Intercepted Phone Call Reportedly Helped To Thwart Alleged Terror Plot
Posted August 12, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The call was reportedly made after a number of arrests in Pakistan some days ago. The caller apparently urged the alleged conspirators to move ahead with their plan quickly. An intelligence agency picked up on that correspondence, which prompted British officials to move in and foil the plot.
American authorities are also reportedly investigating calls British suspects allegedly placed to several U.S. cities.
But American Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said it doesn’t appear that any plotting happened in the U.S.
“Currently, we do not have evidence that there was, as part of this plot, any plan to initiate activity inside the United States or that the plotting was done in the United States,” he said.
Both British and Pakistani authorities have arrested 41 suspects so far – 24 in Britain. One of the men arrested in Pakistan, British national Rashid Rauf, is believed to have been the operational planner and is accused of having ties to al-Qaida.
The suspects allegedly planned to detonate peroxide-based liquid explosives disguised in drink bottles on as many as 10 planes bound from the U.K. to the U.S., British authorities announced Thursday.
The alleged plan apparently included placing two attackers per plane and the 24 British suspects didn’t all know one another – a security measure typical in terror groups.
Next Wednesday was apparently the target date and there are reports the suspects planned test-runs Friday.
One of the 24 British suspects taken into custody, many reportedly of Pakistani ancestry, has since been released. The Bank of England released 19 of their names Friday and has frozen their assets. The suspects range in age from 17 to 35, including one woman with a six-month-old child.
Investigators are carefully analyzing financial, telephone and computer records in the hopes of finding more people connected to the alleged plot.
British Home Secretary John Reid said he’s confident the key suspects are in custody, but added that authorities “would go where any further evidence takes us.”
