails were sent to one of 12 Pakistani men arrested in raids across the north-west of England in April.

None of the 12 was charged with any criminal offence but they remain in custody pending deportation to Pakistan. No explosives were found.

The emails were disclosed as Mr Justice Mitting – at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission – gave his reasons for refusing bail to five of the men at a hearing last month. There will be a full hearing later.

Telegraph : Judge says 'al-Qaeda emails' could refer to bomb plot

Judge says 'al-Qaeda emails' could refer to bomb plot

By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent | August 14, 2009

Five Pakistani students have been denied bail after a judge decided they may have used coded emails about girls and cars to plan an Easter bombing campaign in Manchester.

The emails, disclosed by the Daily Telegraph last month, appear to use girl’s names to allude to bomb-making chemicals and a planned wedding as code for the attack.

Mr Justice Mitting, a high court judge, chairing the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), said, “unless that assessment is clearly wrong we must, for present purposes, accept it.”

He said the commission had examined further evidence about the emails behind closed doors and was refusing bail until a full hearing next year.

The Government is trying to deport the students saying they are a risk to national security because they were members of a “UK-based network involved in terrorist operational activity in the UK, most likely attack planning.”

MI5 claims that the terrorist network was “co-ordinated” by a 23-year-old student who can only be referred to as “XC”, who sent and received the emails, and that it was “directed by al-Qaeda based overseas.”

They believe he was using girl’s names to allude to chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide and phrases such as “weak and difficult to convince” or “crystal clear” to the strengths of the chemicals available.

In one email the alleged commander in Pakistan referred to a “new car” which MI5 believed could refer to car bombs.

An email sent by XC on the afternoon of April 3 sparked fears that an attack was imminent when he said he had “agreed to conduct the nikah [wedding] after 15th and before 20th of this month” adding: “We will have many guests attending the party…I wished you could be here as well to enjoy the party.” It was this that led to police raids across the north west in which 11 men were arrested.

Four of the students attended one or both meetings with XC held on March 23 and April 1 this year when the “wedding” was allegedly discussed.

Mr Justice Mitting said the commission did not find MI5’s assessment of the meetings was “clearly wrong.”

Referring to the emails, he added: “On the information, open and closed, which we have now, we are not satisfied that the assessment by the Security Service of their likely meaning is clearly wrong.”

Robin Tam, QC for the government, said the emails were “central to the open case against the appellants” but Richard Hermer QC for XC told the commission that the assessment was far fetched and that when the emails were examined in the context of all the others stored on the hard drive of the man’s computer, they would be shown to be no more than innocent social discussions.

The commission said XC had submitted a “belated, as yet unsigned, statement” which made the same claim and suggested that the emails refer to “girls, though not by their own names, and that he hoped to marry in April 2009.”

All the appellants have pointed to the fact that no explosives were recovered and that there is nothing to link any of those arrested with explosives.

Of the 11 men initially arrested, eight are appealing against deportation on national security grounds, including XC, Abdul Wahab Khan, Shoaib Khan, Mohammed Ramzan, Ahmed Faraz Khan and Tariq ur-Rehman, who has returned to Pakistan voluntarily. Five had their application for bail turned down.

Two others, Janas Khan and Sultan Sher, have been bailed pending deportation for visa irregularities although the government still maintains they were “involved in an extreme Islamist network.”

A British man, Hamza Shinwari, was released without charge.

The three unnamed men, including XC, have declined to waive their anonymity under the rules that govern SIAC.

Telegraph : Cars and girls: email 'codewords’ that put MI5 on terrorist alert

Cars and girls: email 'codewords’ that put MI5 on terrorist alert

By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent | July 30, 2009

A Muslim terrorist suspect sent coded emails to an al-Qaeda commander in which references to his impending marriage were in fact details of a planned bomb attack in Britain, MI5 has claimed.

The messages, intercepted by the security service, allegedly showed that an extremist cell in Manchester was communicating with a commander in Pakistan to execute an Easter bombing campaign.

The emails, written by a 23-year-old Pakistani student, appeared to refer to several girlfriends and plans to buy a car. But the Home Office claimed that the text was code for a car-bomb attack intended to take place within days.

It led to the largest terrorist alert in Britain for two years and a series of arrests, which were brought forward after Bob Quick, the then head of counter-terrorism at the Metropolitan Police, was pictured walking into Downing Street holding a piece of paper disclosing details of the operation, code-named Pathway.

Police across the North West moved in to arrest 11 students on April 8. During subsequent raids, officers found an A-to-Z with streets marked, photographs of shopping centres and a video of the men on a trip to the Welsh countryside. However, they found no evidence of bomb-making and none of the men was charged with terrorism offences.

On Monday, the eight emails were presented in evidence to a special hearing before a high court judge to decide whether the men should be deported.

MI5 believed that girls’ names were used to refer to chemicals and that talk of a “wedding” was actually a reference to the bombing itself. In one of the messages, allegedly sent to an al-Qaeda commander in Pakistan, the student, alleged to have been the leader of the cell, wrote that he planned to get married in 12 to 17 days. That caused alarm among the security services who feared an attack was imminent.

The Government is now attempting to have 10 men, who entered the country on student visas, deported to Pakistan, claiming they are a threat to national security.

In legal documents submitted by Robin Tam QC, for the Home Secretary, the Government maintained that the men were members of a “UK-based network involved in terrorist operational activity in the UK, most likely attack planning” and that the network was “directed by al-Qaeda based overseas”.

MI5 believes that the 23-year-old student, who cannot be named but is referred to as XC, was the “linchpin” of the group.

Eight men are appealing against deportation at the tribunal, including XC, Abdul Wahab Khan, Shoaib Khan, Mohammed Ramzan, Ahmed Faraz Khan and Tariq ur-Rehman, who has returned to Pakistan voluntarily.

Two others, Janas Khan and Sultan Sher, have been bailed pending deportation for visa irregularities, although the Government still maintains that they were “involved in an extreme Islamist network”. A British man, Hamza Shinwari, was released without further action being taken.

The men claim they were just friends and the trip to Wales was for sightseeing and playing cricket. Pictures in which they posed as “commandos” were just for fun, they said.

Richard Hermer QC, for XC, said that the Government’s evidence was of a “pitiful quality” and that the investigation by MI5 had been “at best incompetent”. “Despite what we assume was the most rigorous of counter-terrorism investigations, not one jot of evidence was found of bomb-making,” he said.

The Government’s case would “dissolve” if a thorough examination was made of XC’s internet use, which comprised hundreds of emails and visits to Muslim chat rooms in connection with a relationship, Mr Hermer said.

He added that, through text messages on XC’s mobile phone, police had traced a young woman who confirmed they were in a relationship and considering marriage.

The men were all denied bail yesterday pending a full hearing in March or April next year.

Telegraph : Easter bomb plot 'leader' sent coded emails

Easter bomb plot 'leader' sent coded emails

By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent | July 28, 2009

The leader of an alleged terrorist cell said to be plotting an Easter bomb attack in Manchester sent emails about his girlfriend which were actually coded messages about the plot, it has been claimed.

The Pakistani student, referred to only as XC who lived in the Cheetham Hill area of Manchester, was the "lynchpin" of a gang that was only seven to 12 days from "executing a major terrorist bomb attack in the UK" when he was arrested on April 8, it was claimed.

Although he was not charged with any offence the Home Office is trying to deport him on the grounds he was a member of a "UK based network linked to al-Qaeda involved in attack planning."

It had been suggested that the targets were shopping centres in the city but the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) in London heard that the attack was against an "unspecified target."

SIAC was also told that police seized 64 computers and found a number of "oddly phrased emails" to and from XC, some of which used the terms "crystal clear," said to refer to chemicals, and "weak and difficult to convince" said to refer to the concentration of the bomb-making chemical hydrogen peroxide.

The commission heard that police had also found an A to Z map of Manchester on which a number of streets had been marked.

The gang, not including XC, were said to be under observation as they were "running and dancing" in the hills of Wales.

They were also seen meeting together on a number of other occasions.

Further details were heard behind closed doors as part of a bail hearing for XC but Richard Hermer QC for the appellant said the open evidence was of a "pitiful quality" and that the investigation by MI5 had been "at best incompetent."

"Despite what we assume was the most rigorous of counter-terrorism investigations, not one jot of evidence was found of bomb-making," he added.

He said the attempt by the security service to interpret the emails had failed to find any regular euphamisms in what they claimed was a "code" and they had admitted that the terms could also refer to weapons or recruiting other extremists.

"Context is everything and what needs to be done is to look at the totality of the respondent's use of the internet. If this is done the case will dissolve."

Mr Hermer said XC had sent hundreds of emails and been a regular visitor to Muslim websites and chat rooms in connection with a relationship.

He said police had been able to trace a young woman through XC's text messages who confirmed that she was in a relationship with him and they were talking about marriage.

Mr Hermer added that if there had been any evidence of a link to al-Qaeda, the government would have been obliged to have added the men's names to a United Nations list.

"He is a 23-year-old who has been branded as a terrorist with the intent to kill others and he wants to clear his name," Mr Hermer said.

Out of the 11 men arrested, a British man was released without charge, one has returned to Pakistan voluntarily, six others are also appealing against deportation and two have been bailed pending deportation for visa irregularities, although Robin Tam QC for the Home Secretary, claimed they were "involved in an extreme Islamist network."

Telegraph : Taliban target Britain on 'orders' from al-Qaeda

Taliban target Britain on 'orders' from al-Qaeda

By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent | May 30, 2009

A Taliban-trained terrorist was part of a cell sent to bomb Britain as revenge for their presence in Afghanistan, it has emerged.

The terrorist informant has told prosecutors he was trained by Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistan Taliban, and was planning a series of suicide attacks with 11 other men.

The informant, known as "Ahmed", told investigators the bombers were to work in pairs using a "device carried in a backpack with a third person to detonate a remote control" in order to ensure the bombers went through with their mission.

Details of the attempted attacks emerged in papers submitted to the Spanish authorities in a case against the alleged bombers, who were arrested in raids in the Raval district of Barcelona in January last year.

It is claimed the attacks were to begin on the Barcelona underground system and then spread to the other European countries with a presence in Afghanistan, thought to include Britain, according to new documents.

The information echoed claims made by British security services that a terrorist cell was sent to Manchester from the Taliban heartland in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas.

British investigators believe that the cell, which was allegedly planning attacks on the Trafford and Arndale shopping centres over the Easter holidays, had connections with al-Qaeda, and Spanish prosecutors say their cell may also have had links with al-Qaeda.

The terrorist group is believed to have formed a "holy alliance" with the Taliban to launch terrorist attacks on foreign soil.

Instead of relying on British-born men travelling to Pakistan for training, al-Qaeda is now recruiting "ready made" terrorists from among the Taliban, investigators believe.

The 10 men arrested in the north west are fighting deportation on national security grounds after Government lawyers accused them of being members of a "UK-based network linked to al-Qaeda involved in attack planning".

Spanish police found chemicals including nitrocellulose and potassium perchlorate along with batteries, timers and cables in the raids.

They also found "materials for indoctrination" relating to attacks against Nato forces in Afghanistan and books and DVDs.

Spanish prosecutors submitted documents laying out their case earlier this month and Dolores Delgado Garcia, a prosecutor at Spain's National Court, told the Daily Telegraph she believed the Barcelona cell was inspired by speeches by Osama bin Laden about the "loss of Andalucia" once part of the Muslim Ottoman empire.

"Al-Qaeda has been targeting Spain because of its historic associations with Andalucia," she said. "But other cities in Europe where countries have troops in Afghanistan were also targets."

Explaining her case at a top-level conference organised by New York University's Centre for Law and Security, she said "Ahmed" had become a "protected witness" and had told them that "Baitullah Mehsud would make demands and when they were not complied with, they would launch their attacks".

Ahmed told them he had trained at a terrorist camp in Waziristan, in Pakistan's tribal areas, and met Mehsud.

The men allegedly arrived in Spain via Germany using false travel documents.

Ahmed, a member of the fundamentalist group Tablighi Jamaat which is popular in the tribal areas, had second thoughts about launching a suicide attack when he was among those told to call his family and "say goodbye".

He is said to have refused to participate and contacted French intelligence, who in turn got in touch with the Spanish.

They have named Maroof Ahmed Mirza, 40, an imam at a mosque in Raval, as the leader of the cell along with Elia Mohammad Ayud Bibi, 64, while three others, Afees Ahmed, Qadeer Malik and Iqbal Sabih, were allegedly the bomb-makers.

The suicide bombers are said to have included Mohammed Shoaib, Mehmooh Khalid, Imran Cheema and ur-Rehman Aqeel Khalid.

Their other targets are said to have included Germany, France and Portugal.

Telegraph : Manchester 'bomb plot' accused appeal against deportation

Manchester 'bomb plot' accused appeal against deportation

All ten of the Pakistani men released following an alleged Easter bombing plot to blow up shopping centers in Manchester have appealed against being deported.

By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent | May 6, 2009

The men, most of whom arrived on student visas, have lodged cases with the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) arguing that they could be tortured if they were returned to Pakistan.

All the detainees, who can apply for bail, have requested anonymity which means the Daily Telegraph is now banned from using their names.

Their fight is likely to take several years and cost the tax payer millions of pounds as they take it through the SIAC system and then appeal to the House of Lords and the European Court of Human Rights.

It is understood the UK Borders Agency applied to have them deported on the grounds of national security and visa irregularities – several of the men were working as security guards although they had arrived on student visas.

SIAC is allowed to consider intelligence information that could not be put before the courts with a special advocate representing the detainees in closed hearings.

The security services insist they have intelligence, understood to be based on phone taps and intercepted emails, that would not be admissible in a normal court and that their investigation is continuing.

Police were hoping to find further information from the men's computers and searches of their homes that would narrow down the targets and their method of attack.

One man, who is a British citizen, was released without charge while the remaining ten, none of whom have been charged, are held in immigration custody.

The Peninsula : Deportation accord yet to materialise

Deportation accord yet to materialise

May 4, 2009

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and the UK are expected to undertake ‘exchange of letters’ during President Asif Ali Zardari’s visit later this month, sources said.

The agreement on deportation may be finalised despite reservations expressed by Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani and Pakistan’s Foreign Office.

Britain had proposed to Pakistan signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) titled ‘Deportation with Assurances’, apparently to subvert legal challenge to the likely deportation of the Pakistani students being held by Britain’s Border Agency.

The British agency intends to deport the Pakistani students on national security grounds despite the fact that they had been released without charge in the Easter bomb plot.

The British proposal had met with stiff resistance from the Foreign Office, and the Pakistan High Commission in London had refused to issue visas to some British experts, who had planned to visit Islamabad to negotiate the MoU. Prime Minister Gordon Brown had also taken up the matter with his interlocutors during his visit to Islamabad earlier this week and called for expediting the signing of the MoU. Prime Minister Gilani had politely turned down Brown’s request, telling him that the proposed MoU required thorough examination.

But, it appears that Brown was able to win some support for his proposal in Islamabad as soon after his visit the withheld visas for the British team were issued following the intervention of Interior Minister Rehman Malik. The British team is expected to visit Pakistan next week. Sources said instead of signing the MoU, both countries would now exchange letters during Zardari’s visit to London on May 14.

Although, the two nomenclatures — the MoU and Exchange of Letters — appear to be quite different from one another, in effect both reflect a commitment on part of the governments involved to adhere to their agreement on a particular issue.

An analyst explained that the ‘Exchange of Letters’ carries diplomatic value and has binding effect. The Foreign Office is in the dark about these developments. A source said the interior minister was handling the matter himself and the Foreign Office was not being kept on board. President Zardari had refused to appear with the British prime minister at a press conference during Brown’s April 27 visit to Pakistan.

The refusal was taken by the media as a snub for Brown because of differences over the arrest of Pakistani students and the subsequent handling of the matter. However, it has now transpired that Zardari had refused a press conference with Brown to avoid differing with him publicly on the students’ issue, because it was anticipated that the media could be posing tough questions.

Dawn : Pakistan seeks early release of arrested students

Pakistan seeks early release of arrested students

By M. Ziauddin | April 28, 2009

LONDON: Pakistan’s High Commissioner Wajid Shamsul Hasan has appealed to the British government to release the 10 Pakistani students without further delay to undo the enormous damage done to their reputation.

At a press conference here on Monday, Mr Hasan said the UK security forces failed to find any evidence against the students who were arrested in dramatic circumstances and wrongly accused of hatching an ‘Easter Bomb Plot’ which turned out to be another embarrassing intelligence failure.

He vowed that Pakistan would take up the case of these students to the level of the High Court, House of Lords and even the European Court.

Mr Hasan said the UK authorities had failed to bring charges under anti-terrorism legislation and, therefore, it would be only right to release these students and they should be compensated monetarily for troubles they had been through. ‘They should be allowed to carry on studying at their respective universities.’

He said officials from the high commission were in touch with the students — currently being detained at Bradford, Manchester and Coventry — and had assured them of full assistance.

The HC regretted that Pakistan was initially kept in the dark about the nature of charges and proceedings of the probe despite many requests.

Four of the 10 students appealed against their arrest and detention on Friday, four launched appeals on Monday and the remaining will put up appeals on Tuesday.

It was made out in the media as if these students were to stage terrorist acts of huge proportions, he said. The innocent students were maligned. The media has been proven wrong and now it’s the moral duty of the media to vindicate Pakistan with the same amount of coverage, Mr Hasan demanded.

The high commissioner said Pakistan had high expectations from UKs well-known legal justice system and hoped these students would be allowed to complete their studies.

He said the British and American visa rules were the toughest in the world already and only a limited number of people were allowed entry into these countries after a stringent counter-checking process.

He said that of the 27,000 students who applied for student visas in legitimate British institutions, only 10,000 were given visas.

Police One : Disruption vs. prosecution and the Manchester plot

Terrorism Prevention and Response Article: Disruption vs. prosecution and the Manchester plot

By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart | | April 26, 2009

On April 8, British authorities mounted a series of raids in Merseyside, Manchester and Lancashire that resulted in the arrest of 12 men suspected of being involved in a plot to conduct attacks over the Easter holiday weekend. In a press conference the following day, Prime Minister Gordon Brown noted that the men arrested were allegedly involved in “a very big terrorist plot.” British authorities have alleged that those arrested sought to conduct suicide bombing attacks against a list of soft targets that included shopping centers, a train station and a nightclub.

The searches and arrests targeting the suspects purportedly involved in the plot, which was dubbed Operation Pathway, had to be accelerated after Bob Quick, the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in charge of terrorism investigations, inadvertently allowed reporters to see a classified document pertaining to the operation as he was entering 10 Downing Street to brief Brown and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith on April 8. An embarrassed Quick resigned April 9 over the gaffe.

In spite of the leak, the British authorities were successful in detaining all of the targeted suspects, though the authorities have reportedly not been able to recover explosive material or other bomb-making evidence they were seeking. British authorities arrested 12 suspects, 11 of whom were Pakistani citizens. Smith told British Parliament on April 20 that all 11 of the Pakistani nationals entered the United Kingdom on student visas. The youngest of the Pakistani suspects, who is reportedly still a teenager, was remanded to the custody of British immigration authorities to face deportation proceedings April 9. The rest of the 11 suspects were released by British authorities April 21, though ten reportedly were placed in the custody of immigration officials.

Many of the specific details of the plot have not yet come out, and due to the sensitive nature of the intelligence sources and methods involved in these types of investigations, more details may never be fully divulged now that there will be no criminal trial. However, when viewed in the historical and tactical context of other terror plots and attacks (in the United Kingdom and elsewhere), there are some very interesting conclusions that can be drawn from this series of events and the few facts that have been released to the public so far.

This case also highlights the tension that exists within the counterterrorism community between advocates of strategies to disrupt terrorist attacks and those who want to ensure that terror suspects can be convicted in a court of law.

Targets

Among of the most significant things that have come to light so far regarding the thwarted plot are the alleged targets. According to press reports, the British MI5 surveillance teams assigned to monitor the activities of the purported plotters observed some of them videotaping themselves outside of the Arndale and Trafford shopping centers in Manchester, as well as at St. Ann’s Square, which lies in the center of Manchester’s main shopping district. Other reports suggest that the plotters had also conducted surveillance of Manchester’s Piccadilly train station, an intercity train station that is one of the busiest in the United Kingdom outside London, and Manchester’s Birdcage nightclub.

These targets are significant for several reasons. First, they are all soft targets — that is, targets with very little security. As STRATFOR has pointed out for several years now, since counterterrorism efforts have been stepped up in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and as the tactical capability of groups like al Qaeda has been degraded, jihadist operatives have had less success targeting hardened targets and have turned instead to striking soft targets.

While authorities have moved to protect high-value targets, there simply are far too many potential targets to protect them all. Governments are stretched thin just trying to protect important government buildings, bridges, dams, nuclear power plants, airports and mass-transit systems in their jurisdiction. The reality on the ground is that there are not nearly enough resources to protect them all, much less every potential location where people concentrate in large groups — like shopping centers and nightclubs. This means that some targets are unprotected and are therefore, by definition, soft.

The selection of soft targets in this case indicates that the alleged Manchester plotters did not possess the operational capability to strike more strategic, high-value targets. While attacks against soft targets can be tragic and quite bloody, they will not have the same effect as a successful attack on high-value targets such as Parliament, the London Stock Exchange or a nuclear power station.

It is also very interesting that the plotters were purportedly looking to hit soft targets in Manchester and not soft targets in London. London, as the capital and a city that has been the center of several plots and attacks, is generally on a higher alert than the rest of the country and therefore would likely be seen as more difficult to target. Additionally, many of the suspects lived in the Manchester area, and as we have previously discussed, grassroots operatives, who are not as well-trained as their transnational brethren, tend to “think globally and act locally,” meaning that they tend to plan their attacks in familiar places where they are comfortable operating, rather than in strange and potentially more hostile environment.

In addition to targeting locations like shopping centers and the train station, where there were expected to be large crowds over the holiday weekend, the alleged plotters also apparently looked at the Birdcage nightclub, an establishment that is famous for its “flamboyant and spectacular” shows featuring female impersonators. This is a location the alleged plotters likely considered a symbol of Western decadence (like establishments that serve alcohol in Muslim countries).

Flawed Tradecraft

As noted above, the alleged plotters had been under surveillance by MI5. This indicates that their operational security had been compromised, either via human or technical means. Furthermore, the suspects did not appear to possess any surveillance detection capability — or even much situational awareness — as they went out into Manchester to conduct pre-operational surveillance of potential targets while under government surveillance themselves. Furthermore, the suspects’ surveillance techniques appear to have been very rudimentary in that they lacked both cover for action and cover for status while conducting their surveillance operations.

This aspect of the investigation reinforces two very important points that STRATFOR has been making for some time now. First, most militant groups do not provide very good surveillance training and as a result, poor surveillance tradecraft has long proven to be an Achilles’ heel for militants. Second, because of this weakness, countersurveillance operations can be very effective at catching militant operatives when they are most vulnerable — during the surveillance phase of the terrorist attack cycle.

Media reports indicated that during Operation Pathway, British authorities intercepted a series of Internet exchanges between the suspects suggesting a terror strike was imminent. Furthermore, among the locations raided April 8 was the Cyber Net Cafe in Cheetham Hill, an establishment where British authorities observed the suspects using computers to communicate. Not only is this electronic surveillance significant in that it allowed the authorities to surmise the approximate timing of the attack, but perhaps just as important, this ability to monitor the suspects’ communications will allow the authorities to identify other militants in the United Kingdom and beyond.

Indeed, in several previous cases related to the United Kingdom, such as the investigations involving the U.S. arrest of Mohammed Junaid Babar and the U.K. arrest of Younis Tsouli, authorities were able to use communications from militant suspects to identify and roll up militant cells in other countries. Therefore, we will not be at all surprised to hear at some point in the future that British authorities were able use the communications of the recently arrested suspects to tip off authorities in the United States, Canada, other European countries or elsewhere about the militant activities of people the suspects were in contact with.

Links to Pakistan

And speaking of elsewhere, as noted above, 11 of the arrested suspects were Pakistani nationals who entered the U.K. on student visas. At this point it is not exactly clear if the British believe the 11 suspects were radical militants specifically sent to the United Kingdom to conduct attacks or if they arrived without malicious intent and were then radicalized in the Petri dish of Islamist extremism that so rapidly replicates inside the British Muslim community — what we have come to refer to as Londonistan.

Many British lawmakers and media reports have made a huge issue out of the fact that 11 of the alleged plotters entered the United Kingdom on student visas, but even if the suspects were radicals who used student visas as a way to enter the United Kingdom, this is by no means a new tactic as some are reporting. STRATFOR has long discussed the use of student visas, bogus political asylum claims and other forms of immigration fraud that have commonly been used by militants. In fact, there have been numerous prior examples of jihadist operatives using student visas, such as the following:

* While Sept. 11 hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi initially entered the United States on tourist visas, they were approved for M-1 student visas shortly before carrying out their attacks.

* Youssef Samir Megahed, who was arrested in possession of an improvised explosive device (IED) in August 2007 and later sentenced to a 15-year prison sentence, was a Kuwaiti engineering student who entered the United States on a student visa.

* Mohammed Aatique, a convicted member of the “Virginia Jihad Network” who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiracy and weapons violations, also entered the United States from Pakistan as an engineering student.

In some ways, connections between the alleged plotters and militant groups in Pakistan such as al Qaeda or the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) would be more analytically significant than if they turn out to be grassroots operatives. The operational security, skills and terrorist tradecraft exhibited by the plotters are about what one would expect to see in a grassroots militant organization. This level of sophistication is, however, far less than one would expect from a transnational organization. Therefore, if this was an al Qaeda operation, it shows how far the group has fallen in the past eight years. If it was the TTP, it means that our previous estimate of their operational ability outside of Pakistan was fairly accurate.

Lack of Evidence

To date, the British authorities have not been able to find the explosive material and IED components they were expecting to find. This might mean that the materials may still be hidden somewhere and could be used in a future attack. It is also quite possible, and perhaps more likely, that this lack of evidence is an indication that the plot was not quite as far along as the British authorities believed. Perhaps the references the suspects allegedly made to launching the attack on a bank holiday pertained to a holiday later in the year.

While the plot as described by the British authorities would not have been a significant, strategic threat to the United Kingdom, it could have been quite deadly and could very well have surpassed the July 7, 2005, attacks in terms of final body count. Because of this potential destruction, it is quite possible that the British government decided to err on the side of disruption rather than on the side of prosecution. This is something we have seen in the investigation of several other plots in recent years in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, perhaps most notably in the August 2006 Heathrow plot, in which a cell of operatives was preparing to bomb a series of trans-Atlantic airline flights using liquid explosives.

It is much more difficult to obtain a conviction for a conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism than it is to obtain a conviction for an attack that was successfully conducted. Once the attack is executed, there is no longer much room to wrangle in court over things such as intent or capability. Governments also frequently know things via intelligence they cannot prove to the standards required for a conviction in a court of law.

This was seen in the Heathrow case, where only three of the eight suspects were convicted of the main charges during that trial, which ended in September 2008. (The other five suspects had pled guilty to lesser charges.) During that case there was reportedly some tension between the U.S. and British authorities over when to wrap up the Heathrow plotters — some of the British apparently wanted to wait a while longer to secure more damning evidence, while the Americans were reportedly more interested in ensuring that the plot was disrupted than they were in obtaining convictions. It is likely the same dynamic was at play during the investigation of the Manchester case.

Although Quick’s disclosure did hasten the launch of Operation Pathway by a few hours, it did not significantly alter the timing of the investigation — the British authorities were preparing to execute an array of searches and arrests. From an ethical standpoint (and, not insignificantly in this day and age, a political aspect) it is deemed better by many to disrupt a plot early and risk the terror suspects being acquitted than it is to accidentally allow them to conduct an attack while waiting to gather the evidence required for an ironclad court case. Disruption can have an impact on the success of prosecutions, but in the eyes of a growing number of policymakers, that impact is offset by the lives it saves.

~~~~

Fred Burton is one of the world’s foremost authorities on security, terrorists and terrorist organizations. In his capacity as Vice President for Counterterrorism and Corporate Security, Mr. Burton oversees Stratfor’s terrorism intelligence service and consults with clients on security-related issues affecting their organizations or personal safety. He leads a team of terrorism experts and a global network of human intelligence sources to analyze and forecast the most significant events and trends related to terrorism and counterterrorism. Before joining Stratfor, Mr. Burton served as a special agent in counterterrorism for the U.S. Department of State, where he was involved in many high-profile operations. He orchestrated the arrest of Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing, and investigated cases such as the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the killing of Rabbi Meir Kahane, al Qaeda’s New York City bombing plots before 9/11, and the Libyan-backed terrorist attacks against diplomats in Sanaa and Khartoum. He has also served as the U.S. liaison officer to several international security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies, providing consulting on global intelligence and threat identification. In addition, Mr. Burton has revolutionized the field of security by designing a unique and specialized protective program to safeguard CEOs, their families, employees and physical facilities. His strategy is highly valued and has been implemented by governments and a number of the world’s leading corporations. For a special offer to get a copy of GHOST, and to read additional information about Fred Burton and his role at Stratfor, please click here

Independent : Matthew Norman: Another police fiasco to divert attention from the last one

Matthew Norman: Another police fiasco to divert attention from the last one

What is unforgivable is that the Pakistanis haven't been released but held for deporting

April 24, 2009

Seldom since September 11 2001 has there been a better day than Wednesday for the burial of bad news. With the Chancellor borrowing from compatriot Private Frazer, an undertaker himself, to tell us we're all doomed (I paraphrase the Budget very slightly), the announcement that a huge meteor was on course to disrupt the London Marathon on Sunday would have passed by barely noticed.

If Jacqui Smith had coughed to claiming £120,000 for being impregnated with a foetus cloned from Osama bin Laden in a Torinese clinic, it would have been lost. Had it emerged that Gordon Brown has signed up for a sex change, followed by extensive cosmetic surgery and the loss of his legs below the knee, in the cause of becoming a Susan Boyle tribute act (the only way, according to leading pundits, he could win an election), it might have made a two-paragraph brief on page 27.

Consider yourselves forgiven, then, if the trumpets of the Four Horsemen of the Fiscal Apocalypse drowned out the noise of a less sensational news cadaver being lowered into the ground with half the ceremony lavished on Eleanor Rigby... the very bad, if unstartling, news that the British police have contrived another colossal fiasco.

As it proudly takes its place on the honours board of terrorist-related policing calamity, alongside the "Ricin plot" sans Ricin, the "airline bomb plot" involving no airliners, the "London Underground cyanide plot" devoid of cyanide and aimed at no Tube trains, and the shooting of an innocent Muslim in east London technically known as Forest GateGate, please give a warm, Independent readers' welcome to the "Easter bomb plot" with nothing to do with Easter and not the hint of an explosive.

The special appeal about this one is its exquisite symmetry. The arrests of a dozen Muslim men, 11 Pakistanis here on student visas and a lone British national, were rushed through on 9 April in the wake of former Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick's little faux pas with that top secret folder as he strode manfully towards Number 10.

Given that all 12 have now been released without charge, we ask ourselves why Mr Quick was in Downing Street at all. And the odds-on 2-9 favourite, we answer, is that the Government and Scotland Yard were desperate to flam up a "police triumph" story to divert outrage from the possible manslaughter of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protest.

And a triumph, for a while at least, it was. Gordon was thrilled to bits by Operation Pathway, lauding the police for foiling what he assured us, with neo-Blunkettian contempt for the basic precepts of natural justice, was a "very big terrorist plot". So big, it transpires, that the police and security services, these brethren defenders of life and liberty now engaged in a ferocious game of buck-passing, had amassed zero evidence. Houses, cars and computers were searched, and not a carrot found.

Apparently there'd been a tip-off from our spooks in Pakistan, which is nice, although ever since MI6 failed to predict the collapse of Soviet Communism, common sense suggests their intelligence be handled with giant tongs. One person's common sense is another's venal cynicism, of course, and the security world's faith in its own competence does credit to its trusting nature, if only towards itself.

Now although we cannot be certain that these men were harmless, their release after less than a fortnight, when the law now allows suspects to be held for 28 days, entitles us to make the presumption; just as we may assume that they were arrested, despite being under 24-hour surveillance that had unearthed no imminent "bomb plot", to remove Mr Tomlinson's death from the front pages; and just as we must suspect that the timing of their release, on the eve of the Budget, was more than coincidence.

The creation of a fresh policing catastrophe in the attempt to divert public fury from a previous one is, as I said, gorgeously symmetrical. If royal protection officers had shot Prince Philip to deflect attention from their failure to keep Michael Fagan out of the Queen's bedroom, that would have done the trick too, but again you'd have wondered whether the game was worth the candle.

Yet however inured we've become to ministers and a frighteningly politicised police force crying wolf (you will recall the pre-election ringing of Heathrow with tanks for no other apparent reason than electoral gain), we cannot become blasé about the blithe vindictiveness that underscores this case.

Bending over backwards to be charitable, one might read the "Easter bomb plot" arrests as nothing more sinister than a loss of nerve... the blind terror, in a risk-averse world, that waiting to collect some evidence could lead to loss of life. It's very easy to be smug, sat behind a computer screen, about the nervous nelliedom of those responsible for keeping us safe. It isn't so easy, in truth, to imagine how men being followed round the clock, their phones and emails perpetually bugged, could hurriedly activate the plot to detonate so much as a stink bomb.

Lord Carlile, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has promised a "snapshot review" of Operation Pathway, and if he sees fit to publish it perhaps we will learn more about the mechanics of this cock-up. Whatever his findings, however, and without excusing the evidently political nature of the timing or ignoring the damage all this premature incarceration does to relations with a justifiably livid and suspicious Muslim community, one does understand the general temptation to err on the side of caution.

What is utterly unforgivable is that the 11 Pakistanis have been released into not freedom but the unlovely arms of the immigration service, which will seek to deport them on the familiar catch that they are, in some nebulous manner of which they have no legal right to be informed so that they might defend themselves against the charge, a threat to national security. Having tainted them with the McBridean smear that they are would-be killers with his "very big terrorist plot" gibberish, in other words, Gordon Brown means to use their deportation as no-smoke-without-fire cover for a grave mistake in which he was complicit.

If an apology and compensation for their wrongful detention is an outlandish expectation from a government whose paramount concern remains the opinion of right wing tabloids, is it too much to ask that these chaps be spared the persecution they can, having been condemned as terrorists by a British PM, count on back in Pakistan?

Apparently it is. For far too long, idiots like myself have given Gordon Brown the benefit of every doubt, ever qualifying attacks on his abysmal leadership, relentless machine politician bullying and abundant cowardice in the line of fire with the rider that at least he, unlike his predecessor, is at heart a well-intentioned man. The sacrifice of these innocents to spare his blushes makes this a very good day to bury that credulous misjudgment in a concrete-lined coffin, never to be disinterred.

The Stirrer : A Study In Terror

A STUDY IN TERROR

April 23, 2009

Released without charge after nearly two weeks police interrogation over an alleged terror plot, nearly a dozen Pakistani students are now being further detained by immigration officials pending deportation as ‘a threat to national security’. Legitimate incarceration or just the State trying to cover it’s back asks Steve Beauchampe?

All twelve men arrested in a blaze of publicity over what quickly came to be known as the ‘Easter Bomb Plots’ (aka Operation Pathway) are innocent. We know they are because despite a huge and unparalleled raft of anti-terror legislation (much of it introduced in recent years) which allows the police to press charges for activities with only the most tenuous of links to the planting of bombs, or to killing or maiming, the twelve have been released without charge.

This after thirteen days of what will undoubtedly have been intense and repeated questioning. Indeed, Greater Manchester Police, who carried out the arrests on behalf of MI5, didn’t even consider it necessary to apply to a High Court Judge for an extension of the mens’ detention of up to 28 days, as the law allows.

From start to finish this case has been an embarrassment and PR disaster for the police, senior politicians and the security services, an expose of their incompetence from the moment Scotland Yard Assistant Commissioner for Special Operations Bob Quick exited a car brandishing a document showing details of the counter intelligence operation, a gaffe for which he quickly resigned.

Within hours the media were carrying claims that the arrests had foiled a massive terror attack designed to bring Eastertide carnage to the North West, with shopping meccas such as Manchester’s Arndale and Trafford centres and the city’s Birdcage nightclub said to be the prime targets.

Unnamed police sources were quoted as saying there was an ‘imminent and credible threat’ and that ‘these are the most significant terrorism arrests for some time’. In the headlong rush to publish the most lurid scare stories few stopped to consider the chronology. Apparently the arrests had been brought forward following Quick’s unwitting expose. Really? By how much? It was all but Easter anyway!

Meanwhile Prime Minister Gordon Brown, having claimed that, “we are dealing with a very big terrorist plot”, was issuing stern warnings to Pakistan to stop sending would-be terrorists to Britain under the guise of being students, while the Pakistani High Commissioner to Britain was telling the UK to tighten who it issues student visas to.

So where exactly did the media get their stories from, given that specific details of the case had not been officially released? The Met? MI5? Greater Manchester Police? the Home Office? Downing Street?

We may never be told, but many of these organisations have form when it comes to information leaks and there are plenty of jobbing journalists and editors around, increasingly used to simply reproducing press releases, who are more than willing to parrot such ‘information’ seemingly without question in order to make good copy.

So are the arrested men, all but one of them living in the UK on student visas, allowed to return to their studies? Like heck they are!

Instead, they are summarily passed to the Borders and Immigration Service (BIS) in readiness for deportation (eleven of the twelve are Pakistani nationals) on the grounds that they pose a threat to national security.

This vague, indefinable piece of legalese jargon provides the security services with an escape clause, a way of avoiding their culpability for yet another security cock up. Kick out the Muslims while labelling them as terrorists who got away with it. Ruin their reputations and damn the concept of innocent until proven guilty, anything to avoid admitting failings and offering redress.

No one disputes that the police have a duty to arrest and question those whom they believe may be engaged in criminal activity, but it is the spin and politicking that so often accompanies high profile cases that leaves such a sour taste. Because the State and its servants are rarely honorable enough to say sorry, acknowledge their mistakes and recognise the impact these have on innocent lives.

Ask the Birmingham Six or the Guildford Four, still waiting to hear for the ‘s’ word for the gross crimes committed against them by the British judicial system. Ask Barry George; when George was cleared of murdering of Jill Dando in 2008, following many years in prison, the Met pronounced themselves, not contrite, but ‘disappointed’.

Ask the Forest Gate Two, shot at and nearly killed during a bungled police anti-terror raid at their home and who eventually successfully sued the police for damages. Ask the student arrested and interrogated for a week in 2008 (and recently interviewed on Radio 4) after downloading a ‘terrorist’ training document (having first received authorisation from his university) and then warned that if he did so again, despite their being no grounds on which to charge him the first time, he would be re-arrested.

And ask the doctor cleared in the 2007 Glasgow bomb plot, lurid and wholly inaccurate stories about him repeatedly splashed over the newspapers, yet when declared innocent last autumn also subjected to deportation attempts by the BIS, a body seemingly more interested in pandering to tabloid immigration fears than overseeing a fair and equitable public service.

And ask Colin Stagg, cleared of the murder of Rachel Nickel. Stagg did get an apology but only after waiting many years before someone in the Met finally acknowledged how their incompetence had ruined his life and reputation.

Arguably worse is what increasingly appears to be the police and security services’ default position of covering up failings by ‘leaking’ erroneous or irrelevant information about innocent victims in an attempt to sully their good character, as in the case of John Charles De Menezes, or newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson, who died following a police assault at the recent G20 protests.

Still, out of sight, out of mind. The twelve former Easter terror suspects may still be alive, but back in Pakistan, they’ll be less of a thorn in the British Government’s side, less able to sue the newspapers who so readily defamed them, less able to challenge or disprove the unsubstantiated allegations inherent in their deportation, less able to talk about their no doubt terrifying experiences as innocent men in custody.

Meanwhile, community relations particularly in the North West where the men resided, are further set back, diplomatic relations with Pakistan placed under strain. And the next time we read of a major terror threat being plotted or foiled, a few more folk will be just that bit more sceptical and unbelieving. And that could be dangerous or it could be healthy, but if you cry wolf enough times...

The Sun : Apology Call Over 'Terror 12'

Apology Call Over 'Terror 12'

By GUY PATRICK | April 23, 2009

THE last of 12 suspects held over an alleged Easter bomb plot were freed without charge yesterday.

Their release came as Mohammed Ayub — lawyer to three of the men — said the men should receive an “unreserved apology”.

He said: “Our clients have no criminal history and were here lawfully.

“Our clients are neither extremists nor terrorists.”

All the men have been transferred to the UK Borders Agency — and 11 face deportation back to their native Pakistan.

Opposition politicians called the release an “embarrassment” to Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

Police swooped on them two weeks ago after ex-terror chief Bob Quick was pictured carrying documents about the raids.

The Muslim Council of Britain accused Gordon Brown of “dishonourable” behaviour for saying the authorities were investigating a major terror plot.

Times : Inquiry to be held into anti-terror operation which caused Bob Quick's resignation

Inquiry to be held into anti-terror operation which caused Bob Quick's resignation

Sean O'Neill and Russell Jenkins | April 23, 2009

The anti-terrorist operation that led to the resignation of a senior policeman, armed raids, the search of 14 properties but ultimately no charges, is to be the subject of an independent inquiry.

Lord Carlile of Berriew, the reviewer of terrorism legislation, said that he would carry out “a snapshot review” of the detention of 12 men picked up a fortnight ago in Manchester, Liverpool and Lancashire, amid claims of an Easter bomb plot. Gordon Brown said at the time that the authorities had foiled “a very big terrorist plot”.

The release of the final two suspects yesterday means that all 12 have been freed without charge. However, 11 of them, Pakistani citizens in Britain on student visas, face deportation on national security grounds, a process that is likely to spark lengthy legal challenges.

Lord Carlile said that he had personally decided to review Operation Pathway, details of which were accidentally disclosed to Downing Street photographers by Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick of Scotland Yard, forcing the arrests to be brought forward. Mr Quick resigned, admitting that he had compromised the operation.

Lord Carlile said: “I shall be requesting input into these events from all involved as soon as possible. This will include those arrested and their legal representatives.”

The only British citizen among those freed was named locally as Hamza Shenwari, 41, a delivery driver, from Cheetham Hill, Manchester. Neighbours said that Mr Shenwari was staying at a hotel while police restored his home to the state it was in before extensive searches.

Afzal Khan, a local Labour councillor, described Mr Shenwari as an “ordinary guy who goes to the mosque to pray”. He added: “I am deeply concerned. On the day of the arrests, people on the streets were saying straight away that they will find nothing, and that it is all political. This has only reinforced that view.”

A Greater Manchester police spokesman said there was insufficient evidence to justify extending the detention of the men. Peter Fahy, the Chief Constable, said that his force was involved in a complex investigation and had acted because of a threat to national security. “When it comes to the safety of the public we can’t take any chances. We must act on information we receive,” he added.

“We don’t take these decisions lightly and only carry out this kind of action if it was wholly justified.”

There are growing recriminations, however. Security sources say that the 12 men were under round-the-clock surveillance and were arrested on the basis of intelligence “chatter” alone. It was hoped that searches might unearth bombmaking equipment or that computers would yield evidence of terrorist planning but no evidence to support a prosecution was found.

The failure of the operation raises questions about the level of co-operation between different anti-terror agencies. MI5, Scotland Yard and Greater Manchester are said to have had angry disagreements about the timing of the arrests. Mr Fahy denied that there were disputes between agencies that were supposed to work together. He said: “I do not feel embarrassed or humiliated by what we have done because we have carried out our duty. There’s been no disagreement between us and the security services.”

The Hindu : U.K. plot collapses, Pakistanis to be deported

U.K. plot collapses, Pakistanis to be deported

Hasan Suroor | April 23, 2009

LONDON: An alleged terror plot which led to the arrests, two weeks ago, of 10 Pakistani nationals living in U.K. on student visas has collapsed with the police admitting that they had failed to find any hard evidence to charge them.

While one had already been released, the remaining nine were released on Wednesday and ordered to be deported back to Pakistan.

Two men, including a British national of Pakistani origin, are still in custody.

The 12 were arrested after a series of dramatic raids in north-west England, including Manchester and Lancashire, for allegedly planning what Prime Minister Gordon Brown described as a “very big plot”. The police claimed that the “plot” was in “final” stages of planning and probably timed for the Easter weekend.

Diplomatic row

The arrests sparked a diplomatic row with Pakistan after Mr. Brown accused Islamabad of not doing enough to check terrorism.

The police on Wednesday said they were “continuing to review a large amount of information gathered as part of this investigation”.

Muslim groups criticised the police for making “premature” claims and called for the government to admit that it had made a mistake. Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain accused the government of acting in a “dishonourable” way. “Politics should not be interfering with what is primarily a legal process.”

Mohammed Ayub, lawyer for three of the students, said the deportation orders should be revoked and they be allowed to continue their studies.

© Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu

Guardian : Lord Carlile calls inquiry into terror bomb plot raids

Lord Carlile calls inquiry into terror bomb plot raids

Police deny error as 12 are freed without charge
Lawyers try to stop deportation to Pakistan

Sandra Laville and Helen Carter | April 23, 2009

The operation that led to 12 men being arrested on suspicion of plotting a large al-Qaida atrocity is to be investigated by Lord Carlile, the country's terror watchdog.

Carlile, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said he would carry out a review into the raids, that took place in the north-west of England on the Wednesday before Easter, after all 12 suspects were released without charge.

As lawyers for some of the men said they would resist attempts to deport them to Pakistan, the chief constable of Greater Manchester police, who led the operation, denied his force had been embarrassed.

"I do not believe a mistake was made," said Peter Fahy. "We were faced with a very difficult decision."

The last two suspects were released into the custody of the UK Border Agency by the police yesterday, 24 hours after nine others had been transferred to the border agency for deportation without being charged.

A 12th suspect was released earlier in the operation. Eleven of the men are Pakistani nationals who entered the country on student visas. They now face deportation on the grounds of national security. The 12th is a British national.

Carlile said yesterday he alone had decided to launch an inquiry into the operation, which was co-ordinated by counterterrorist officers from the police in Manchester, London and the security service MI5. His investigation will start next month but he would not commit himself to making the report public.

"The questions I shall raise will centre on (but not necessarily be limited to) the nature and extent of the use of the Terrorism Act 2000 and connected legislation used for the purposes of the operation," he said.

He said the review did not necessarily imply criticism but was part of his ongoing activity. But the decision to mount an inquiry into the arrests, which led to comments by Gordon Brown that the police had foiled a "very big terrorist plot", will be viewed by some as reflecting concern over the way police and politicians are dealing with the terrorist threat.

Fahy acknowledged the concerns of the Muslim community in comments yesterday. But he stood by his force's decision to move in and make the arrests.

"When it comes to the safety of the public we can't take any chances - we must act on information we receive. We don't take these decisions lightly and only carry out this kind of action if it was wholly justified."

He said police were still gathering information but after consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service and a judge there had not been enough evidence to bring charges.

The Guardian understands that the decision to arrest the 12 on 8 April came after discussions between the security service MI5 and the police. Fahy denied that there had been any disagreement with the security services.

There was hope early on that evidence might be found of bombmaking material or on computer disks seized from the suspects' homes, but in the event the police did not find enough evidence even to convince a judge that the men could be held and questioned for the full 28 days available under terror legislation.

A spokesman for Brown said yesterday: "We are seeking to remove these individuals on grounds of national security. Where a foreign national poses a threat to the country we will seek to exclude or deport them where appropriate."

Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain said the prime minister's comments on the arrests had been prejudicial and premature. "These arrests took place in very dramatic circumstances with students being pulled from universities and thrown to the floor. Instead of releasing them with good grace and making clear a mistake has been made the government is seeking to deport them citing a very vague national security threat."

The raids were brought forward after the country's then head of counterterrorism, assistant commissioner Bob Quick, inadvertently allowed details of the operation to be photographed outside Downing Street. Neither the police nor security services believe the raids were compromised by advancing them.

Times : The trick is knowing when to intervene and when to wait

The trick is knowing when to intervene and when to wait

Commentary by Andy Hayman | April 22, 2009

Since the atrocities of July 7, 2005, Britain has had to be on full alert in the very real knowledge that an attack by international terrorists could be mounted at any time. When arrests such as those that occurred just before Easter take place, the public holds its breath. Was this the real thing? Or was it the authorities overreacting?

The release without charge of 10 of the 12 suspects will cause public opinion to shift more to the idea that those in power are scaremongering. The view that an attack is a very real possibility will lose credibility.

The difficulty with investigating the threat posed by al-Qaeda, as I found it, is knowing when to make your move. It is one thing to eavesdrop on telephone calls or e-mails. It is a completely different discipline to turn those conversations, which are not admissible in court, into evidence that passes the jury test.

The huge responsibility that goes with the job of fighting terror is judging the balance between when to intervene to stop a possible attack and when to wait, to allow events to unfold so that incriminating evidence can be collected. If you wait too long, there is the danger that public safety is threatened; but waiting that extra hour could be the key to getting the golden nugget that secures a conviction. It is a test of nerve.

The secret is to be in control. Keep the suspects under intensive surveillance and, by doing so, minimise the risk of attack. If the suspects move, you are alongside them. In this case, it appears that the authorities moved to the arrest phase because they thought that an attack was imminent. That was at the expense of waiting a little bit longer to collect evidence, or to establish the lack of it.

Andy Hayman is former Assistant Commissioner for Specialist Operations in the Metropolitan Police

Daily Mail : Government attempts to deport Pakistani students held in terror raid fiasco then released without charge

Government attempts to deport Pakistani students held in terror raid fiasco then released without charge

By Stephen Wright | April 22, 2009

The fiasco over the botched north west terror raids threatened to spiral out of control today after all 12 men arrested over an alleged bomb plot in the north west were released without charge.

Instead 11 of the suspects - originally detained over the alleged plot to blow up a nightclub or shopping centre - were released into the custody of the UK Borders Agency, in a humiliating set back for police.

The Pakistani men, most of them on British student visas, are now set to be thrown out for breaching the terms of their entry.

However, the lawyer acting for three of nine men said this would only add "insult to injury" and vowed to fight their deportation.

Mohammed Ayub said: 'Our clients have no criminal history, they were here lawfully on student visas and all were pursuing their studies and working part-time. Our clients are neither extremists nor terrorists.

'Their arrest and detention has been a very serious breach of their human rights.'

It is understood that the UK has already begun seeking assurances that that will not face torture when returned to their home land.

The development is a huge embarrassment to counter terrorism detectives and the security services who were convinced the men were plotting a major terrorist attack.

The arrests a fortnight ago were brought forward by several hours after Britain's most senior anti-terror officer, Scotland Yard Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick, clumsily revealed confidential details of the impending operation to a press photographer as he arrived at Downing Street for a briefing.

Mr Quick was forced to quit his £180,000 a year job less than 24 hours after his mistake.

Following the arrests, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: 'We are dealing with a very big terrorist plot. We have been following it for some time. There were a number of people who are suspected of it who have been arrested. That police operation was successful. We know that there are links between terrorists in Britain and terrorists in Pakistan.'

Senior security sources last night insisted that it had been right to arrest the men on terrorism allegations, adding that the priority had been to protect UK citizens from a possible terrorist attack.

However, detectives and the security services had encountered problems trying to convert intelligence into evidence.

This stance is unlikely to appease some community leaders who will almost certainly try to turn the suspects' release into a political issue.

A Home Office spokesman said: 'We are seeking to remove these individuals on the grounds of national security.

'The Government's highest priority is to protect public safety. Where a foreign national faces a threat to this country we will seek to exclude or deport, where this is appropriate.'

Extensive searches of properties linked to the men did not result in the discovery of any bomb making equipment or materials.

In the aftermath of the arrests, security sources said that the raids were brought forward after intelligence suggested that the group could strike as early as the Easter holiday.

According to some media reports, surveillance officers reported seeing some of the men filming buildings including the Trafford Centre, the Arndale Centre and the Birdcage nightclub in Manchester.

Last night a Greater Manchester police spokeswoman said searches were continuing at a property in Galsworthy Avenue, Cheetham Hill, Manchester.

She added: 'Protecting the public is the main focus of the police. These arrests were carried out after a number of UK agencies gathered information that indicated a potential risk to public safety.

Officers are continuing to review a large amount of information gathered as part of this investigation.

'Investigations of this nature are extremely complex. We remain grateful to the support and cooperation of the communities affected.'

The Muslim Council of Britain accused the Government of 'dishonourable' behaviour.

Spokesman Inayat Bunglawala told BBC Radio 4's Today: 'When these arrests took place, in very dramatic circumstances with students being pulled from universities and thrown to the floor, we were told by the Prime Minister no less that this was part of a very big terrorist plot. Clearly there just has not been the evidence produced to substantiate such a plot.

'We would hope that senior ministers and the Prime Minister will understand that it is completely unfair to make prejudicial and premature remarks in cases like this.

'It is perfectly understandable that not every arrest the police make will result in charges being brought...that is the nature of this sort of police work.

'What is unacceptable though is for the Government to make prejudicial remarks right at the outset.

'And now, now that we learn that actual evidence cannot be gathered to substantiate any terror plot, instead of releasing them with good grace and making clear a mistake has been made, the Government is seeking to deport them citing a very vague national security threat. That is a very dishonourable way of proceeding.'

Guardian : Deporting these students shames us

Deporting these students shames us

No terrorism charges were brought, but still nine men are to be sent to Pakistan by a government trying to save face.

Inayat Bunglawala | April 22, 2009

The Home Office announced last night that nine of the 12 men – mainly Pakistani students – arrested in dramatic circumstances two weeks ago following terror raids in Greater Manchester, Liverpool and Lancashire are now to be handed over to the UK Border Agency with a view to being deported. Another one of the 12 was handed over to immigration officials earlier this month.

You will recall that at the time of the arrests our prime minister, Gordon Brown, informed us that the raids were necessary because of "a very big terrorist plot". Note the bold presumption of guilt which then unsurprisingly was quickly taken up by sections of our media.

"Shops and nightclub were terror targets," read a Daily Express headline on 9 April.

"Al-Qaida terror plot to bomb Easter shoppers," claimed the supposedly upmarket Daily Telegraph on 10 April.

Even the BBC website had its correspondent Nick Ravenscroft telling us that he had been told by police "sources" that an attack could have taken place "within days or weeks".

Well, the media reporting a story in an overly sensational, alarmist and irresponsible manner is hardly novel, I admit. It is the government's behaviour in this matter that is most reprehensible though.

Not content with prematurely accusing the arrested men as being part of a very big terrorist plot, now that no actual terror-related charges have been brought against at least 10 of the 12 originally arrested, instead of offering an apology to them for what they and their families have been put through and releasing them with good grace, they are seeking to deport them while disgracefully attempting to attach yet another appalling smear to them.

"We are seeking to remove these individuals on grounds of national security. The government's highest priority is to protect public safety. Where a foreign national poses a threat to this country we will seek to exclude or to deport, where this is appropriate," said the Home Office in its statement.

What utter tripe. If the students are indeed a national security threat then surely the correct course of action is to properly charge them and bring the evidence before a court of law? Instead the government – in what can only be viewed as a dishonourable attempt to save face – compounds the hurt done to the students by seeking to deport them and placing them under a cloud of doubt. The government's behaviour in this matter shames our country.

It is understandable that the police may well from time to time mistakenly arrest someone and then release them if no evidence against them can be found. After all, not every intelligence lead or tip-off will prove to be accurate. That is the nature of police work.

What is not acceptable, however, and should never be acceptable is the underhand and cowardly manner by which the government is now attempting to ruin the education and careers of these Pakistani students in a desperate attempt to avoid looking incompetent.

Sun : Cop Gaffe Terror Suspects Set Free

Cop Gaffe Terror Suspects Set Free

By ANTHONY FRANCE, Crime Reporter and SIMON HUGHES | April 22, 2009

ALL of the 12 terror suspects hurriedly arrested after the bungle by top cop Bob Quick have now been let out of a nick — WITHOUT charge.

Eleven of the men - all Pakistani nationals - face being deported after they were transferred into the custody of the UK Borders Agency.

The suspects — who were accused of sneaking into the country on student visas — were held after Scotland Yard Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick swanned into No10 accidentally flashing a top secret file about a police probe into an alleged bomb threat.

He quit next day — as anti-terror cops were forced into action early.

Tory MP Patrick Mercer — chairman of the Commons Counter-terrorism sub-committee — stormed last night: “If any compromise to this intelligence operation has occurred because of the actions of Bob Quick then that is totally unacceptable.”

The men aged 22 to 30 were seized in Manchester, Liverpool and Lancashire over a suspected Easter plot to bomb shopping centres.

In a statement, Greater Manchester Police said today: “All of the suspects arrested by the North West Counter Terrorism Unit during the recent operation have now been released.

“On Wednesday April 8, in an intelligence-led operation that required intervention to disrupt activity, 12 men were arrested under the Terrorism Act.

"One was subsequently released into the custody of the UK Borders Agency.

“The remaining 11 men were questioned and the evidence gathered presented to the CPS who advised there was insufficient evidence gathered within the permitted timescales which would have allowed a warrant of further detention to be gathered or charges to be pursued.

“It is not possible to bail people under terrorism legislation so the men were released.

“Public safety is always the police’s top priority and all information is fully considered and acted upon appropriately to minimise risk to the public.”

A police source said: “There isn’t the evidence to charge them. Time will tell how much Bob Quick is to blame for that."

Frontier India : Disruption vs. Prosecution and the Manchester Plot

Disruption vs. Prosecution and the Manchester Plot

By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart, STRATFOR | April 22, 2009

On April 8, British authorities mounted a series of raids in Merseyside, Manchester and Lancashire that resulted in the arrest of 12 men suspected of being involved in a plot to conduct attacks over the Easter holiday weekend. In a press conference the following day, Prime Minister Gordon Brown noted that the men arrested were allegedly involved in “a very big terrorist plot.” British authorities have alleged that those arrested sought to conduct suicide bombing attacks against a list of soft targets that included shopping centers, a train station and a nightclub.

The searches and arrests targeting the suspects purportedly involved in the plot, which was dubbed Operation Pathway, had to be accelerated after Bob Quick, the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in charge of terrorism investigations, inadvertently allowed reporters to see a classified document pertaining to the operation as he was entering 10 Downing Street to brief Brown and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith on April 8. An embarrassed Quick resigned April 9 over the gaffe.

In spite of the leak, the British authorities were successful in detaining all of the targeted suspects, though the authorities have reportedly not been able to recover explosive material or other bomb-making evidence they were seeking. British authorities arrested 12 suspects, 11 of whom were Pakistani citizens. Smith told British Parliament on April 20 that all 11 of the Pakistani nationals entered the United Kingdom on student visas. The youngest of the Pakistani suspects, who is reportedly still a teenager, was remanded to the custody of British immigration authorities to face deportation proceedings April 9. The rest of the 11 suspects were released by British authorities April 21, though ten reportedly were placed in the custody of immigration officials.

Many of the specific details of the plot have not yet come out, and due to the sensitive nature of the intelligence sources and methods involved in these types of investigations, more details may never be fully divulged now that there will be no criminal trial. However, when viewed in the historical and tactical context of other terror plots and attacks (in the United Kingdom and elsewhere), there are some very interesting conclusions that can be drawn from this series of events and the few facts that have been released to the public so far.

This case also highlights the tension that exists within the counterterrorism community between advocates of strategies to disrupt terrorist attacks and those who want to ensure that terror suspects can be convicted in a court of law.

Targets

Among of the most significant things that have come to light so far regarding the thwarted plot are the alleged targets. According to press reports, the British MI5 surveillance teams assigned to monitor the activities of the purported plotters observed some of them videotaping themselves outside of the Arndale and Trafford shopping centers in Manchester, as well as at St. Ann’s Square, which lies in the center of Manchester’s main shopping district. Other reports suggest that the plotters had also conducted surveillance of Manchester’s Piccadilly train station, an intercity train station that is one of the busiest in the United Kingdom outside London, and Manchester’s Birdcage nightclub.

These targets are significant for several reasons. First, they are all soft targets — that is, targets with very little security. As STRATFOR has pointed out for several years now, since counterterrorism efforts have been stepped up in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and as the tactical capability of groups like al Qaeda has been degraded, jihadist operatives have had less success targeting hardened targets and have turned instead to striking soft targets.

While authorities have moved to protect high-value targets, there simply are far too many potential targets to protect them all. Governments are stretched thin just trying to protect important government buildings, bridges, dams, nuclear power plants, airports and mass-transit systems in their jurisdiction. The reality on the ground is that there are not nearly enough resources to protect them all, much less every potential location where people concentrate in large groups — like shopping centers and nightclubs. This means that some targets are unprotected and are therefore, by definition, soft.

The selection of soft targets in this case indicates that the alleged Manchester plotters did not possess the operational capability to strike more strategic, high-value targets. While attacks against soft targets can be tragic and quite bloody, they will not have the same effect as a successful attack on high-value targets such as Parliament, the London Stock Exchange or a nuclear power station.

It is also very interesting that the plotters were purportedly looking to hit soft targets in Manchester and not soft targets in London. London, as the capital and a city that has been the center of several plots and attacks, is generally on a higher alert than the rest of the country and therefore would likely be seen as more difficult to target. Additionally, many of the suspects lived in the Manchester area, and as we have previously discussed, grassroots operatives, who are not as well-trained as their transnational brethren, tend to “think globally and act locally,” meaning that they tend to plan their attacks in familiar places where they are comfortable operating, rather than in strange and potentially more hostile environment.

In addition to targeting locations like shopping centers and the train station, where there were expected to be large crowds over the holiday weekend, the alleged plotters also apparently looked at the Birdcage nightclub, an establishment that is famous for its “flamboyant and spectacular” shows featuring female impersonators. This is a location the alleged plotters likely considered a symbol of Western decadence (like establishments that serve alcohol in Muslim countries).

Flawed Tradecraft

As noted above, the alleged plotters had been under surveillance by MI5. This indicates that their operational security had been compromised, either via human or technical means. Furthermore, the suspects did not appear to possess any surveillance detection capability — or even much situational awareness — as they went out into Manchester to conduct pre-operational surveillance of potential targets while under government surveillance themselves. Furthermore, the suspects’ surveillance techniques appear to have been very rudimentary in that they lacked both cover for action and cover for status while conducting their surveillance operations.

This aspect of the investigation reinforces two very important points that STRATFOR has been making for some time now. First, most militant groups do not provide very good surveillance training and as a result, poor surveillance tradecraft has long proven to be an Achilles’ heel for militants. Second, because of this weakness, countersurveillance operations can be very effective at catching militant operatives when they are most vulnerable — during the surveillance phase of the terrorist attack cycle.

Media reports indicated that during Operation Pathway, British authorities intercepted a series of Internet exchanges between the suspects suggested a terror strike was imminent. Furthermore, among the locations raided April 8 was the Cyber Net Cafe in Cheetham Hill, an establishment where British authorities observed the suspects using computers to communicate. Not only is this electronic surveillance significant in that it allowed the authorities to surmise the approximate timing of the attack, but perhaps just as important, this ability to monitor the suspects’ communications will allow the authorities to identify other militants in the United Kingdom and beyond.

Indeed, in several previous cases related to the United Kingdom, such as the investigations involving the U.S. arrest of Mohammed Junaid Babar and the U.K. arrest of Younis Tsouli, authorities were able to use communications from militant suspects to identify and roll up militant cells in other countries. Therefore, we will not be at all surprised to hear at some point in the future that British authorities were be able use the communications of the recently arrested suspects to tip off authorities in the United States, Canada, other European countries or elsewhere about the militant activities of people the suspects were in contact with.

Links to Pakistan

And speaking of elsewhere, as noted above, 11 of the arrested suspects were Pakistani nationals who entered the U.K. on student visas. At this point it is not exactly clear if the British believe the 11 suspects were radical militants specifically sent to the United Kingdom to conduct attacks or if they arrived without malicious intent and were then radicalized in the Petri dish of Islamist extremism that so rapidly replicates inside the British Muslim community — what we have come to refer to as Londonistan.

Many British lawmakers and media reports have made a huge issue out of the fact that 11 of the alleged plotters entered the United Kingdom on student visas, but even if the suspects were radicals who used student visas as a way to enter the United Kingdom, this is by no means a new tactic as some are reporting. STRATFOR has long discussed the use of student visas, bogus political asylum claims and other forms of immigration fraud that have commonly been used by militants. In fact, there have been numerous prior examples of jihadist operatives using student visas, such as the following:

* While Sept. 11 hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi initially entered the United States on tourist visas, they were approved for M-1 student visas shortly before carrying out their attacks.

* Youssef Samir Megahed, who was arrested in possession of an improvised explosive device (IED) in August 2007 and later sentenced to a 15-year prison sentence, was a Kuwaiti engineering student who entered the United States on a student visa.

* Mohammed Aatique, a convicted member of the “Virginia Jihad Network” who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiracy and weapons violations, also entered the United States from Pakistan as an engineering student.

In some ways, connections between the alleged plotters and militant groups in Pakistan such as al Qaeda or the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) would be more analytically significant than if they turn out to be grassroots operatives. The operational security, skills and terrorist tradecraft exhibited by the plotters are about what one would expect to see in a grassroots militant organization. This level of sophistication is, however, far less than one would expect from a transnational organization. Therefore, if this was an al Qaeda operation, it shows how far the group has fallen in the past eight years. If it was the TTP, it means that our previous estimate of their operational ability outside of Pakistan was fairly accurate.

Lack of Evidence

To date, the British authorities have not been able to find the explosive material and IED components they were expecting to find. This might mean that the materials may still be hidden somewhere and could be used in a future attack. It is also quite possible, and perhaps more likely, that this lack of evidence is an indication that the plot was not quite as far along as the British authorities believed. Perhaps the references the suspects allegedly made to launching the attack on a bank holiday pertained to a holiday later in the year.

While the plot as described by the British authorities would not have been a significant, strategic threat to the United Kingdom, it could have been quite deadly and could very well have surpassed the July 7, 2005, attacks in terms of final body count. Because of this potential destruction, it is quite possible that the British government decided to err on the side of disruption rather than on the side of prosecution. This is something we have seen in the investigation of several other plots in recent years in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, perhaps most notably in the August 2006 Heathrow plot, in which a cell of operatives was preparing to bomb a series of trans-Atlantic airline flights using liquid explosives.

It is much more difficult to obtain a conviction for a conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism than it is to obtain a conviction for an attack that was successfully conducted. Once the attack is executed, there is no longer much room to wrangle in court over things such as intent or capability. Governments also frequently know things via intelligence they cannot prove to the standards required for a conviction in a court of law.

This was seen in the Heathrow case, where only three of the eight suspects were convicted of the main charges during that trial, which ended in September 2008. (The other five suspects had pled guilty to lesser charges.) During that case there was reportedly some tension between the U.S. and British authorities over when to wrap up the Heathrow plotters — some of the British apparently wanted to wait a while longer to secure more damning evidence, while the Americans were reportedly more interested in ensuring that the plot was disrupted than they were in obtaining convictions. It is likely the same dynamic was at play during the investigation of the Manchester case.

Although Quick’s disclosure did hasten the launch of Operation Pathway by a few hours, it did not significantly alter the timing of the investigation — the British authorities were preparing to execute an array of searches and arrests. From an ethical standpoint (and, not insignificantly in this day and age, a political aspect) it is deemed better by many to disrupt a plot early and risk the terror suspects being acquitted than it is to accidentally allow them to conduct an attack while waiting to gather the evidence required for an ironclad court case. Disruption can have an impact on the success of prosecutions, but in the eyes of a growing number of policymakers, that impact is offset by the lives it saves.