Birmingham Mail : Al-Qaida terror plots on New York and Manchester linked to Alum rock murder suspect Rashid Rauf

Al-Qaida terror plots on New York and Manchester linked to Alum rock murder suspect Rashid Rauf

Amardeep Bassey | January 6, 2013

A suspected Islamic terrorist accused of plotting attacks in the UK and the New York subway was being directed by a Birmingham Al Qaida mastermind, security sources claim.The allegation comes after the USA successfully applied for Pakistani student Abid Naseer to be extradited to face terror charges.

Naseer, 26, had originally come to Britain from his native Pakistan on a student visa to study in Manchester.

But US prosecutors believe they can prove Naseer was part of an Al-Qaida cell sent to the UK and US by former Alum Rock murder suspect Rashid Rauf, who planned for them to attack targets on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Americans claim Naseer had shopped for bomb ingredients, conducted reconnaissance and was in frequent contact with other al-Qaida operatives as part of a foiled plot to kill Easter shoppers at the Trafford and Arndale centres in Manchester in 2009, and a second suspected plot to blow up the New York subway.

An FBI source told the Sunday Mercury that investigators believe that both plots were directed by Birmingham baker’s boy turned terrorist Rauf, who had climbed the Al Qaida ranks to become a chief planner of its operations in the West.

He said: “It is highly likely that it was Rauf who briefed and sent the two teams to launch attacks in the US and the UK.

“Messages from Pakistan were remarkably similar in content and tone, suggesting they were emanating from the same person, namely Rauf, who had a very distinct and colloquially English style.”

Rauf is believed to have been killed by the CIA in a drone attack in Pakistan’s tribal areas in 2008. He fled the UK to join Islamic terror groups in Pakistan in 2002 after being implicated in the murder of his uncle in Alum Rock.

Security service investigators believe he was a vital link for foreign Al Qaida recruits because of his Western background and upbringing.

The Portsmouth University drop-out is said to have been the point of contact for the London 7/7 bombers, as well as being implicated in several Al Qaida plots across Europe.

The US source said: “Evidence suggests Rauf was directing a terror cell in the US which was eventually smashed after it was discovered they were planning to bomb the New York subway.

“Rauf was killed in late 2008 but by then the terror cells had been dispatched and briefed.”

After two years of legal arguments stalling his extradition, Naseer was finally taken from his cell at Belmarsh high security jail and put on a plane at Luton airport by officers from the Metropolitan police extradition unit last week.

Naseer was one of 12 people arrested in April 2009 in co-ordinated raids in Liverpool and Manchester after police uncovered the alleged Manchester plot. But all were released without charge because of lack of evidence.

They were ordered to leave Britain, but Naseer escaped deportation to Pakistan after a judge ruled it was likely he would be mistreated if he were sent home.

Naseer was re-arrested in July 2010 at the request of the prosecutors in Brooklyn where a federal indictment named him as a co-defendant with Adis Medunjanin.

In January 2011, a British judge approved Naseer’s extradition but acknowledged there was a “very real risk” Naseer would be tortured if the US ultimately returned him to Pakistan.

US authorities allege Medunjanin and his former high school friends Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay travelled to Pakistan in 2008 to seek terror training from al-Qaida.

Authorities say the trio were planning co-ordinated suicide bombings on Manhattan subway lines during rush hour near the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks in what Zazi called a “martyrdom operation”.

The alleged plot was disrupted when police stopped Zazi’s car as it entered New York.

Daily Express : MI5’S Grannies Fight al Qaeda

MI5’S GRANNIES FIGHT AL QAEDA

MI5 feared a shopping area in Manchester was a prime target

By Gordon Thomas | April 19, 2009

MI5 used some astonishing new weapons in its action against suspected terrorists in the north of England last week.

Playing a leading role were teams of women who kept an eye on the suspects during the long investigation into what is believed to be the biggest campaign plotted by Al Qaeda since the London bombings.

Created by the Security Service’s A4 surveillance division, the teams were tested for the first time in the operation, code-named Pathway, which was directed by MI5’s 50-year-old head Jonathan Evans.

They worked in two groups: one, made up of 72 elderly women, the other, young mothers with babies in prams.

Both had undergone a crash course in surveillance techniques.

Some of the elderly women walked the streets of the northern cities where the suspects lived, ostensibly walking their dogs or going shopping.

But miniature recorders hidden in their hair or beneath a headscarf were monitored by surveillance vans nearby.

These were linked directly to another unit specialising in locating a suspect’s mobile phone by triangulating its signal between two or more transmission masts.

The recorders used by the “granny squad” were also linked to GCHQ, the Government eaves-dropping centre in Cheltenham, Gloucs.

The mothers’ prams were also wired for surveillance. Beneath the real babies was a range of recording equipment that turned the prams into self-contained mobile surveillance units.

A further development by the MI5 scientists was also used. This is a colourless chemical that can be “painted” on a suspect’s clothing.

Another MI5 team, known as ­BS-1, the Burglar Specialists, break into a suspect’s home and spray the long-lasting chemical on to a shoe, skirt, jacket or trousers, which can then be detected by specially trained dogs.

It was these dogs who pursued the 12 Pakistani students now in custody, as they photographed the smart shopping area in Manchester, which MI5 feared was to be a prime target.

It was the grannies who picked up crucial details of ­e-mails exchanged by suspects.

During the long operation, which culminated in MI5’s swoop last week, they filed regular reports to a committee of senior MI5 officials based in a sound-proof room in the Security Service’s headquarters in Thames House, London.

It was one of the young mothers pushing her baby through a Manchester street who picked up details of a possible attack over the Easter holidays.

Analysts who studied her tape noticed a reference to the arrest in December last year of suspected Al Qaeda terrorists in Brussels, who were said to be plotting to launch an attack against a two-day summit in the city.

That assault was never launched, however. One possible reason was that it had been replaced by the Manchester plot.

This had all the hallmarks of Rashid Rauf, one of Osama Bin Laden’s top terrorist plotters. He was the mastermind behind the London bombings in July 2005.

Last November, he was reportedly killed by a Hellfire missile fired from a pilotless Predator drone by the CIA on the Pakistan-Afghan border.

A shroud-covered body was removed from the rubble. It was purported to be Rauf, but that is now thought unlikely.

The young mother pushing her pram in Manchester had picked up a snatch of conversation that led GCHQ to believe that Rauf was still alive, probably in Pakistan.

He would almost certainly have pulled off the latest attack except for the undercover operation ­inadvertently exposed by Bob Quick, the Metropolitan police chief who was Britain’s senior anti-terrorist officer. The blunder cost Quick his job.

It may also have enabled details of Rauf’s plan to escape detection. MI5 boss Evans has told his officers that if Rauf is still alive: “The further we are from his last crime, the closer we are to the next.”

MET : UK wants Pakistan to help arrest dead al-Qaeda terrorist

UK wants Pakistan to help arrest dead al-Qaeda terrorist

Amir Mir | April 14, 2009

LAHORE: The British authorities have sought intelligence cooperation from the Pakistani agencies for the arrest and extradition of Rashid Rauf, an alleged al-Qaeda linked British national of Pakistani origin and the in charge of the outfit’s external operations’ branch responsible for attacks in Europe, despite the fact that he is reported to have been killed in an American predator air strike in North Waziristan in November 2008.

According to well informed diplomatic sources in Islamabad, the British demand has been conveyed to the Pakistani authorities through non-diplomatic channels, saying the previous assessment that Rashid Rauf had been killed in a November 2008 predator attack in North Waziristan has now been revised keeping in view credible information which has come to surface recently. The British authorities have told their Pakistan counterparts that a key al-Qaeda operative detained in Belgium recently has claimed that Rashid Rauf had trained him and dispatched him to Brussels to conduct a suicide attack during a meeting of the European leaders.

The al-Qaeda operative has reportedly disclosed that Rashid had plotted terrorist attacks in Belgium, France, Holland and England. While seeking intelligence sharing and cooperation from the Pakistani agencies, the British authorities have reportedly described Rashid as al-Qaeda’s director of operations in Europe. He has been accused of forming multiple cells, comprising 12 terrorists each, which had been dispatched last year from the Pakistani tribal areas to conduct a series of bomb attacks in the major cities of several European countries. The British authorities believe that these terror cells have been acting under the direct orders of Rashid Rauf who had apparently survived unhurt in the November 2008 missile attack.

It was on the basis of this intelligence information that the British authorities had recently arrested 12 people, including 11 Pakistanis on student visas, in raids on Manchester, Liverpool and Lancashire. These students have been detained after protracted surveillance by the British authorities during which their homes were bugged, their telephones calls were intercepted and they were followed day and night by officers from Mi5’s A4 surveillance division. All those arrested are being probed for their alleged involvement in a failed terror plot to bomb several major shopping centres in Manchester over Easter.

Approached for comments, an interior ministry official in Islamabad confirmed that the British authorities want intelligence sharing and other such cooperation from their Pakistani counterparts to get hold of all those who have been involved in a possible terror plot aimed at targeting Britain. However, the official doubted the authenticity of the British intelligence information about Rashid Rauf having escaped the November 2008 missile strike in North Waziristan. When reminded that the al-Qaeda operative arrested by the British authorities from Belgium has claimed being trained and dispatched to Brussels by Rashid to conduct a suicide attack, the interior ministry official maintained that the terror plot might have been set in motion before the American predator strike had targeted Rashid in North Waziristan.

Rashid Rauf was reported killed on November 22, 2008 after a missile fired from a CIA predator drone destroyed a mud-built bungalow in Alikhel village of the North Waziristan tribal agency. The house targeted by the missiles belonged to Khaliq Noor who had rented it out to some Pakistani militants a few weeks ago. However, their location had been betrayed, either by their own use of a mobile telephone, or by the spies tracking them. A day after the strike, the US authorities claimed that five people were killed in the attack, including two prominent al-Qaeda figures, Abu Nasr Al Misri and Abu Zubair Al Masri. The Americans had claimed at the time that the attack was aimed at these al-Qaeda men instead of Rashid Rauf. The American CIA and the British MI6 subsequently touted Rashid Rauf’s reported death to international media as evidence of the effectiveness of the US Predator strike program in Pakistan.

Interestingly, shortly after the November 2009 predator strike in Waziristan and the subsequent American claims about the death of Rashid Rauf, his family members as well as his lawyer had claimed that he was still alive. Describing media reports about the killing of Rashid as fake, his lawyer Hashmat Ali Habib told BBC radio on November 25, 2008: “We don’t believe that this story is true. It is a fake story. We still believe that my client, Rashid Rauf, is alive.” He had noted at the time that his requests for Rauf’s body to be returned to his family had not been answered. “This is a new technique of the government to dispose of the cases like Rashid or other missing people”, he had stated.

As a matter of fact, Rashid Rauf, a close relative of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Maulana Masood Azhar, was wanted by the British authorities for being a central figure in an August 2006 plot to blow up some US-bound trans-Atlantic airplanes. According to the information the British authorities had provided to Pakistan while seeking his arrest in 2006, Rashid Rauf was born in Mirpur and he went to England in 1981 when he was hardly one year old. He returned to Pakistan in 2002 while carrying dual nationality of both Pakistan and Britain. The frequent use of text messages to Britain by Rauf, who left England after the April 2002 murder of his uncle Mohammed Saeed, actually led to his arrest from Pakistan. Rauf’s arrest triggered the British authorities to launch a series of drone raids which netted 24 suspects across the UK. Rashid’s younger brother Tayib Rauf, 22, was among those arrested in raids on homes in Birmingham, England.

Rashid was subsequently arrested in Pakistan on August 9, 2006 after a tip-off from British anti-terrorism authorities, days before a series of August 2006 raids and arrests in Britain of men accused of conspiring to smuggle liquid bombs on board a series of Atlantic flights. Rashid was arrested from a Jaish-e-Mohammad run religious seminary – Jamia Dar-ul-Uloom Madnia, located at Model Town B Block area of Bahawalpur and being run by his in-laws. However, he had fled from the police custody on December 15, 2007 from F-8 Markaz, which is located in the heart of Islamabad while being taken back to the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi after a court hearing. A subsequent inquiry had pointed out ‘inside help’ in his dramatic escape from the police custody.

The authorities subsequently arrested from Bahawalpur two of the five younger brothers of Masood Azhar and two of his six brothers-in-law. The arrests were made because of the fact that Rashid was the brother in law of one of Masood Azhar’s younger brother, Mohammad Tahir. Following the arrest of his two sons and two sons in law, Hafiz Allah Bukhsh, the father of Maulana Masood Azhar, reportedly told newsmen people in Bahawalpur that Rashid was a member of the Jaish but left it to join the rivals who were more interested in promoting al-Qaeda’s anti-Western agenda. “He was member of our group but later he deserted and joined Jamaatul Furqaan, led by a Jaish dissident, Maulana Abdul Jabbar,” Allah Bukhsh said at the Jaish headquarters in Bahawalpur in December 2007.

On August 17, 2007, a senior Pakistani official said in Islamabad that the British airport terror plot was sanctioned by Dr Ayman Zawahiri and that Rashid was the planner of the attacks. However, on December 13, 2006, the terrorism charges on Rashid were dropped as an anti terrorist court in Rawalpindi ruled there was no evidence of him being involved in planning any terrorist activity. Two days later, on December 15, 2007, as pressure mounted from the British government for his extradition, Rashid Rauf mysteriously escaped from the police custody. Almost nine months later, he was reported to have been killed in a US air strike.

amir.mir1969@gmail.com

Daily Times : Terror suspect's father says Islamophobia to blame for son's arrest

Terror suspect's father says Islamophobia to blame for son's arrest

* Intelligence official dismisses reports linking the arrests in Britain to Rashid Rauf

zakir hassnain | daily times monitor | April 14, 2009

PESHAWAR: My son Abid Naseer has no link with any jihadi or religious organisation. His only crime is that he is a Pakistani Muslim, Nasrullah Jan Khattak, father of a Pakistani student arrested by the British police, said on Monday.

“My son prays five times a day and his only fault is that he wears a beard,” said Khattak while talking to reporters at his Hayatabad residence. The British officials arrested 12 men on April 8 of which 11 are Pakistanis. Abid hails from Yaghi Ghulam Khel, a village in Takht-e-Nusrati tehsil in southern district of Karak. Abid went to Britain on a student visa around two-and-a-half years ago and his visa expires in September this year. Abid is doing master’s in information technology at Bradford Professional Study College, Manchester.

Nasrullah, a government contractor, said the Pakistan government had not taken any measures for the release of the students. He requested the British government not to deport his son, who he insisted was innocent.

"This is all about his prayers and his beard. I am his father and I know him. He is not involved in any mysterious plot. We have done nothing wrong. We have nothing to hide," he told the Guardian in an interview in Pakistan. He denied media reports that his family had come from the Tribal Areas, where Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud holds sway and said they hail from Karak. "This is a great offence," Nasrullah said. "We are from an old district, with educated people. Not the tribal belt."

Meanwhile, the uncle of another suspect, told the Guardian that he and other relatives had regularly sent their nephew between £800 to £3,000 to help pay for his studies.

"He was too ambitious about his life and his studies. He was not up to any mischief. So I say to the UK government, please don't spoil his future," he said. Rahimullah Yousafzai, a veteran journalist, said: "Maybe some careless conversation or act has landed them in trouble. A few of them may be involved in this case, but I don't think it's a real terrorist plot."

Intelligence: A Pakistani intelligence official said the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had no involvement in the case prior to last week's raids. He dismissed reports linking the arrests to Rashid Rauf, a British-Pakistani implicated in a previous alleged plot and believed killed in an American drone strike. Muhammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramazan Foundation, a Muslim youth organisation in Manchester, appealed for the local community to stay calm.

Daily Times : Dead men plotting terror?

Dead men plotting terror?

UK officials believe foiled attack was planned by Rashid Rauf

Daily Times Monitor | April 13, 2009

WASHINGTON: How could Rashid Rauf, a “high value” Al Qaeda target, be plotting terrorist attacks in Britain in April 2009 – as claimed by the British authorities – if he was killed months ago in a famous drone strike in Waziristan, as US officials claimed, in November 2008, the Nesweek magazine is asking.

According to one UK expert, some British investigators as well as Rauf’s family think that he may have survived.

Rauf, a former British resident, was allegedly a central figure in an August 2006 plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners. The plot was foiled after Rauf was arrested in Pakistan. But in December 2007, he escaped from custody. US officials suspected ‘inside’ help and the White House was delighted when a Predator operation supposedly took him out. Soon afterwards, however, Rauf’s Pakistani lawyer asked authorities to produce the body which they were apparently unable to do.

US officials talking to the Newsweek said US agencies still believed Rauf was killed in the strike.

“While it is not 100 percent confirmed,” said one of the officials, “there are good reasons to believe Rashid Rauf is dead.”

“And even if he’s dead,” the magazine says, “US and UK officials said it’s possible the Easter plot was hatched prior to November 2008 — meaning that Rauf’s reach may extend beyond the grave.”

Guardian : Terror suspect's father says Islamophobia to blame for son's arrest

Terror suspect's father says Islamophobia to blame for son's arrest

• Student was held in terror raid 'because of his faith'
• Property searches scaled back as another man freed

Declan Walsh in Islamabad and Martin Wainwright | April 13, 2009

The father of a Pakistani computer science student detained under anti-terrorism laws has come forward to defend his son, calling him victim of anti-Muslim discrimination.

"This is all about his prayers and his beard. I am his father and I know him. He is not involved in any mysterious plot," the man, whose son was one of 11 Pakistani students picked up in raids across the north-western England last week, told the Guardian in an interview in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, one of the 12 men arrested in the raids was released by police but handed over to the UK Border Agency as a probable preliminary step to deportation. Searches of properties in Manchester and Liverpool were scaled down yesterday, as police were given a further seven days by magistrates to continue questioning the other men detained. They are understood to range in age from 22 to 41 and to be in the UK on student visas.

But the father of one said yesterday his son was a cricket-loving, religious-minded young man from a good family who was only interested in his studies. Before making arrests MI5 surveillance teams monitored his email and observed several suspects photographing shopping areas and a nightclub in Manchester.

The man's father said by phone from Peshawar: "We have done nothing wrong. We have nothing to hide."

Since learning of the arrests in Urdu newspapers last Friday, the suspect's father said there had been some serious reporting errors. For one, he said, his family came from Karak district in the south of the North West Frontier Province, not the tribal areas, where Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud holds sway, as has been reported. "This is a great offence," the man said. "We are from an old district, with educated people. Not the tribal belt." His son was in his third year of computer studies in Manchester and his visa was valid until next September. The last time he saw him was during the Eid ul-Fitr holiday last autumn. "He appreciated the UK system, especially the freedom and facilities [it offered]. He was satisfied there - he could go to the mosque and he could study," the man said.

Unusually, many of those arrested last week were Pashtuns from North-West Frontier Province, and appear to come from well-to-do families. The relatives of two other detainees gave a press conference in the city of Dera Ismail Khan, at the southern tip of the province.

Meanwhile, the uncle of another suspect, speaking in an emotional voice by phone, told the Guardian that he and other relatives had regularly sent their nephew sums from £800 to £3,000 to help pay for his studies.

"He was too ambitious about his life and his studies. He was not up to any mischief. So I say to the UK government, please don't spoil his future," he said.

Rahimullah Yusufzai, a veteran Pakistani journalist, said: "Maybe some careless conversation or act has landed them in trouble. A few of them may be involved in this case, but I don't think it's a real terrorist plot."

In Islamabad, a Pakistani intelligence official said that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency had no involvement in the case prior to last week's raids.

He dismissed reports linking the arrests to Rashid Rauf, a British-Pakistani implicated in a previous alleged plot and believed to have died in an American drone strike.

Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, a Muslim youth organisation in Manchester, appealed for the local community to stay calm yesterday.

Times : Ghost in the terror machine

Ghost in the terror machine

Last week's raids were the result of a long investigation into a wider campaign plotted by an Al-Qaeda chief before his apparent death

David Leppard | From The Sunday Times | April 12, 2009

Early last Wednesday evening, Phil Harrow, a blood service courier from Toxteth, Liverpool, was sitting in front of his computer in his living room, his attention occasionally distracted by the sounds of the local children playing football on the street outside his front window on Cedar Grove.

At about 5.30pm, the peace was shattered and the children scattered in terror. “Eight armed officers, dressed in black from head to toe and wearing body armour and ski masks, jumped from an unmarked white van, screamed at the children to get out of the street and battered their way into the house two doors down from mine,” recalled Harrow.

Within minutes three unmarked police cars and four large yellow police vans had cordoned off the street and about 30 more officers were shouting at residents to stay indoors with their doors and windows shut.

Three Asian men were arrested and quickly driven off. The officers also took away a blue Nissan Micra and a black Vauxhall Corsa after neighbours told them the vehicles belonged to the men.

It was a pattern repeated across the city and the northwest of England as police swooped simultaneously as part of Operation Pathway, which was targeting an alleged Al-Qaeda-driven terror plot aimed at unspecified targets in Britain.

Elsewhere in Liverpool, a man was hauled out of a flat above an off-licence on Earle Road, Wavertree, about half a mile from Cedar Grove. At Liverpool John Moores University across the city, a student was dragged from the library and arrested.

In Manchester two men were picked up in a flat in the Cheetham Hill area, another couple were seized in a cybercafe and a fifth man was arrested on the M602 motorway. Two other men were held in Clitheroe, Lancashire, where they had been staying at a local B&B.

The arrest of the 12 men — 11 Pakistanis and one Briton — had been rushed forward because of a career-ending blunder earlier that day by Bob Quick, the Metropolitan police assistant commissioner who was Britain’s chief anti-terror officer.

Quick had been running late for a morning meeting with Gordon Brown at No 10, at which he was to tell the prime minister about the raids which had been planned for 6am the next day. In the taxi on the way, he was reading a document headed Secret: Briefing Note Operation Pathway. Quick was in such a rush that he forgot to put the document back in its buff folder before he got out of the cab.

A photographer snatched a picture of the document which was then transmitted to media outlets around the world. The operation had to be hastily brought forward by 12 hours.

Thankfully, Quick’s error had serious consequences only for himself — he resigned on Thursday morning — but it added unnecessary drama and danger to an operation that had already been a close-run thing — and which security sources fear is part of a much bigger threat.

THE trail to the Manchester raids is thought to have begun last December with the arrest of 14 suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists by Belgian police.

Officials believed a suicide bombing aimed at a two-day summit of European leaders, including Brown, was imminent after learning that one of the suspects had received a green light from his paymasters abroad.

During their detention, few of the men were prepared to co-operate with the Belgian authorities but one — whose identity remains a closely guarded secret — was willing to talk. In a series of interviews he described how he had been personally “tasked” to carry out a suicide attack in Belgium. His instructor was Rashid Rauf, a fugitive on the run from British police in Pakistan.

The would-be suicide bomber said that the Belgian plot was just one of a number of large-scale attacks that Rauf had planned across Europe. The targets were unidentified cities in Belgium, France, Holland and the UK.

Interviewed later by a member of MI5, the supergrass said that all he knew was that Rauf had dispatched a mastermind — whose pseudonym he gave — to a British city to make preparations for an attack. His tip-off was vague but it sparked one of the largest manhunts in MI5’s recent history.

Rauf, who was born in Pakistan but was brought up in the Midlands, has already been linked to a series of alleged high-profile Islamist terror plots, including the failed July 21 suicide bomb plot that targeted London in 2005.

Despite this known track record, Rauf’s real importance had been underestimated. About four years ago he became Al-Qaeda’s director of European operations.

Last November Rauf was reportedly killed when three American Hellfire missiles from a CIA predator drone destroyed a mud-built bungalow in a village in North Waziristan, in the lawless tribal lands that span the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Aerial photographs taken by the Americans after the missile strike show a body, originally thought to be Rauf’s, covered in a shroud being carried from the rubble. But original assessments that he is dead have been revised. “There is nothing definitely to say he’s actually dead,” said a senior western intelligence official last week.

“It may take a long time to find out. We honestly don’t know.”

Pakistani intelligence officials remain convinced that he was killed in the strike.

A few months earlier Rauf had sent several cells to Europe to carry out a series of linked attacks which were driven by Al-Qaeda’s hatred for Barack Obama — “a house negro” as Osama Bin Laden’s deputy has called him. Informed sources said it is now believed that the alleged northwest cell was part of this Europe-wide network.

The suspected members of the northwest cell had first came to the attention of MI5 about two months after the thwarted Brussels attack in December.

At any given time MI5 monitors about 2,000 people in Britain who form an estimated 230 networks suspected of links to violent extremism. Each individual is subject to a sliding scale of monitoring depending on the agency’s assessment of the threat they pose and how close they are thought to be to “attack planning”.

Each week a committee of senior MI5 officials meet at the agency’s headquarters in Westminster to review the status of each operation, upgrading and downgrading different investigations as appropriate.

Well placed officials say the alleged northwest cell had been the subject of investigation for several weeks since January. About a month ago that was suddenly stepped up after fresh information indicated that the members of the cell might be serious about attack planning. Operation Pathway was moved to the top of MI5’s priority list. Hundreds of police and MI5 officers were assigned to the investigation.

A number of suspects, many of them Pakistanis on student visas, were put under full-time surveillance. Their homes were bugged, their telephone calls were intercepted and they were followed night and day by officers from MI5’s A4 surveillance division.

This department specialises in covert surveillance. At terror camps in Afghanistan and the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan, Al-Qaeda terrorist recruits are routinely trained in counter-surveillance tactics. This can include switching back on their route, stopping suddenly in the street and generally being aware of everybody around them.

To circumvent this, MI5 employs people who look the opposite of the stereotypical spy. The agency has at its disposal an army of elderly women — many in their sixties and seventies — and young mothers with babies in prams.

There is also a range of James Bond-style devices which are the agency’s most closely guarded secrets. It is rumoured, for example, that MI5 has developed a colourless chemical which is “painted” on a suspect’s clothing or shoes during a covert entry of the suspect’s home while he or she is out. The suspect will then leave a trace of the chemical wherever he goes, allowing a trained MI5 dog to follow his trail.

It is not known whether any of these tactics were used in Operation Pathway. But about a fortnight ago surveillance officers reported that the suspects had been taking photographs of four locations in Manchester. These included the Arndale shopping centre, the smart shopping area of St Ann’s Square, the Trafford shopping centre and the Birdcage nightclub.

Critically, their e-mails were monitored — a highly sensitive task usually assigned in such operations to technical experts at GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping agency at Cheltenham.

The turning point came about a week ago when a series of e-mails thought to have been received by at least one of the suspects indicated a specific timeframe for the alleged plot. The e-mails suggested that the cell had moved into the stage of attack planning. They showed a “window” for a possible attack of about five or six days from Good Friday. “Dates around the Easter holiday were mentioned,” one senior police source said this weekend.

Yet there remained serious gaps in the Pathway investigation. Despite the photographs, police say they had no definite evidence of the planned target. Neither had Pathway uncovered any evidence that the suspects had acquired explosives, arms or ammunition.

There was no indication, either, as to whether the planned operation was a suicide attack, or how many of those arrested would be directly involved and which of them were simply supplying logistical support such as purchasing materials or acting as drivers and reconnaissance scouts.

For MI5 officers running Pathway from the agency’s Northern Operations Centre (opened amid great secrecy last year in a northern city), these were good reasons to watch and wait. But the risks of letting the suspects run overrode that.

“There is always a challenge to balance the need to gather more intelligence with the need to protect the public. There was clear intent and signs of organisation, very clearly something was going on, so we acted to protect the public,” said a security source.

Early last week senior police and MI5 officers met at Scotland Yard and agreed that the suspected members of the cell should be arrested. The date for “executive action” was set for 6am last Thursday when the suspects would almost certainly be at home and asleep. But then came Quick’s unwitting intervention.

AS the police questioning of the arrested men continues at three separate locations, few details have emerged of their lives in Britain. Neighbours in Liverpool spoke last week of cars coming and going from addresses late at night and the playing of loud Islamic music from a flat occupied by one of the men, but the suspects appear to have had little interaction with people other than at work.

Two of the men worked as security guards at the Homebase DIY store in Clitheroe, but had been there for only two weeks. Two more were believed to have worked as contractors for Cargo2go, a delivery firm based at Manchester airport, because one of the men was driving one of the company’s vans when he was arrested.

However, Ian Southworth, a director, said yesterday that he was mystified at the suggestion. “All our drivers are owner-drivers. It could be a driver that used to work for us that’s left and sold the vehicle and the logo’s still on it, or it could have been a lost or stolen vehicle,” he said.

A number of the 11 Pakistanis arrested were from the tribal areas and had been admitted to Britain on student visas.

This has stoked up a political row, with Islamabad and Downing Street trading blows over who was responsible for lax checks on immigrants, especially those entering Britain on student visas which are notoriously abused.

Gordon Brown said Pakistan “has to do more to root out terrorist elements in its country”. The prime minister had said previously that two out of three terror plots uncovered by MI5 and police were hatched in Pakistan. But Wajid Shamsul Hasan, the Pakistan high commissioner, retaliated by saying the problem was “at your end”.

This weekend a senior immigration judge dismissed as “bluster” claims by Phil Woolas, the Home Officer minister, that the system for checking student visas had been recently tightened up and was “one of the best in the world”.

The judge pointed to the six-month closure, on security grounds, of the main visa office at the British high commission in Islamabad, which meant that cases were being channelled through an outpost in Abu Dhabi, 1,300 miles away. He said that at 50% of the appeals, by those on student visas refused entry to Britain, there was no Home Office representation. In many cases the only documentation produced as evidence was that provided by the appellant, “which can often be forged or inadequate”, said the judge.

His comments were echoed by John Tincey, chairman of the Immigration Service Union which represents border staff, who said that the proposed introduction of the e-borders system involving automated checks on visitors was fraught with danger.

“Foreign nationals could be allowed into Britain without being interviewed by an immigration officer,” he said.

“There is real danger that our immigration controls will be able to catch only those who are already known to the authorities and will be helpless to detect first-time terrorists and illegal immigrants.”

Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, said: “This is a completely shambolic system.”

THE arguments about the immigration system will continue for some time but this weekend the police priority was the continuing search of 10 properties in Manchester and Liverpool.

Yesterday police released an 18-year-old, the youngest of the suspects, into the custody of the UK Border Agency. They have 28 days to hold the 11 other men, who are aged between 22 and 41, before either charging them or releasing them.

The fate of Operation Pathway will hinge on whether they can gather enough evidence from the interviews and seized property for prosecutors to press charges.

Rauf’s plans for Europe-wide attacks leave intelligence agencies rushing to locate and defuse a group of ticking timebombs. Whether he is dead or alive, those ticking bombs are his real legacy.

Additional reporting: Kevin Dowling, Philip Cardy, Daud Khattak in Peshawar

Telegraph : UK should distance itself from US drone attacks in Pakistan, says minister

UK should distance itself from US drone attacks in Pakistan, says minister

Britain should distance itself from US missile attacks on al-Qaeda strongholds in the tribal areas of Pakistan, a Government minister has said.

By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent | April 12, 2009

Sadiq Khan, the minister for community cohesion, said Britain needed to rebuild its reputation in Pakistan where anger is mounting over the attacks launched by unmanned drones.

Mr Khan, who was in Pakistan on an official visit when counter-terrrorism raids took place in Manchester and Liverpool last week, said many young men there were angry with the attacks which have been blamed for killing innocent people as well as terrorists.

Rashid Rauf, the man said to be behind the alleged plot to target shopping centres in Manchester, was reported by the US as being killed in one such attack last year.

The attacks, which have been stepped up in recent months, are highly controversial in Pakistan, partly because they are seen as an American incursion on Pakistani sovereignty.

Mr Khan said the Government needed to make clear that Britain's foreign policy was different from Washington's.

The minister said: "In Islamabad, I spoke to university students about being British and Muslim, the values we share in the UK and the freedom to practise faith freely, be treated equally, protected against discrimination, and be active citizens with the freedom to voice our concerns and disagree without fear.

"In return, I listened to the anger and pain over the challenges that young Pakistanis growing up in Pakistan face, including the anger and frustration over US drone attacks.

"It is clear, in many Pakistanis' eyes, the UK is considered in the same terms as the US.

"One of the lessons of the Iraq war is that we need to ensure we are better at explaining our foreign policy, especially when it is distinct and different from [policy in] the US."

Mr Khan was later forced to clarify that he believed Britain needed to “stand shoulder to shoulder with those who are fighting terrorism” including both the US and Pakistan.

Times : Minister hits out at attacks by US drones

Minister hits out at attacks by US drones

David Leppard and Abul Taher | From The Sunday Times | April 12, 2009

A GOVERNMENT minister has called for Britain to distance itself publicly from the American policy of launching attacks on Al-Qaeda terrorists with pilotless drones to avoid inflaming Pakistani opinion.

Sadiq Khan, the community cohesion minister, said he had listened to the “anger and frustration” of students in Islamabad over US attacks inside Pakistan. “It’s quite clear in many Pakistani eyes that the UK is considered in the same terms as the US,” said Khan. “We want to explain that our foreign policy, especially on the issue of drone attacks, is distinct from US foreign policy.”

Khan’s comments came as the full extent emerged of what investigators believe is Pakistan-based control of the alleged Al-Qaeda plot to bomb shopping centres in Manchester over Easter.

Rashid Rauf, a fugitive British terrorist identified by MI5 as Al-Qaeda’s “director of operations” in Europe, is suspected of planning the bombing as part of a “master plan” for attacks on European cities.

Multiple cells, comprising at least 12 terrorists each, were dispatched last year from Pakistan’s tribal areas to conduct a series of atrocities in the UK, France, Belgium and elsewhere, an Al-Qaeda informant has told MI5. The cells are said to have been acting under the orders of Rauf, 27, from Birmingham, who has previously been linked to the failed suicide attack on London in July 21, 2005.

The plan was set in motion just weeks before a US Preda-tor missile strike targeted Rauf in a remote Pakistani village. Officials are still unclear whether he survived the attack last November.

Details of the plan were uncovered by MI5 last December after the arrest of 14 suspected Islamist terrorists in Brussels. Belgian prosecutors said at the time they believed the men were planning a suicide attack to coincide with a European Union summit attended by Gordon Brown.

A senior Scotland Yard official said one of the suspects had confessed that he had been “personally tasked” by Rauf to carry out the bombing. In an interview with MI5 he disclosed that Rauf, who fled to Pakistan seven years ago, had ordered a series of European attacks.

He said the Al-Qaeda chief had dispatched a cell leader to a British city to plan an attack there. Sources say the alleged Easter bomb plot is likely to have been that attack.

Last week 12 men, including 11 Pakistanis on student visas, were arrested in raids on Manchester, Liverpool and Clitheroe, Lancashire.

Long War Journal : Al Qaeda operative Rashid Rauf survived US strike

Al Qaeda operative Rashid Rauf survived US strike

By Bill Roggio | April 12, 2009

A senior al Qaeda leader who was reported to have been killed during a US airstrike in Pakistan's tribal areas is now thought to have survived the attack and has been plotting terror attacks in Europe.

Rashid Rauf, an al Qaeda leader who is in charge of al Qaeda's external operations branch responsible for attacks in Europe, survived the November 2008 Predator strike in North Waziristan that was also thought to have killed Abu Zubair al Masri and two other al Qaeda operatives.

US intelligence believes that al Qaeda has reconstituted its external operations network in Pakistan's lawless, Taliban-controlled tribal areas. This network is tasked with hitting targets in the West, India, and elsewhere. Al Qaeda is particularly interested in recruiting westernized Muslims with western passports, which would allow them to more easily enter their target countries. The Predator campaign is largely designed to prevent al Qaeda from conducting another major attack in the West.

The assessment that Rauf had been killed changed, after an al Qaeda operative detained during a raid in Belgium claimed that Rauf had trained him and dispatched him to Brussels to conduct a suicide attack during a meeting of European leaders, The Times Online reported. The operative also said Rauf had plotted attacks in major cities in Belgium, France, Holland, and England. Rauf has also been implicated as being the director of the failed plot to conduct attacks in England on Easter Sunday.

Unnamed intelligence sources from the Central Intelligence Agency, Britain's MI6, and Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency have touted Rauf's death to the media as evidence of the success of the Predator strike program in Pakistan. The CIA directs the covert Predator program. Rauf is among ten other al Qaeda leaders identified as being killed in strikes in Pakistan since January 2008.

But The Long War Journal has long been skeptical of the claims that Rauf had been killed. US military and intelligence officials have told The Long War Journal several times that Rauf's death was never confirmed and that reports that he was killed in the November strike in South Waziristan were premature.

Shortly after the November strike, Rauf's family and his lawyer claimed his was still alive. Taliban fighters close to Rauf also said he was alive.

Background on Rashid Rauf

Rashid Rauf has a long pedigree in Pakistan's terror circles. Rauf's family is well immersed in Pakistan's radical jihadi community. He is a relative of Maulana Masood Azhar, the leader the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad, a terror outfit that operates in Indian Kashmir. Rauf's sister-in-law is married to Azhar's brother. Rauf himself is a member of Jaish-e-Mohammad, which has merged with al Qaeda and moved a large number of its fighters into Pakistan's tribal areas.

Rauf's father-in-law and sister-in-law run the radical Darul Uloom Madina, one of Pakistan's largest Islamic seminaries in Bahawalpur. More than 2,000 students attend the Darul Uloom Madina.

His father founded Crescent Relief, a Muslim charity that collected funds for earthquake relief and is currently under investigation for funneling money to fund the failed 2006 London airlines plot.

Rauf and senior al Qaeda leader Matiur Rehman were the architects of the London airline plot. Al Qaeda intended to destroy a dozen aircraft while en route to the United States from London. Rehman is a senior al Qaeda leader who is known to manage the "jihadi rolodex," the list of the tens of thousands of operatives who have passed through terror training camps over the years.

Rauf was captured by Pakistani security forces in August 2006 in the city of Bahawalpur. On Dec. 15, 2007, he escaped from Pakistani custody, under dubious circumstances. Police escorts claim Rauf broke free of his handcuffs as he was visiting a mosque while being transported from a court appearance in Islamabad to a jail in Rawalpindi. Rauf's uncle had convinced police to transport Rauf in a van and had driven the van himself. Several police were charged with being complicit in Rauf's escape.

At the time of Rauf's escape, the British government was attempting to extradite him. A senior US intelligence official told The Long War Journal that Rauf fled to South Waziristan immediately after his escape.

Tayib Rauf, Rashid Rauf's brother, was arrested in Britain for his involvement with the London airline plot along with 22 other suspects. The British government froze the bank accounts of Tayib and 18 other suspects. Most of the suspects arrested in Britain were British nationals of Pakistani origin.

FOX : Easter Attack Plot Traced to Operation by Al Qaeda Chief Before His Death

Easter Attack Plot Traced to Operation by Al Qaeda Chief Before His Death

April 12, 2009

Early last Wednesday evening, Phil Harrow, a British blood service courier from Toxteth, Liverpool, was sitting in front of his computer in his living room, his attention occasionally distracted by the sounds of the local children playing football on the street outside his front window on Cedar Grove.

At about 5:30 p.m., the peace was shattered and the children scattered in terror. “Eight armed officers, dressed in black from head to toe and wearing body armor and ski masks, jumped from an unmarked white van, screamed at the children to get out of the street and battered their way into the house two doors down from mine,” recalled Harrow.

Within minutes three unmarked police cars and four large yellow police vans had cordoned off the street and about 30 more officers were shouting at residents to stay indoors with their doors and windows shut.

Three Asian men were arrested and quickly driven off.

It was a pattern repeated across the city and the northwest of England as police swooped simultaneously as part of Operation Pathway, which was targeting an alleged Al Qaeda-driven terror plot aimed at unspecified targets in Britain, to be carried out as early as Easter.

The arrest of the 12 men — 11 Pakistanis and one Briton — had been rushed forward because of a career-ending blunder earlier that day by Bob Quick, the Metropolitan police assistant commissioner who was Britain’s chief anti-terror officer.

Quick had been running late for a morning meeting with Gordon Brown, at which he was to tell the prime minister about the raids which had been planned for 6 a.m. the next day. In the taxi on the way, he was reading a document headed "Secret: Briefing Note Operation Pathway." Quick was in such a rush that he forgot to put the document back in its folder before he got out of the cab.

A photographer snatched a picture of the document which was then transmitted to media outlets around the world. The operation had to be hastily brought forward by 12 hours.

Thankfully, Quick’s error had serious consequences only for himself — he resigned on Thursday morning — but it added unnecessary drama and danger to an operation that had already been a close-run thing — and which security sources fear is part of a much bigger threat.

The trail to the Manchester raids is thought to have begun last December with the arrest of 14 suspected Al Qaeda terrorists by Belgian police.

Officials believed a homicide bombing aimed at a two-day summit of European leaders, including Brown, was imminent after learning that one of the suspects had received a green light from his paymasters abroad.

During their detention, few of the men were prepared to cooperate with the Belgian authorities but one — whose identity remains a closely guarded secret — was willing to talk. In a series of interviews he described how he had been personally “tasked” to carry out a homicide attack in Belgium. His instructor was Rashid Rauf, a fugitive on the run from British police in Pakistan.

The would-be bomber said that the Belgian plot was just one of a number of large-scale attacks that Rauf had planned across Europe. The targets were unidentified cities in Belgium, France, Holland and the U.K.

Interviewed later by a member of MI5, the suspect said that all he knew was that Rauf had dispatched a mastermind — whose pseudonym he gave — to a British city to make preparations for an attack. His tip-off was vague but it sparked one of the largest manhunts in MI5’s recent history.

Rauf, who was born in Pakistan but was brought up in the Midlands, has already been linked to a series of alleged high-profile Islamist terror plots, including the failed July 21 homicide bomb plot that targeted London in 2005.

Despite this known track record, Rauf’s real importance had been underestimated. About four years ago he became Al Qaeda’s director of European operations.

Last November Rauf was reportedly killed when three American Hellfire missiles from a CIA predator drone destroyed a mud-built bungalow in a village in North Waziristan, in the lawless tribal lands that span the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Aerial photographs taken by the Americans after the missile strike show a body, originally thought to be Rauf’s, covered in a shroud being carried from the rubble. But original assessments that he is dead have been revised. “There is nothing definitely to say he’s actually dead,” said a senior Western intelligence official last week.

“It may take a long time to find out. We honestly don’t know.”

Pakistani intelligence officials remain convinced that he was killed in the strike.

A few months earlier Rauf had sent several cells to Europe to carry out a series of linked attacks which were driven by Al Qaeda’s hatred for Barack Obama. Informed sources said it is now believed that the alleged northwest cell was part of this Europe-wide network.

The suspected members of the northwest cell had first came to the attention of MI5 about two months after the thwarted Brussels attack in December.

Newsweek : A Dead Man Scheming?

A Dead Man Scheming?

By Mark Hosenball | NEWSWEEK | Published Apr 11, 2009 | From the magazine issue dated Apr 20, 2009

It's a mystery what the head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism squad was thinking when he walked into the U.K. prime minister's office at 10 Downing Street carrying in plain view a "secret" report about Al Qaeda's attack planning. News photos of Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick's careless move compromised a police crackdown, forcing U.K. officials to swoop in and arrest 12 suspects—all but one of them Pakistani nationals—in connection with an alleged Easter holiday plot to attack shopping centers and a nightclub in northern England. Quick resigned the next day. Another mystery remains unsolved: whether Rashid Rauf, a "high value" Qaeda target during the Bush administration and one of the Easter plot's alleged masterminds, is alive or dead. U.S. officials believe that Rauf was killed just before last Thanksgiving by a CIA-operated Predator drone strike in Pakistan's lawless North Waziristan. But according to one U.K. expert who's been briefed on the case, some British investigators— and Rauf's own family—think he may have survived. (A U.K. spokesperson had no comment on the matter.)

Rauf, a former British resident, was allegedly a central figure in an August 2006 plot by U.K.-based terrorists to blow up transatlantic airliners. The plot was broken up after authorities in Pakistan arrested Rauf. But in December 2007, he escaped from custody as he was being transferred back to prison from a court hearing in Islamabad. (He allegedly fled via a bathroom window after his guards allowed him to stop for a prayer break; U.S. officials suspected an "inside job.") The White House was delighted when the Predator operation supposedly took him out. But soon after the missile strike, which U.S. officials said killed five men, including Rauf, his Pakistani lawyer claimed he was still alive and dared authorities to produce the body—which they were apparently unable to do.

Three current and former U.S. officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing a sensitive matter, told NEWSWEEK that U.S. agencies still believe Rauf was killed in the strike. "While it is not 100 percent confirmed," said one of the officials, "there are good reasons to believe Rashid Rauf is dead." In most Predator operations, officials in Washington have overhead video feeds that enable them to follow targets prior to a missile firing and to see bodies following the attack. But sometimes, another of the officials said, the evidence is more ambiguous. "If he is alive," the official added, "we should regard this guy as a serious threat to U.S. interests." And even if he's dead, U.S. and U.K. officials said it's possible the Easter plot was hatched prior to November 2008—meaning that Rauf's reach may extend beyond the grave.

© 2009

Daily Mail : Brown clashes with Pakistan over terror suspects handed student visas by Home Office

Brown clashes with Pakistan over terror suspects handed student visas by Home Office

By David Williams and James Slack | April 10, 2009

The scandalous exploitation of Britain's lax student visas rules by a suspected Al Qaeda cell erupted into a huge diplomatic row today between Gordon Brown and Pakistan.

The Prime Minister declared that Pakistan 'has to do more to root out terrorist elements in its country' in the wake of the revelation that 11 of the 12 suspects had travelled to Britain from the country.

But at least 10 of the 12 were allowed to enter by the Home Office after successfully applying for student visas.

As security forces in Britain carried out a desperate search for the terrorist bomb factory, Pakistan's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom said it was the UK that was guilty of not doing enough to carry out security checks on foreign students.

Wajid Shamsul Hasan said Pakistani authorities could help carry out background checks on student visa applicants but were not allowed to.

He said: 'It is at your end you have to do something more. Every day we are raiding people, we are arresting people, we are arresting suspects wherever we find them.'

The row will leave Mr Brown red-faced amid increasing concerns the Government has ignored repeated warnings about the dangers of both the student visa rules and bogus colleges.

Government figures showed 42,292 student visas were issued to Pakistani students between April 2004 and April 2008.

At the same time, it appears a supposed 2007 crackdown on bogus colleges - which charge foreign students thousands of pounds for fake academic courses - failed to detect the suspects seized this week in the North-West of England.

Only one is understood to have been studying at a reputable institution. Officials also believe they lied about their financial resources to evade a Home Office test of their ability to pay for their studies.

Immigration Minister Phil Woolas insisted today that foreign national students were checked against watchlists of criminals and suspects from other countries.

'It's naive to think that we don't check, we do work very closely with the Pakistan authorities, indeed we've been criticised for doing so,' he said - only a week after he said student visas were 'the major loophole in Britain's border controls'.

He told BBC Radio 4's PM programme today that there were 285 million people coming in and out of the country every year, including nearly 400,000 issued with student visas.

'We do have these systems of checking these people to the best of our ability and we are acknowledged in international police circles as being one of the best in the world,' he went on.

Mr Woolas said he had no detail of the arrests from this week but 'the fact of the matter' was that the individuals had been identified.

'But the serious point that the opposition parties and other commentators must address is that if they continue to oppose our electronic borders system, then not only will there be loopholes, there will be a gaping chasm and we would not be able to protect the public.'

He added: 'We do under the new tougher points-based system of course have paper checks and people have to provide documents, but we also use intelligence from our own services and from overseas countries in a targeted way exactly as has been suggested by the High Commissioner and David Blunkett.'

The Home Office stressed yesterday that all students are checked against terror 'watch lists' and must be sponsored by a registered university or college.

The most notorious terror 'students' was Dhiren Barot, said to be Osama Bin Laden's 'UK general', who was jailed in 2006 for planning terrorist attacks.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling warned last night: 'Given these latest revelations, we need to urgently step up monitoring of applications from parts of the world where we face terror issues.'

The search for the terrorist bomb factory is being concentrated on a rundown block of flats east of Liverpool city centre, The Times has reported.

The terror suspects were being questioned last night amid reports that they had planned a massive bomb attack within days, possibly as soon as Easter Monday.

Some had been seen by surveillance officers filming shopping centres in Manchester, which would be packed on a Bank Holiday.

Sultan Sher was arrested at the Cyber Net cafe in the Cheetham Hill area of Manchester, alongside a man known as Tariq.

Abid Naseer was arrested at a house in the same area, while one of his housemates, Hamza Shenwari, was arrested on the nearby M602.

Abdul Khan was arrested in Liverpool, as was John Moores University student Muhammad Adil, who was later released.

The 14 raids, in Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside, had to be brought forward after police anti-terror chief Bob Quick was photographed holding a secret document detailing the targets.

Mr Quick, 49, resigned yesterday but will walk away with an index-linked pension worth £110,000 a year - or £85,000 a year plus a lump sum of about £520,000.

Exploiting the student visa loopholes would be a frightening new tactic for Al Qaeda.

Students from abroad require a bank statement showing enough cash to pay fees of £10,000 or more a year, plus £6,000 living costs.

With the Pakistanis all believed to originate from poor tribal regions, there are suspicions that funds may have been provided directly by Al Qaeda or the Taliban.

Far from studying, at least four of the men had been working as security guards. One had told neighbours he was attending a college which has actually closed.

Patrick Mercer, head of the Commons anti-terrorism sub-committee, last night demanded an urgent investigation.

Police are said to have moved in on the suspects after uncovering coded emails and internet 'chatter' indicating that the suspects were close to an attack.

They had been seen photographing or filming at four possible targets in Manchester - St Ann's Square, the Arndale Centre and Trafford Centre shopping complexes, and the Birdcage nightclub.

A Manchester police official said: 'Even though specific targets were never mentioned in their email chatter, these men were no tourists, and taking these pictures was highly suspicious.'

Greater Manchester Chief Constable Peter Fahy said: 'They were a highly credible threat. Several dates listed on emails indicated a strong chance they may have moved in the next ten days. We had to take action'

Anti-terror investigators believe some of the men, whose ages range from teenagers to 41, received training in the terrorist camps of Kashmir and the Pakistan tribal areas.

Officials believe the cell represents a major change in the threat to Britain.

The July 7 suicide bombings and other recent foiled plots have all involved British-born terrorists. But most of those currently held are from Pakistan.

Investigations are said to be going on in Pakistan where officials said yesterday they had given British authorities the names of 36 of their citizens suspected of having trained in terror camps and now being in the UK.

The list is said to have been compiled by the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence service.

The suspects are believed to have been trained in South Waziristan by the radical group Jaish e Mohammad.

The group was linked to the British terror suspect Rashid Rauf, believed to have been killed in a U.S. missile strike.

The revelation that the suspected terror cell was imported into Britain by an apparently legal route is a huge embarrassment for ministers.

Any migrant wanting a visa is supposed to undergo rigorous checks. They are also checked against terror watch lists.

But there have been a series of warnings, dating back to at least 2005, that checks are not sufficiently robust.

The Al Qaeda suspects who pose as security guards

Members of the suspected Al Qaeda cell may have been working as security guards to make it easier to access high-profile targets, it emerged yesterday.

At least four of them were employed as security men, two at a large hardware store where the gang would have had access to potential bomb-making materials.

Last night, staff at the new branch of Homebase in Clitheroe, Lancashire, said they had been ordered to carry out a stock check.

It was focusing on materials such as fertiliser and flammable household liquids which could have been used for a bomb. The two men were staying at a local bed and breakfast, which was also searched.

They were employed by a Newcastle-based company called Sky Interserve UK, acting as a sub-contractor for the Essex firm Manpower Direct

Two suspects arrested in a house in the multi-ethnic Manchester suburb of Cheetham Hill also worked as security guards, neighbours said.

They were also believed to be studying the Koran and worshipped five times a day at a nearby mosque, the Al-Falah Islamic Centre.

Neighbours said they were Pashtuns, originally from Afghanistan, and aged around 30 and 40.

One Muslim woman living nearby said they had criticised her for not wearing a full veil, telling her she was 'immodest'.

Another neighbour, Mohammed Ashraf, said he knew the older man.

He said: 'He works as a security guard but he also travels around a lot - here, Birmingham, London. He runs market stalls selling fruit and vegetables.'

Telegraph : Terror plot: search for explosives

Terror plot: search for explosives

The hunt for explosives linked to an alleged plot to blow up shopping centres in Manchester intensified yesterday.

By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent | April 10, 2009

Officers believe that the alleged plot was in its final stages and could have been planned for the Easter weekend but have yet to discover any bomb-making equipment.

In the past, terrorist cells have proven adept at hiding bomb-making materials by hiring lock-ups or burying any evidence.

Police believe the plan was to launch suicide attacks on targets including the Trafford and Arndale shopping centres and St Ann's Square in the city.

Sources said officers had identified a number of "key addresses" among the properties raided in Manchester and Liverpool since Wednesday.

They suspect that Abid Naseer, 22, was the ring leader. He was living at Galsworthy Avenue, in Cheetham Hill, Manchester and two other men living at the same address have also been arrested.

At properties in Cedar Grove, Toxteth, and Earle Rd, Wavertree, a total of four men have been arrested in Liverpool, along with a fifth who was detained at John Moores University.

Two security guards arrested in Clitheroe, Lancashire, had apparently moved into a bed and breakfast hotel there from flats in Highgate Street, in Edge Hill, Liverpool.

Around a dozen black-clad armed officers raided the Highgate St flat above an off licence on Wednesday.

Two men arrested at the Cyber Net Café in Cheetham Hill Road, Manchester, are thought to be of lesser interest.

Searches are continuing at three other properties in Cheetham Hill but nothing "significant" has yet been found, sources said.

Officers have also examined two cars as part of the investigation.

The suspects at Cedar Grove in Toxteth were often seen "obsessively" adjusting their yellow Nissan Micra, neighbours said, and the vehicle was later towed away for forensic exmaination.

A silver Rover MG ZR car parked outside a house in Abercarn Close, Manchester, which contained a newspaper clipping of a man in military uniform, was cordoned off by police.

MI5 is working "around the clock" to identify material from a surveillance operation that may be of use to the investigating team.

In total, 12 people have been arrested, aged between their mid-teens and 41, of whom 11 are Pakistani nationals.

Yesterday reports emerged of arrests in Pakistan in connection with the investigation.

It is thought that a group was sent from the al-Qaeda heartlands in the tribal areas of Pakistan to attack Britain, travelling under student visas.

Sources have said the group was connected with Rashid Rauf from Birmingham, a senior member of al-Qaeda, said to have been killed in a US missile attack last year.

Telegraph : The new enemy within is invisible

The new enemy within is invisible

Al-Qaeda is changing its tactics to avoid detection of its agents. Security forces must adapt quickly to find them, says Con Coughlin

By Con Coughlin | April 10, 2009

Within Britain's counter-terrorism community they are known as the "clean skins": highly trained, professional killers whose blameless backgrounds provide not the slightest clue as to their true, evil intent.

The phenomenon was first identified during the bloody 30-year campaign the IRA waged against the British Isles. At the start of the Troubles, British intelligence and security officials quickly established a profile of the main IRA suspects, enabling them to dent severely the organisation's operational effectiveness. To counter this, IRA commanders sought recruits who did not fit the classic image – no known involvement in Republican politics, no criminal record and preferably no Irish family ties.

Now it appears that the "clean skins" may be back, this time in Islamist form. That is the logical conclusion to be drawn from the latest operation in which anti-terror police detained 12 men in a series of raids conducted in Manchester, Liverpool and Clitheroe, Lancs.

Most of the headlines have inevitably focused on the resignation of Bob Quick, the country's leading anti-terrorism policeman, who risked jeopardising the entire operation by exposing its details in advance.

But it is the raids themselves, targeted at 11 Pakistani-born nationals who had entered Britain on student visas (and one British national), which suggest that al-Qaeda might now be attempting to effect a radical transformation in its tactics.

We should remember that September 11, 2001 changed the face of modern terrorism. Britain's security and intelligence establishment found itself on a sharp learning curve as it struggled to master the new threat that had suddenly appeared.

It was only through painstaking investigation of the subsequent plots in this country that a clearer picture emerged of the modus operandi of al-Qaeda's British-based terror cells. Up to now, nearly all of the major plots – both those that have succeeded and those that have been thwarted by the diligence of our security forces – have involved British passport holders of Pakistani descent, or "Brit-Paks" as they are known within the intelligence-gathering community.

The architects of the July 7 bombings in London in 2005 were Brit-Paks, as were many of those involved in the failed suicide bombings two weeks later. Those jailed for planning terror attacks in British shopping centres and airports fitted a similar profile.

As a consequence – and despite protests from leaders of the British Muslim community, who have insisted that Britain's two million Muslims pose no threat to national security – police and security officials have concentrated their efforts on infiltrating and monitoring known radical elements, particularly mosques, where inflammatory preachers such as Abu Qatada delivered sermons in favour of waging jihad against the West.

Much effort was expended on tracking the movements of the estimated 400,000 Brit-Paks who travel regularly between Britain and Pakistan, while MI6 worked closely with Pakistan's intelligence service, ISI, to spot potential terror leads.

Then, at the end of last year, the Government revealed that, at any given time, British security forces were contending with at least 20 active terror plots, mainly involving groups of Brit-Paks who have been radicalised and trained at Saudi-funded madrassas in Pakistan, and have then managed to return undetected to Britain. Despite their success in establishing a useful profile of likely jihadists, security officials are trained to keep an open mind as to possible changes in the pattern. "Terror groups have an advantage over us because they have no restrictions they have to work to," says a senior security official. "They will do whatever they can to ensure their attacks are a success."

For this reason, security officials need to be aware of what they refer to as "the diversification of the threat", where terror groups adapt their tactics to escape detection. Thus, even though radicalised Brit-Paks form the basis of the Government's normal terrorist profile, officials are well aware of discrepancies where white British males and Muslim converts of other ethnicities have cropped up.

The Government's recent report on counter-terrorism, Contest Two, suggested that al-Qaeda-related groups were trying to adapt their tactics to counter the British security forces' increased awareness of traditional operations. Commanders of British forces fighting in Afghanistan have uncovered evidence that British Muslims have been sending electronic components for use in the Taliban's roadside bombs; there have even been reports of them being involved in attacks on British patrols. Contest Two also warned that British hotels and public buildings faced the threat of Mumbai-style attacks by terrorists with automatic weapons.

Government officials have estimated the current threat against the UK to be at "the severe end of severe". This is one step short of critical, which is when the Government judges a major attack to be imminent, as it did with one alleged plot in the summer of 2006.

Senior police and security officers suspect those arrested this week were planning a number of suicide bombings in a major city centre over the Easter weekend. If true, this would confirm that a cell of Pakistan-born nationals has infiltrated the UK, a development that would add a disturbing dimension to the Government's counter-terrorism effort.

Every year, an average of 10,000 Pakistani nationals travel to Britain on student visas. Every applicant undergoes close scrutiny, including fingerprint checks against a range of immigration, terrorism and crime watch lists. If al-Qaeda has managed to avoid detection and infiltrate a "clean skin" cell into the UK, this system is clearly ineffective.

"It is a very different proposition if we have Pakistani citizens plotting terror attacks against Britain, as opposed to British citizens," says a senior intelligence official. "We will be entering a whole new ball game."

To start with, it will mean working even more closely with Pakistani intelligence, which has a chequered history of co-operating with its British counterpart.

Rashid Rauf, the British-born Islamist who is thought to be the mastermind of the latest alleged plot, managed to escape from Pakistani custody while his guards stopped for lunch at McDonald's, prompting speculation that he may have been an ISI agent all along.

And if British security officials are to prevent further terror attacks they will need full access to detainees held in foreign jails who might have important information, irrespective of the conditions in which they are being held.

Following the allegations made last month by former Guantánamo detainee Binyam Mohammed that he had been tortured with the complicity of MI5 officers, the Government is under pressure to limit British security officials' access to suspects held in countries like Pakistan, where torture is routine.

But to do so might seriously jeopardise attempts to combat the terror threat. No one in the intelligence and security services wants to torture suspects: but they do want access to the intelligence that will prevent further bloodshed on the streets of Britain.

Telegraph : Pakistan: origin of three-quarters of all terror plots

Pakistan: origin of three-quarters of all terror plots

At least three in every four terror plots currently under investigation in the UK have their roots in Pakistan, according to the security services.

By Dean Nelson, South Asia Editor | April 10, 2009

Whilst Afghanistan was seen as the training ground of terrorists in the immediate aftermath of the September 2001 attacks, recent experience has shown that increasing numbers of al-Qaeda extremists are being trained across the border in the tribal areas in the north west of Pakistan.

President Obama openly refers to his “Af-Pak” strategy for combating militancy, such is the prevalance of terror suspects who have been radicalised in Pakistan.

Of the four men who carried out the London suicide bombings in July 2005, three were young British men of Pakistani origin who had travelled to the country to receive religious and military training.

Mohammed Siddique Khan, the leader of the plot, was raised in Beeston, West Yorkshire, but was understood to have made regular trips to terrorist training camps in southern Punjab, and was captured on video at Karachi airport in November 2004 with his accomplice Shehzad Tanweer, 22, another British national of Pakistan origin. They returned to Britain the following February.

The third bomber of Pakistani origin, Hasib Hussain, aged 18, had travelled to Pakistan 12 months before the attack.

Meanwhile, the alleged plot to bomb shopping centres in Manchester has been linked by MI5 to two al-Qaeda suspects in Pakistan - British Pakistani Rashid Rauf, who has been implicated in at least one other alleged terror plot, and Baitullah Mahsud, the leader of Pakistan’s Taliban movement who has promised attacks on the West in hate-filled pronouncements in recent weeks.

So many UK terror suspects have links to Pakistan that thousands of innocent travellers between the two countries every year are now closely monitored for signs of suspicious activity.

Latest estimates suggest 4,000 young British Muslims have been trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan, and with 400,000 British citizens visiting Pakistan each year, there are fears that many more will become radicalised.

Monitoring of regular visitors has intensified, which has raised the possibility of a change in tactics by terrorists, who may have switched to using Pakistani nationals who may not be so closely monitored when they visit the UK.

Shahid Aslam, a British employment solicitor who runs an immigration consultancy in Lahore, said terrorists could easily take advantages of gaps in the British visa application process to enter Britain on a valid visa.

He claimed there had been a number of cases where employees of agencies processing visa applications in Pakistan had accepted inducements to speed and guarantee entry visas.

WSJ : U.K. Official Resigns After Security Lapse

U.K. Official Resigns After Security Lapse

By CARRICK MOLLENKAMP, ALISTAIR MACDONALD and SIOBHAN GORMAN | April 10, 2009

LONDON -- The Metropolitan Police Service entered a new phase of turmoil when its top counterterrorism official, Bob Quick, resigned in the wake of his inadvertent disclosure of secret plans to stop an alleged terrorist plot in northwest England.

John Yates, a 28-year Metropolitan Police veteran known for his skill in murder cases and delicate political inquiries, immediately succeeded Mr. Quick, becoming the third counterterrorism chief Scotland Yard has had since late 2007. The change comes as the U.K. is dealing with the reality that small, radical Islamic cells remain a big threat -- even as the government spends more time and money on intelligence and outreach to Muslim communities.

When Robert Quick arrived at No 10 Downing Street in London earlier this week, he was carrying a document labeled "Secret" visible in his hand.

Police now plan to question the 12 people arrested in raids across northwest England on Wednesday. Among them were 10 Pakistani-born U.K. students who may have entered the U.K. as a working group, according to people familiar with the situation. One suspect is U.K.-born.

Peter Fahy, chief constable of the Greater Manchester Police, said Thursday that the arrests had been planned for a day later. But officers scrambled to change plans when Mr. Quick -- visiting Downing Street Wednesday morning for a briefing with Prime Minister Gordon Brown -- was photographed carrying a briefing paper with a page of details of the raid clearly visible.

In the aftermath of the arrests, Mr. Quick apologized immediately. But pressure quickly mounted for his resignation, which he delivered Thursday morning.

Police haven't said whether the suspects were known to have a plan to attack specific targets.

Mr. Quick's gaffe drew attention away from the fact that the potential for terrorism remains an important issue in the U.K. A 2005 attack on the London transportation system left 56 people dead, and several failed attempts followed in 2006 and 2007. Last month, the Home Office said that al Qaeda may fragment, but that the terrorist threat will likely diversify toward smaller "self-starting" groups.

"We do have some very serious contamination" in the U.K. community, said Tarique Ghaffur, a London security consultant who served as a high-ranking Scotland Yard assistant commissioner until last November. "It's a very difficult scenario and a very dangerous one."

At the same time, there has been instability in the country's top counterterrorism ranks. In the past 18 months, counterterrorism chiefs Peter Clarke and Andy Hayman departed. Mr. Quick was named to the post a little more than a year ago.

A spokesman for London Mayor Boris Johnson wasn't immediately available for comment. A Scotland Yard spokesman said the turnover in such a critical post wouldn't have a negative impact on police performance.

Ties to Pakistan in the alleged terrorist plot are likely to be an important focus for the police, who have traced connections to that country in prior terrorist probes traced connections. Large-scale immigration to the U.K. from Pakistan, a former British colony, dates to the 1950s.

More than 250,000 people from Pakistan were allowed into the U.K. in 2007 for reasons including business, visits and emigration from Pakistan. In 2007, 10,600 people from Pakistan were granted student visas. A Home Office spokesman said the visa applications require fingerprinting and scrutiny of ties to terrorism.

A suspected terrorist named Rashid Rauf was thought to be a leader of a failed plot to blow up trans-Atlantic flights in 2006. Mr. Rauf, a U.K. citizen of Pakistani origin, was believed killed in a drone attack in Pakistan there last November. Since last summer, the U.S. has stepped up Central Intelligence Agency drone attacks against al Qaeda targets in Pakistan's tribal region along the Afghan border. Western security officials said the missile attacks appear to have reduced but not eliminated British terrorist plots linked to Pakistan.

A Pakistani security official said his government was aware of Wednesday's arrests and awaiting confirmation that those arrested were of Pakistani origin. The official said Pakistan was prepared to cooperate but wanted proof. Mr. Brown, the U.K. prime minister, was expected to speak soon with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.

In a separate headache for Scotland Yard, police on Thursday suspended an officer following the death of a man during protests surrounding last week's Group of 20 meeting of world leaders. The suspension followed the disclosure of video footage that showed a police officer knocking down the man -- who wasn't protesting -- minutes before he collapsed and died from an apparent heart attack.

—Jennifer Martinez contributed to this article.

Write to Carrick Mollenkamp at carrick.mollenkamp@wsj.com, Alistair MacDonald at alistair.macdonald@wsj.com and Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com

IBN : Top cop unwittingly gives away al-Qaeda details, quits

Top cop unwittingly gives away al-Qaeda details, quits

Sanjay Suri / CNN-IBN | April 10, 2009

London: An al-Qaeda plot on a 9/11 scale with England the target. And it cost the job of England's top counter-terrorism official. Bob Quick resigned after cameras at Downing Street caught him with a secret document listing al-Qaeda suspects to be arrested and that forced police to kick off Operation Pathway late on Wednesday night.

More than 100 policemen fanned out all across Northwest England. Four suspects were picked up in Liverpool, two in Manchester and two in Lancashire. In all, 12 were arrested - 10 of them Pakistanis and most of them students.

The suspects were linked to Rashid Rauf, an al-Qaeda operative implicated in the plot to bomb trans-Atlantic airliners last year.

Attacks may have also been planned on nightclubs in Manchester. The planning for the strike has seemingly been going on for nearly eight months.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown confirmed the arrests saying, "We have been investigating a major terrorist plot and we have got to act early. Our first concern is always the safety of the public. It is right that we took the urgent action. We expect this investigation to move forward."

The suspects are being held under the Terrorism Act, which allows detention for up to 28 days without being charged.

TIME : Camera-Ready Secrets: The London Police Chief's Gaffe

Camera-Ready Secrets: The London Police Chief's Gaffe

By Catherine Mayer / London | April 9, 2009

Technology is generally a friend of law enforcement, but it can also bite back. Scotland Yard's most senior counterterrorism officer, Bob Quick, arrived yesterday morning at 10 Downing Street to brief British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith on an investigation into a suspected terrorism plot. As the photographers who routinely snap visitors there discovered when they studied their images of Quick, the assistant commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police had been carrying paperwork. The uppermost sheet, marked "Secret," contained details of the operation, code-named Pathway, listing the names of officers involved and the locations of terrorism suspects.

This breach of security impelled police to accelerate the operation, which had not been due to culminate in arrests until the early hours of this morning. So yesterday afternoon, in a series of dramatic raids, police seized 12 people in seven locations in the northwest of England. Under British terrorism laws, suspects can be held for up to 28 days without charge. Unconfirmed reports of the suspected terrorists' targets include a shopping center and a nightclub. The reports also suggest a connection to Rashid Rauf, the alleged mastermind of the plot to bomb transatlantic aircraft, whose killing by a U.S. drone last year remains unconfirmed. However, a security source stresses that firm conclusions about the nature and seriousness of the threats are premature. "The police and the security services are working together closely," says the source. "We are keeping an open mind."

Nevertheless, Home Secretary Smith immediately congratulated the police on a "successful antiterrorism operation." Her intervention was not enough to save Quick, who lived up to his name by tendering his resignation with an alacrity that startled the British media, who are used to public figures hanging on by their fingernails even when their exits seem inevitable. One such figure was Sir Ian Blair, who finally stepped down as commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in December after weathering storms of criticism from the 2005 shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian man who was mistaken by officers for a terrorist.

For Blair's successor, Sir Paul Stephenson, who has been in office since the end of January, this has been a testing week. Although public disorder surrounding the April 2 G-20 summit in London was easily contained, one man connected to the protest has since died. News vendor Ian Tomlinson, who found himself inadvertently caught up in a protest in the financial district as he walked home from work, suffered a heart attack and died. A video shot by an onlooker shows what appears to be an unprovoked attack on Tomlinson by a police dog handler — and that footage has been augmented by further digital evidence in the form of photos and videos, all raising questions about the police treatment of Tomlinson. "The images that have now been released raise obvious concerns and it is absolutely right and proper that there is a full investigation into this matter, which the Met will fully support," said Stephenson yesterday.

Less than 24 hours later, Stephenson found himself handling the fallout from another set of images. "I hold [Quick] in the highest regard, as a friend and colleague, and that opinion has not changed. He has accepted that he made a serious error and that has led to his resignation this morning," said Stephenson, who announced as Quick's replacement John Yates, an officer best known for his rigorous investigation of allegations that seats in the House of Lords were being offered in exchange for party donations.

Amid the swirl of events, counterterrorism officers and forensics teams continued what officials call "deep searches" of several properties occupied by the terrorism suspects. Technology may have endangered Operation Pathway, but its careful application remains key to any successful prosecution.

Telegraph : Terror chief Bob Quick quits after losing confidence of MI5

Terror chief Bob Quick quits after losing confidence of MI5

Bob Quick, Britain's anti-terrorism chief, quit as a policeman after being told he had lost the confidence of MI5 and the Home Secretary because of his security blunder.

By Richard Edwards, Crime Correspondent | April 9, 2009

Mr Quick admitted that he could have compromised a huge police and intelligence operation of co-ordinated raids on a suspected al-Qaeda cell.

The Assistant Commissioner was photographed entering Downing Street carrying a secret briefing note on which details of the undercover operation – codenamed Pathway – could be seen.

After months of undercover surveillance, officers were forced to launch the raids at short notice, and a former Scotland Yard anti-terrorism chief said that the blunder could have "risked lives". One suspect was arrested by armed police outside a busy university library in Liverpool.

Mr Quick tendered his resignation to Boris Johnson, the London mayor and chairman of the Metropolitan police authority, who announced it live on radio, to the surprise of Sir Paul Stephenson, the Commissioner, and Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary.

He also announced that John Yates, an Assistant Commissioner, will replace him - becoming the third anti-terrorism chief in three years as an embattled Scotland Yard continues to suffer from upheaval.

Mr Quick met with Jacqui Smith at the Home Office and was told that he had lost her support and that of the security services. The Home Secretary then met Sir Paul to discuss the matter.

Mr Johnson told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that he did not pressure Mr Quick to quit his £168,000-a-year role, and said that the counter terrorism head decided to leave of his own volition.

He said: "In the end Bob Quick decided it was the best thing to do. It's matter of sadness and he had a very very distinguished career in counter terrorism."

He continued: "I want to stress there was no effort to get him out."

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said Mr Quick felt his position was "untenable" following the publication of the photographs and thanked him for his work.

She said: "Sir Paul Stephenson has informed me that Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick has offered his resignation following the publication of certain photographs yesterday.

"Although the operation was successful he felt that his position was untenable.

"I want to offer my sincere appreciation for all the outstanding work he has done in this role which has helped keep this country safe."

Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, told Sky News: "I think it was the right thing to do ... Bob Quick made his position completely untenable, not just within the organisation but in the eyes of the public.

"The buck has to stop somewhere. This was a serious breach, which could have jeopardised, and indeed may have impacted upon an investigation into a possible terror threat.

"I cannot understand why a document of this kind was not in a locked briefcase as a matter of course."

Scotland Yard chief Sir Paul paid tribute to Mr Quick, calling him "a tremendous police officer who has served with dedication and professionalism throughout his career".

He said: "He has accepted that he made a serious error and that has led to his resignation this morning. I would like to thank Bob for the excellent job he has done leading the national response to the terrorist threat.

"It is important in such a critical policing role to announce Bob's successor. I have today appointed Assistant Commissioner John Yates as head of Specialist Operations."

The departure of Mr Quick has left officers at Scotland Yard in shell-shock and a lack of experience at the top of anti-terrorism police ranks.

Two of the country’s seasoned anti-terrorism officers, Peter Clarke and Andy Hayman, have retired in recent years and Mr Quick's number two, Deputy Assistant Commissioner John McDowall, has been struck down by a serious and debilitating illness.

The alleged terror cell based in the North West was thought to have been plotting an attack in Britain.

Sources said the men discussed targeting nightclubs and shopping centres, thought to have included Manchester’s Trafford Centre and Arndale Centre.

Twelve men were arrested in Manchester, Liverpool and Clitheroe, Lancs. One man was British-born, the rest were Pakistanis staying on student visas. They ranged in age from a teenager to a 41-year-old man.

At least one suspect was held by armed officers in open view at Liverpool John Moores University, while another was shot with a stun gun.

Police said the arrests were part of an “ongoing investigation” and were searching premises for bomb-making equipment.

The mastermind of the alleged terrorist cell was believed to have been Rashid Rauf, an al-Qaeda suspect who was implicated in several other plots. He was reported to have been killed in a US drone attack in Pakistan last year.

Mr Quick, who is in overall charge of Britain’s anti-terrorism strategy, had gone to Downing Street to brief the Home Secretary on the latest developments in what had been a top secret operation.

The briefing note showed details of the locations and manner of the intended arrests by “dynamic entry — firearms”. It also showed where the suspects would have been held and the names of the six senior officers in charge of the operation.

Shortly after lunchtime, newspapers and broadcasters were contacted by the D-Notice Committee in an attempt to prevent the picture being published, though Mr Quick’s actions had caused such alarm the committee was initially able to tell editors only that they “might be in possession” of a photograph that compromised national security, without saying what it was.

It was not long before the operation had to take place.

Eight addresses were searched. Two men were arrested on Galsworthy Avenue, Cheetham Hill, Manchester; two were held at an internet cafe on Cheetham Hill Road, three were held in Cedar Grove, Liverpool; one at Liverpool John Moores University; one on Earle Road, Liverpool; two at a Homebase store in Clitheroe in a raid involving up to 100 officers; and one when a white van was stopped on the M602 between Liverpool and Manchester.

Students at the university were warned of the incident. One, Nicholas Higgins, said: “There was an announcement [on a loudspeaker] asking all students to stay away from the windows. They told us that there were terrorists outside and to keep away from the windows because they had a bomb on them.”

In Cheetham Hill, residents said the people staying at the house in Galsworthy Avenue had been there for only a few months.