The Rest Is Classified - 125. Al Qaeda’s Deadliest Plot: How MI5 Stopped Another 9/11 (Ep 1)

Episode Date: February 9, 2026

In the aftermath of 9/11, while the world was still reeling from the deadliest terror attack on US soil, Al Qaeda were plotting an airline attack with ever graver consequences. This is the story of the Liquid Bomb Plot. Listen as David and Gordon delve into the story of how MI5 foiled the plans of an extremist cell in East London. ------------------- Join the Declassified Club to go deeper into the world of espionage with exclusive Q&As, interviews with top intelligence insiders, regular livestreams, ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, and weekly deep dives into original spy stories. Members also get curated reading lists, special book discounts, prize draws, and access to our private chat community. Just go to ⁠⁠therestisclassified.com⁠ or join on Apple Podcasts. ------------------- Get a 10% discount on business PCs, printers and accessories using the code TRIC10. Visit https://HP.com/CLASSIFIED for more information. T&C's apply. ------------------- EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ ⁠⁠https://nordvpn.com/restisclassified⁠⁠ Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee ------------------- Email: [e-mail] Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@restisclassified Social Producer: Emma Jackson Assistant Producer: Alfie Rowe Producer: Becki Hills Head of History: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter, and discounted books. Join the Declassified Club at the rest is classified.com. I was guilty of multiple skin care crimes. Two counts of sleeping and makeup. One count of using disposable wipes. I knew my routine had to change. So I switched to Garnier-Missler water.

It gently cleanses, perfectly removes makeup, and provide 24-hour hydration. Clear away the evidence with the number one Missler water worldwide by Garnier. A terrorist plot to blow up transatlantic airliners that could have been worse than the 9-11 attacks, killing thousands, and the reason why ever since you've not been able to take liquids on planes. It's all run out of a flat in East London and stopped by MI5, but not before a major row with the Americans and the CIA. Well, welcome to the rest of the class. I'm David McCloskey. And I'm Gordon Carrera.

Did I say I pronounce Rao correctly, right? Yes, that's a fight for our Yankee. Is that not an American voice? Well, we're recording this. I'm the tail end of me having been in your fair country for the last couple weeks. Exactly. We're in person together. I fear I might be going native with my correct pronunciation of Rao.

We are starting a very interesting four-part series on what I think is probably one of the most audacious terrorist plots ever conceived. And this is a story that I think actually not many people are aware of because this is about an attack that didn't happen. Yeah. This is a plan to simultaneously bring down multiple airliners flying between the UK and North America. And it happened 20 years ago.

If you're wondering, as I was today when I was stopped on my flight to Heathrow coming from Dublin and forced to dump out contact solution that was in my carry-on. And if you're wondering why you can't take liquids on planes, ever since, and you're forced to put those in your carry-on bags, this story is exactly the reason for that. It is a really significant story. It is about what was assessed by Britain's security service, MI5, as the most dangerous terrorist conspiracy in British history. And it's a real insight as well into how MI5 works, because it's a very dangerous terrorist conspiracy, MI5 got deep inside the conspiracy to prevent it. And through the series, we're going to look I think in really interesting detail at what an MI5 surveillance operation looks like, not just how

they watch people on the streets, but even how they get into people's houses without anyone seeing and plant bugs so that they can listen in. And it was a terrorist plot that followed on from the July 7, 2005 attacks, with the same mastermind behind it in Pakistan, but this time using the UK as a launch pad for attacks on the US. And stopping the plot does involve the Americans who nearly, David, wreck it for everyone. Allegedly. We might have a debate about that, correct?

And the role that the Americans played in this, I think it's also, I mean, this is a, I think, great case study and the mechanics of the intelligence piece of the special relationship because we really actually, in an incredible detail, see some of the tension amid the cooperation between MI5 and the CIA in particular. And frankly, I mean, it's such, it's such a big conspiracy, isn't it, Gordon, this potential attack. I mean, that at the time, then President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, I mean, they're in close touch about it constantly.

Yeah, I mean, this is like an Oval Office and 10-downing issue every day. But the CIA throw their weight around. Could you throw their weight around a little bit? You know, as a good intelligence service should do to support its own national objectives. But it's very upsetting. It does. It really, it really pisses off to use a British phrase, the Brits in this case. And I think it shows how counterterrorism liaison really works and intelligence sharing,

but also when you've got a bigger partner than the other, how they can. throw their weight around. So I think that is a really interesting aspect of the story, which comes to light from this. But the flip side of that, we're talking about the tension, and there's going to be a lot of it in the story between London and Washington. It also shows the value of the liaison relationship at the same time, because I think this is going to principally be at MI5 investigation. But you do see, I think, in this story how both parties bring something to the table. And frankly, I mean, how the sort of some of the parts adds up to a lot more than the individual pieces, right, in this relationship, especially given what's going on

right now, Gordon in the world, a great reminder, I think, of the value inside this relationship. Or the reality of it. Or the reality of it, yeah. Now, a reminder that if you want to hear all four episodes right now, go ahead and join the Declassified Club at the rest is classified.com. and Gordon, people who sign up will get something a little bit extra special, won't they? Yeah, they will, because to mark this series, we've actually been inside MI5, haven't we, David? We went into Thames House. I was letting. They let you in, which I was, you know, kind of slightly surprised at, given the state of the special relationship.

But no, they let you in. And we were able to record inside MI5, which is pretty unusual. And speak to Jonathan Evans, who had a big role overseeing the busting of this plot. He was the number two at MI5 at the time. Later on becomes their head at M.I.5. And we spoke to him inside and we're able to actually look at some of the artifacts, I guess, MI5 have got marking this operation. And so members will be able to hear that as part of two special bonus episodes that we've got. So with that, here's a word from our sponsors, HP. This episode is sponsored by HP. Most people are not counterespionage experts.

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and get up to 55,000 avion points that never expire. Your idea of never miss out happens here. Conditions apply. Visit rbc.com slash avion. So Gordon, we are going to look at how MI5 got onto the plot. I mean, so I think it's actually worth starting at an airport. It's Heathrow Airport. It's the 24th of June 2006. And a passenger called Abdullah Ahmed Ali is disembarking on a flight from Pakistan to London. That's right. Ali is getting off the flight. And what he doesn't know is that while he's waiting to get his passport checked and waiting to pick up his bags, a team from MI5 have secretly taken his luggage into a special room at Heathrow. And there they are searching it before resealing it and then sending it back onto the carousel for him to pick up. He will have no idea that it's happened.

I probably didn't happen to you on the way back from Dunlin this morning. I have no idea. That's the point. They left all of my tang alone. Let's get to the tang because inside Ali's luggage, MI5 are going to find some very odd things. Batteries and drink powder, this thing called Tang, which will come to. It is not exactly dangerous stuff, though, is it? I mean, you're allowed to have batteries and drink powder.

So it's a bit of a mystery as to why these things are in the luggage. But it's going to kickstart an investigation, which in just six weeks is going to go up to the top reaches of MI5, the one. White House, Downing Street, and Islamabad. And so who is Abdullah Ahmed Ali? He's born in London, October 1980, to a middle-class family with close links to Pakistan, goes back and forth to Pakistan in early life, before he settles in Walthamstow, which is in East London. Teenager in the 1990s begins to get more religious than his family, but not really political or extremist, does a degree in computing,

but then after 9-11 is when things start to change. There are charities which had helped Kashmiri refugees in Pakistan, which are now switching to help refugees fleeing the conflict in Afghanistan, where the Taliban was overthrown by the US and the UK and others. And around 2002, Adli gets involved with these charities, collecting money, clothing, blankets, milk, canned food for those refugees. Now, he's becoming more involved as well in anti-war movements. protesting also against the looming war in Iraq. By 2003, start of 2003, the charity wanted people to travel to Pakistan to deliver aid, and Ali is going to be one of those who volunteers. And so it is around this time that he first does come onto the radar of MI5, the security service. And the reason it seems is that he's suspected of fundraising for extremists in Pakistan.

Now, he's not seen at this point as planning any attacks. So he's kind of on the periphery, not the kind of person you'd prioritise for an investigation. Back in London, though, he's articulate, charismatic, building a group of local friends, mainly, but not all of kind of Pakistani and Kashmiri heritage. One is a guy who will come back to Asad Sawa. He's the only one who doesn't live in East London. He's based out of London in High Wycombe, which is a fair bit out of town. So Alia and Asad Sawa are going to go out to Pakistan 2003, visit refugee camps. They drive an ambulance filled with aid to people living in terrible conditions. They're blaming the US and UK for this, and he comes back, he gets married, slightly complicated relationship

with his wife. So he's going back and forth, back out again 2004. And it's a time when it's worth saying lots of people are going out to Pakistan. And most of them are people going to see family because of the family links. Small subset of those might be going out to get involved in kind of jihadist violence. And then an even smaller subset of that might be planning to do something back in the UK afterwards. And it's the job of MIHR. 5's G branch, or G1 specifically, which investigates these kind of Islamist networks to find out who are the ones who are actually dangerous. And so, while about 2005, Ali is on MI5's radar for sending money to extremists, and they're

kind of looking at some of those connections out in Pakistan and some of the people who he might be meeting who they're worried about. So that's the kind of context of their worry, which brings us to that search in 2006, you know, of his luggage when he's on his way back. So the question you get inside MI5 is why is he bringing back 30 cheap Pakistani AA batteries?

Well, I mean, maybe price arbitrage. Are they cheaper in Pakistan? And why the Tang? Because you can buy batteries here, so it's not like you need to import them. So it is a bit of a mystery why he's bringing back these specifically Pakistani batteries. And then this thing called Tang, which I didn't know about, but it's like a powder and you add

it to water to make an orange. drink? Do you not, is it not here? I don't have it? I don't know. I've never come across tags. So it was, I think the sort of, the myth was that it was actually developed for the U.S. space program, which I believe is actually not true.

I think it predates the space program by a bit, but it got popularized because it was, it was, you know, sort of provisioned to astronauts on spaceflight in like the 60s and 70s. And I think Buzz Aldrin, second man to walk on the moon, famously commented on Tang, he said it sucks. It's not a fan of time. So again, slightly old thing to be bringing back from Pakistan. A little Ben, you to thought?

Buzz Aldrin doesn't like it. I don't know why. But Dahlia is using it then. But I guess the point is that they are starting to worry, well, could this be something to do with bomb making? I mean, but it's not really not clear what these things could be used for. I guess the context here is important, isn't it? Because, you know, we're now in 2006 and it is that period after the 2005 bombings.

You know, you have those two sets of bombings, one that succeeded. one that didn't in July 2005. I mean, and when we were in MI5 talking to Jonathan Evans, I mean, he was telling us a bit, wasn't he, about what it felt like at that time, you know, the intensity of it. And yeah, I mean, you could tell just in the conversation with him that Jonathan can still kind of imagine himself in that position. I think it was, it seemed like a very stressful time to run the security service or to be a senior sort of operational leader in it.

Yeah, because I think it was just that feeling that something had happened. They hadn't been able to stop it. There were questions about should they have been able to stop it. We looked at that in the series we did on 7-7 last year. But now that it's happened, they're just starting to see more and more people traveling, more plots, more leads are coming in. And there was that feeling, I think, you get,

and he talks about it, that things were running away from them, for MI5 almost. There was almost a feeling like, is this too much? Can we cope with the volume? And so the question is, you've got to try and work out which, which leads you follow, which ones are genuinely dangerous. And you come out of this search of Ali's luggage.

And it's not clear how dangerous he is, but it is suggestive, I guess, and enough for them to start a surveillance operation. And they give them a codename? Yeah. Lion roar. We discussed this, didn't we? With Jonathan Evans, because I felt like, I think you agreed, that this is a really positive code name to have

for a guy who's being investigated. at this point under suspicions of, you know, sort of at least funding, if not now, planning a terrorist operation. And Jonathan Evans insisted that the code names are generated randomly, but that there is some ability if a particular code name is egregiously awful to then go in and edit it. But no one edited LionRour. LionRour, yeah, which I feel like they should have. Yeah, I feel like they should have. I think it gives them too much credit. So LionRour, Alley, is going to be put under surveillance. So MI5, Starry. doing what's called mobile surveillance. And this is done by, we talked about G branch being the

counterterrorism branch. A branch is the technical branch and the surveillance branch. And so A4 is the part of a branch who are what you might call the watchers, the kind of surveillance teams, people who can blend into any part of society and life, so they're young, old, every ethnicity, so that they can effectively follow someone on the streets without being noticed. Yeah. And we should say that is definitely a sort of traits or theme, I think, of surveillance work in general is, as we'll see in the story, having many, many teams following, watching a target, it's really important that none of those people or teams sort of make sense when you put them

all together. Yeah. Hence why you have people with kids, you'd have a mix of ages, you'd have a mix of sort of races and ethnicities. You don't want it to appear like there's a team following you. You want this to feel like a fragmented group of individuals and families and couples and things like that. And equally, you need people here who are going to be able to follow people on the streets of Walthamstow. So they're going to start watching him. He's married, he's got a young child.

Interesting enough, Ali seems suspicious, doesn't he, that he? he's being watched and he's kind of surveillance, at least aware or conscious. So they see him doing stuff like look around, turning suddenly, you know, trying to watch over his shoulder using mirrors and things like that. Yeah. So movie stuff, basically, right? Yeah, slightly amateurish. Because it gives a way that you're worried about surveillance, doesn't it? I would guarantee you that all of that immediately raises suspicion through the roof inside MI5. Yeah. Why do you care? Or why do you, Why do you suspect that you'd be under surveillance? And as they watch, Ali is doing a couple of things, which are interesting.

He's starting to buy a lot of odd supplies, and he's trying to bring together a group of people around him. So on June 30th, he and Tanvir Sane, who's kind of his lieutenant, is number two, and is going to be very involved in this. They go to a Maplins electronic store. Now, I think actually Maplins has since closed down. I could be wrong. But it's, what's the American equivalent? Best Buy. Best Buy?

Yeah. And they purchased some. Multimeter, which I checked and is used to test electrical circuits and voltage. They buy a 1.6 volt bulb. Ali also orders some more light bulbs, like three dozen light bulbs, which is kind of weird. And again, MI5 has seen these in previous kind of bomb-related plots. It's suspicious, but not really telling. Tanvir Hussein is kind of lieutenant, walks into a branch of Barclays Bank, asks for a loan

of $8,000. Another of their friends also asks for a loan to take an IT course so they can, trying to get money together. It's hard for the surveillance teams, I think, to know which of Allie's friends in Walsham Stowe are contacts significant than which aren't. July 6th, Ali is out driving in his Citron car, goes to a hardware shop B&Q. It's like what the American equipment is for that. Home Depot.

Home Depot. But is it that big? Yeah, B&Q is a big warehouse where you buy paint. Home Depot. Monards. Now, I remember, I'm remembering, little hamster wheels turning Gordon that when we did the Bulgarian

Minions episode, you did not know back in the spring of last year what Best Buy was. Yeah. Remember? Yeah, maybe. Now you're up on it. So there we go.

I've been learning. Other days, they see them going to IKEA or IKEA. Do you call it IKEA here? I know. I can never remember. There's a kind of weird pronunciation to it. But other homeways,

that's right. And at one point, they're in Tesco's, which David is a supermarket. Yeah. And a surveillance team from A4, see Ali and Hussain check out, and this is the next weird thing. Check out plastic bottles of water and Diet Coke. And they're examining the caps and the seals around the caps for quite a few minutes. It's kind of weird.

That is not there. That's unusual. 15th of July, mid-afternoon, Ali meets someone they hadn't seen before. The two men, now this is also really weird. They go into Lloyd Park, which is in Waltham Stowe, and then the two. Two men lie down on the grass facing each other with their hands kind of cupped over their mouse and talk to each other. And obviously, this is their thinking is to avoid a surveillance, kind of directional surveillance and be, I guess, lit readers maybe by kind of putting your hand over your mouth. I suppose.

Well, and it works, doesn't it? Yeah. Because the surveillance teams don't pick up any audio from that. Yeah. And they spend like half an hour. I mean, it is a weird. It's very weird. Again, it is.

It's unsettling to see that happening in a park. Yeah, exactly. Just from the standpoint of another person. Yeah. If you saw too. That arrangement would be bizarre. Yeah. Just lying and talking to each other.

Yeah. But it is kind of, it's again, the slightly weird bit of them where they are trying to avoid surveillance and they're clearly aware they might be under surveillance, but they're also taking steps which suggest. Which attracts surveillance. Which attracts surveillance. So it's kind of, I don't know. I find it really.

interesting a way of acting. But that other person, they're going to identify as Asid Sawa, the person I mentioned, the friend who lives in High Wycom, and they can also see MI5, that he's just returned from Pakistan. He's been there also June into July. He gets a codename, which is rich food. I mean, that's kind of just a weird one. It is weird. Yeah. I don't know. I think they need to generate these, not randomly. Yeah. These need to be, yeah, you need to pick this based off how the guy looks or how he acts or something like. Well, I think if you're in the middle of an operation, you probably like, you don't want to spend like an hour of your planning meeting.

Give it to one of the interns. Give it to one of the interns. Yeah. Don't even have interns the way you do. So they're going to start watching, Sawa. He is purchasing small amounts of hydrogen peroxide, which is used by hairdressers. Now, this is another big warning sign, because that was what the 7-7 bombs were made of. You have to concentrate it to make it useful.

And he's buying tiny amounts at the moment. but also some equipment which he could use with it. And he's also trying to clearly stay under the radar by buying these small amounts. Now, amusingly, at some point, he tries to bury some of the stuff he's buying in a nearby wood. And this is such a weird detail. He seems to have struggled to be able to dig a hole in the wood. Was it? The ground must have it.

It wasn't from like a conceptual problem. No, I think he had a spade. But at one point, they see him, and he goes and tries to dig a hole. It doesn't work. So he goes home and takes a nap and tries it again. And then he Googles on the internet how to dig a hole. He Googled that. Yeah. One of the things I think you should say that we should all be very grateful for in the story is not only the effectiveness of MI5, which is impressive, as we'll see, but also the fact that al-Qaeda sometimes doesn't attract the best in the rightness. So that's good. And he ends up buying a home-based easy-dig-soil

cultivator, which I had to look up on the internet what it was. Is that a shovel? It's a digging tool. It's a bit more than, it's not like, it's like got prongs. And so anyway, but supposedly that's what you. So he's, do you know, though, Gordon, that I'm actually really good at digging holes? Are you really? So my, so my jobs before I joined the Central Intelligence Agency, so that the first one was I worked at Wendy's.

Yeah. Perkins. Right. And then the second job was I was a whole. digger for a sprinkler system company. Wow. And so in a single summer, I dug, I think I ended up counting it was over 10,000 holes. Wow.

If only assets are. I have no sympathy for this guy. For this guy. If only you'd be there to help him. Also for the terrorism. But you should know how to dig a hole. But they're going to watch him digging holes. They also see Tamvir Hussein is buying syringes, really large syringes.

They're buying drills, glue, latex gloves, all of the things. this weird shopping list. Now, things are going to get more interesting when they see that Ali on July 20th, 2006, gets keys to a mazonet flat at 386A Forest Road, Walthamstow. First time MI5 sees this new property. It'd been just bought a few weeks earlier for 138,000 pounds. It's been repossessed. It's not in great condition. So I think ostensibly the idea is they're going to do it up. Now, the day he gets the keys, Ali goes to something called a spy store. Is that an actual chain?

A retail chain in the UK? I'm not sure if it's still there, but I remember these because he's trying to get intruder detection cameras. It's really interesting as a historical insightist because these days, everyone's got like video doorbell cameras. Like, these are kind of easy to get and everyone's got them. Back then you had to go to something called the spy store. Yeah.

To get a camera. Now we're all just letting everybody and their mother spy on us willingly. Yeah. We've all got cameras. Yeah. Exactly. But it's so interesting that back in those days, if you wanted to have a camera which could watch your property and see if anyone was coming in, you basically had to go to this spy store, which sold spy and surveillance gadgetry. Yeah.

Covert cameras. I mean, it was like, it was a weird shop. I don't know if it's still there, but it was half playing at James Bond and half for kind of people who wanted to play at corporate espionage or probably worried about their spouse or stuff like that. Anyway, it's kind of weird. But it's gone out of business since. I don't know. We'll have to check that. A lot of the retail outlets in this story are no longer around.

So he's clearly that also sets off another kind of alarm bell. It's flat. And they're seeing people going into this flat at Forest Road, but no one actually seems to be living there. A bit suspicious. July 27th, they see people go in 444, MI5. curtains are drawn. They're there for two hours. They leave just after seven. MI5 don't know what they're doing. Another time they see someone coming out of there and they dump a bag in a bin at the nearby park. MI5 pick out the carrier bag looked like some batteries. So again,

now the suspicion is growing that something significant is happening at this address and they clearly feel they need to get inside it and work out what's going on. Well, maybe there Gordon with the impetus for a break-in. upon us. Let's take a break ourselves. When we come back, we will explain how you break into a flat. See you after the break. Well, welcome back. Gordon, you've already educated our listeners and how you build nuclear weapons. All right. So now is the time for you to educate the rest of classified audience in how you conduct a breaking and entering operation. Yeah, and maybe just before we do that, we should say that this is not an endorsement of burglary. Don't try this.

at home and when I'm I five do it, as we'll see, there's a kind of legal process surrounding it. So we're not endorsing burglary per se and breaking an entry. Sure. David. Yeah. I think that's important to say. For the lawyers, mostly. I referred to it as breaking and entering. Yeah. And Jonathan Evans did not like that. No. No. Yeah. Covert entry. Covert entry or surreptitious entry. Yeah. I think, which is a very, it's a very British way of saying breaking an entry. Because I guess you're not, ideally, you shouldn't be breaking anything, should you? You're entering. Yeah, yeah, you're entering, but not breaking. Yeah, that's part of the point. I'll break in, but not breaking. So how do they do it?

And we should say that a lot of the detail about the surveillance operations, about covert entry, a lot of this we know because, I mean, we'll come back to this at the end of the story, there is going to be a trial where a lot of evidence quite unusually of what MI5 does and how it does it is presented in trial. But in this case, covert entry, we talked about mobile surveillance of suspects tailing them around, that's A4, but there's another part of A branch who are the tech ops, if you like. They're the ones who have the skills to get into places and install things. I don't think they'd be offended if we call them lawful burglars, do you?

I mean, people legally authorize to do a bit of light breaking and entering. A bit of light. Yeah, exactly. No, I think they would appreciate that. Yeah. And we should say this is a capability that most spy services have. The CIA has one as well. And I don't think any of those guys would be offended to be described as lawful burglars.

And I think as we'll see, there's a real love of the game among the breaking and entering crew. Yeah. You know, they're... It's a challenge. It's a challenge. It's an exciting challenge. I mean, the idea that you could get paid to legally be able to do this is kind of crazy. We should say it's more intrusive, isn't it, than following someone around in a public place?

So you need all these warrants, authorizations to do it. You can't do it that much either because, as we'll see, it requires a lot of work to actually undertake this kind of action. I think the Hollywood stereotype is it's a few people in a van. Yeah. And it's much more labor intensive than that, as we'll say. I think also in the way these kind of operations get depicted in most spy films and television shows, usually the people doing them have a criminal past and have somehow been.

lured into working, you know, on a contract basis for the FBI, whatever. But I've had the breaking and entering types that the agency described to me as essentially like choir boys. I mean, you cannot have a criminal record and do this kind of work for the CIA. I presume for MI5. And when we brought this up, you know, in the meeting with Jonathan Evans, one of the other gentleman who was there was kind of nodding his head as I was as I was describing them.

So I'd imagine it's sort of a similar vibe inside of my fives. breaking an entering team. I should stop saying breaking. They don't like that. No, COVID-entry team. So how do you do it? First of all, you need to do your homework. You can't just go in off the van off the street. And I think in a way, the questions that you need to answer are kind of obvious when you think about it. You want to know who is there and when they're there. Are there all day, all night? When are they away? You've got to work that out. Which involves building a pattern of life, which involves weeks of surveillance. Potentially, but I think what's interesting is when you've got a terrorist operation like this, I think you've got to do it fast.

Yeah, true. So I think there's probably a difference of intensity when you've got something where you've got maybe days. In this case, at Forest Road, no one actually lives there, as we said. They're using it, but they are visiting regularly. So the next thing you have to know is that when you're thinking of going in, which is always going to be at night, how can you be sure that none of them possible people who do visit that property?

And there's a lot in this case that they're not going to show up, which means surveillance on all of those people. So you've got to have all of them under control of surveillance just in case one of them, even if it's the middle of the night, suddenly gets on the move from their home

and is heading towards that flat and you need to get those people out. So you actually have to have surveillance on everyone, associated with that property who could turn up at the time you're going to do the covert entry rather than the break-in, which might be like a hundred people that you need for your surveillance team to watch that, maybe it's half a dozen people and to be sure what they're doing. And even if they're not there, you've got to ask yourself, are there alarms, are their cameras?

Dogs? Dogs. What are the neighbours like? Are they the type who, if they see or hear something suspicious, they're going to call the people? Are they kind of friendly in that way? So you probably need an observation post on the property. So somewhere where you can keep watch on it, have a camera, have people outside. So that's quite a big setup. And then people in A branch will come up with a plan and they'll say, this is our plan. This is where when we plan to do it. This is how we plan to do. This is what we intend to do. They put up a proposal. And then if it's approved, the team heads in. And one of the interesting aspects of these kind of covert entry operations is there's a motto inside the CIA's group or a saying, which is you don't pick a lock, you make a key. And the point is that you want persistent access to the property, right?

And obviously, you can't let the person who's in the property know that you have access to it. But you don't want to be constantly going up and having to pick that lock. And presumably, MI5 would have caught video or still. images of what sort of lock that is before they ever approached it and may have been able in the background inside A branch to actually just make a key for it that they would then use and would be effective almost right away. Yeah. And in fact, you know, when the agency does this, they'll have, you know, in a warehouse somewhere,

just walls of different sorts of locks and the associated keys to be able to answer. Yeah. It's not a matter of individually figuring out the lock. It's a matter of building a key for it that will enable you to just get in and out whenever you want. Yeah. You're right. You're going to need a specialist, a locksmith, effectively, as part of your team. And that team is interesting because you've got to have the right mix of people.

You've got to have someone who knows understands locks. You've got to have locksmiths. You need the technical installers who are the people who are actually going to be able to place the bugs, which is what we're talking about doing, inside the property. They need to know how to wire them up, where you can put it, how you could move furniture around. You need a particular set of almost like building skills. Right. You know, you need to be carpentry and things like that to understand how to do that.

You've also got the problem that it's potentially the worry is it's a bomb factory. So you might need a bomb disposal expert. You could be booby trapped. You've seen that before where people have actually been blown up, Madrid, I think, elsewhere, going into these apartments and they're booby trapped. So you need bomb disposal expert. So you need a team, but equally you don't want too big a team, do you? Because that's going to draw attention. So guessing a handful of people, they're going to get dropped off not right outside the property,

because that would look suspicious, but maybe just around the corner so that they are close enough to get in, but also not to raise too much suspicion by a van or something turning up outside. Before they go under the property, I've got to tell you my safe cracking story. Do it. Which I should have told you when we were talking about the locks, but I am just remembering it now. So the idea that these safe crackers, lock pickers, understand the mechanics of either the safe or the lock they're looking at. Before I flew over here,

so I keep our family's passports in a safe in my closet. What's the combination? The combination is my fingerprint. Oh, okay. And here's the thing. That safe ran out of battery. I've had it for a long time. And I could not find the key to get into the battery kind of unit.

And so I'm staring at the safe thinking, oh, I've got to leave in, you know, 24, 36 hours. And I need that passport out there. How do I get it out of the safe? And so do you know a guy? I know a guy. And I called him. Yeah. And he said, okay, send me a picture of the safe.

And so I sent him a picture of the safe. And he calls me back 20 minutes later. And he's like, okay, turn the safe over. You know, so it's sort of facing upward and you're looking into where the door would be. He's like measure. And he's just doing this from. his knowledge of this particular safe. He's like, take a ruler

and go like an inch and a quarter down from the top lip of the safe, mark a dot there, and then from the other side, basically draw a line that's like an inch and a quarter from, you know, where the sort of door connects over. And that spot right there,

go and get a carbide bit for your drill and drill into it. Right at that spot. And what will happen is, it's going to hit the bolt and that's going to start the motor moving, it's going to push the bolts in and the whole thing will spring open. And sure enough,

I just laid that thing out on my patio drilled into that exact spot and the thing just flung open. Wow. We're doing that from just the knowledge of a particular brand of safe, knowing where that bolt essentially is going to meet the skin of the safe

and where you puncture it. We are giving so many tips to potential safe crackers and burglarists. It's It's kind of like... It's exciting time. New sponsorship deal for my own. That's right. But back to Forest Road.

So the team are going into Forest Road. It's a split-level mazenet. So you go through the front door. Now, one door on the left leads to the downstairs flat. And then there's another door to go up to the target flat. Of course, it's going to be pitch black when they go in. It's all dark. Can't turn on the lights.

So you have to use a torch. They're going to check it's empty, I'd imagine. We know, because we later see pictures of this when this all comes to trial, there's a kitchen upstairs with some stuff in it that they'd bought. It's an pretty empty bathroom, living room, and upstairs two bedrooms. One has some boxes in it. Now, the bomb disposal experts, first of all going to have to give this the all clear. In one of the boxes, there's some of the kind of weird chemistry kits, hydroponic test kits, which I've since discovered are there to check pHs. glass jars, dyes, batteries.

One jar is some kind of gloopy liquid in it, which they're going to carefully take a sample of. They're videoing as they go. And we know this, and we know all these details because this is all going to come out in the trial. Now, amusingly, I think that team may not have realized or may have forgotten that this could be used as evidence in court. And so you can hear them talking at various points.

So at one point you hear them going, when they see the gloopy stuff, why don't you touch it? And then someone's joking, cut the blue wire. I was like, it's a bomb. And then at one point, you hear one of them say on the video, I effing love my job. But in all serious steps, right?

Just sort of surprised that he gets to do this. Yeah, because it's just so crazy what he's doing. Yeah. I just love that detail. But it's obvious to the team that the kitchen is where the action is and where whoever's using this flat are doing things. So in the kitchen, they're going to find some strange liquid in the bin. The kitchen cabinet has this row of lucazade bottles in the line.

Do you have lucasade? I don't think so. That sounds like motor oil. No, no, it's an energy drink. It's a really good energy drink. Some are empty, some look full. So at this point, the technical installers from A branch would get to work. They would be trying to work out where you can place the bugs and devices.

On the night, it's interesting. You also need that surveillance team of watches around. them who they can communicate with just in case something happens. And actually it's really interesting that on that night that they're there, that first night at least, there's stuff going on in the streets. So there's a police surveillance team keeping an eye. And a bunch of drunks look like this about to start a fight outside the kebab shop, very London.

And it looks like, you know, this could get nasty. And one of them pulls a knife. And the police are obviously going to have to intervene if it looks dangerous. But fortunately, it breaks up. So that doesn't compromise the operation. That first night, though, this team get initial audio coverage into the flat. It's good. What they really want, though, is TV coverage, which is much more useful, but it's obviously

harder to get because you've got to find a place where you can hide a... You need a power source. Ultimately, you've got to hook the video cameras into something, right? You've got to wire it into... I'd imagine it's kind of battery driven. In 2006? Yeah. You need perpetual coverage.

It's an interesting question. I think in some of the longer term, kind of surveillance operations, I'm thinking of you. You need to wire it in to something. Which is part of the difficulty with these things as you're talking about, talking about drilling. Yeah. Really.

And so that becomes challenging. And it's like you need silent drills and things like that. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely harder when you haven't got control of the property and you're only in there for a while. So they can't do it on that first night. And they're going to go in a couple more nights to try and get that TV coverage in. Because you've got to work out where you can put it. And for obvious reasons, we're not going to go into exactly where that might be.

And we don't know, to be honest, or how they did it. But we do know they get it. I think you know. I think Gordon knows. No, I don't know. That's a very suspicious rebuttal, Gordon. But it's, no, I just think it's, it's, that's the kind of sources of methods, isn't it, of how you get a covert camera and how you, how you hide it in a property.

And we do know that there's a covert camera because, again, footage from it will be used in trial. So we know, we know it eventually does get in there. But I think that is where the real technical skill of these installers, which is to look at a place and go, where can I place a covert camera where it won't be spotted and it will get the coverage of a room that you need. I mean, it's pretty impressive stuff in terms of how you do it. And you've got to install it all in the dark. I'm guessing you've got a flipping lights on.

Yeah, you're not flipping the lights on. So you're going to be kind of wearing a, you know, either have a head torch, I guess, or a tiny torch. If you make a mistake, you leave a bit of dust somewhere or a hole. You're going to give it all away, aren't you? I was surprised it wasn't mentioned it here, and maybe they didn't use it. But another piece of this, I think usually a company is a breaking and entering operation, is having people go in and take video and photos at the entire place right up front.

So then as you leave, you can compare this, you know, sort of what you left. Yeah, exactly, to the photos and video. I think, I think, I don't know if they did it in this case, but I've spoken to other people who talk about that, taking Polaroid pictures. So, you know, they're instantly developed and you can lay them there. And then as you move stuff around to, either search it or raise something there. You can then make sure you put it back in exactly the right place. But it takes a few nights, not much sleep for this team from A branch, but eventually

they do succeed in getting audio and video coverage. And that means they're going to be able to see and hear what is happening in the property in real time. And that is going to be crucial because previously had all these disparate leads, strange stuff they're buying. And for the first time, that coverage will bring everything together and bring clarity to what this group of terrorists are making and what they intend to do with it. And they're going to see something very strange. Very strange and very disturbing. Well, maybe there, Gordon, let's end our first episode of this adventure into the MI5

investigation of this liquid bomb plot. But we'd be remiss if we didn't say that you go ahead and join the declassified club at the rest isclassified.com. You can download all of those episodes right now, as well as get access to our two-part interview with former Director General of MI5, Jonathan Evans, as he talks with us in the windowless basement room of MI5 itself about this plot. And one more thing, David, club members

are going to get exclusively the first four chapters of your new book. The Persian, just out, as well as, I think, a special introduction from you. So that's there for club members. So do sign up to hear that. But otherwise, we'll see you next time. We'll see you next time.