The Rest Is Classified - 128. Al Qaeda’s Deadliest Plot: CIA vs Pakistan (Ep 3)

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

The “Special Relationship” is under strain as MI5 and the CIA butt heads over how to stop an Al Qaeda cell in East London from committing the next 9/11. With the Americans visiting Pakistan and making risky unauthorised decisions, will the intelligence alliance survive? Listen as David and Gordon take us to Islamabad in the latest episode of their series on the Liquid Bomb Plot, and try to understand why a lone agent acted so impulsively. ------------------- 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 Video Editor: Joe Pettit 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. To bring down transatlantic airliners with liquid bombs, all monitored by MI5. But now the CIA gets involved and puts at risk those carefully laid plans. Well, welcome to The Rest is Classified. I'm David McCloskey. And I'm Goulden, And Gordon, last time we looked at how MI5 had carried out a covert entry into the sort of bomb-making factory of Abdullah Ahmed Ali and his cohort at Forest Road.

MI5 has installed audio and video surveillance there. They've been watching this crew for some time. And MI5 now realizes that the plotters are building liquid bombs that will go on planes, the ideas. is essentially blow a hole in the side of a plane as it's going across the Atlantic and bring it down. In the first week of August 2006, we left off last time with the surveillance team in a frightening way, seeing Ali and his team researching flights to the U.S. and recording martyrdom videos. So this operation has gotten into the very late stages of planning. Yeah, and it's running very hot, people are getting worried,

At this point, the operation, which is codenamed overt, is terrible code name. It's terrible. Yeah, for a covert operation. But it's running as the biggest investigation ever in MI5's history. So it's pushing the envelope. They're suspending other investigations to bring people in. It feels like it's taking up half of MI5. People are living, as it said, on Diet Coke and Monster Munch.

When I wrote this, you said you had no idea what Monster Munch was. I wrote actually in the comments. some horrendous British snack. I bought some monster much for it. And you've got Monser Much for you, courtesy of our team, which is some of this was Goldhanger Towers, actually. This is roast beef flavored. It's paw shaped.

Is that a monster paw? There's this friendly pink character on the front who looks insane. Yeah. And let's see. Wow, that is a roast beef smell coming out of that bag. It's slightly disturbing. I really want one. Okay.

This is what the MI5 team was. should we get it back to the story though? I'll have one more. I'm going to have one more. But I like, you know what I like about this? Yeah. Because I like the shape of this a lot. Is this supposed to be a monster?

What is this thing? I think it's mostly a baseball glove. I don't know if it's the monster or the monster's foot or hand. I don't know. Maybe. This is a monster. It looks like his foot, but he's also, it also looks like his mouth. Yeah.

Shall we return to the serious business of a airline plot? I suppose. So, as I was saying, they're living on Diet Coke, a monster munch. It's taking up a huge amount of resource for MI5 because you've got about maybe a dozen people under effectively 24-7 surveillance. And I think, again, I mean, you know this, that it's not like the movies where you just have a small team of people can follow people around. You need a big team to be able to do this. And you've got a lot of targets and you've got to watch them all the time because you're worried about potential attack. It raises this question like, how do you, with that many people watching, I mean, it must have felt in that area, like you had a bunch of new people who just suddenly arrived in the local community. Was it? 28 surveillance teams on the target.

28 surveillance teams are working this case. I mean, they brought them in from the police, from the military, from everywhere else to help because you need so many surveillance teams. It's exceeding the normal capacity of MI5 to carry out that kind of surveillance. So it is massive. And you're right. It must have felt like half the population of Walthamstow was either being followed or following someone at that point. And you're not careful. You would literally have surveillance.

Like surveillance seems running into each other. I think that's going to be a problem. Because imagine if you've got a couple of the plotters who are, you're watching them, and then they go to a park to meet each other. And that's going to look weird. So you've got this need to de-conflict your own surveillance teams as you're running them. And the truth is you can only run that kind of intense surveillance operation for so long before there's just inevitably going to be a mistake or a compromise or someone spots that something's happened. So it's pretty intense.

You can only do it for a short period. So they got an arrest plan. But come back after this quick word from our sponsors, HP, and we'll find out why that does not go according to plan. This episode is sponsored by HP. Most people are not counter espionage expert. but that won't stop them getting targeted by cyber criminals seeking to extract their secrets. HP understands that approximately four in 10 UK businesses have reported cyber breaches in the past 12 months alone. That's why HP business laptops, desktops, and workstations bought directly on HP store

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Podcast listeners benefit from a 10% discount on all business PCs, printers and accessories using the code TRIC-10. Terms and conditions apply. 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 provides 24-hour hydration. Clear away the evidence with the number one Missler Water worldwide by Garnier. So Gordon, the big question, why not just round them up? It is a good question.

You've got a bunch of people making bombs. Why not arrest them? We've got martyrdom videos, bomb-making material, researching flights. I mean, it's, yeah, it feels like a compelling body of evidence. Well, that is, that word, evidence is the key point, because there's a couple of factors here. One is, remember that conversation where they're talking about, you know, 9, 10, 11, 12, 18 people, you want to know who those people are. You want a pretty good idea who are the people who are willing to get involved in this. And you might not know yet at this point who they all are.

So you want to identify as many as possible. And the police are now working pretty closely with MI5. And I guess it's worth saying, isn't it, that this is different from the FBI in the US. because in the UK, MI5 do not have powers of arrest, only the police have powers of arrest. And so the police will be working with MI5 and with the prosecution, the Crown Prosecution Service, to try and work out, have we actually got enough evidence to charge these people with a crime as many as possible, and evidence which would stack up on court? So you've got good surveillance of the group, including the bomb factory.

And I guess the MI5 view is, we've got this under-contract. We're watching them. We've got our arms around it in terms of being able to understand what they're doing. So let's get as much evidence as we can to put as away as many as we can. And I guess at this point, they haven't booked plane tickets, which I guess is a big factor. And if you have the 24-7 surveillance, if they just go to the airport to buy a ticket, you would arrest them there, right, if they're going with the material. So I guess there's a feeling on MI5 side that they're not going to wait.

up one day. These guys have slipped the net and then, you know, transatlantic airliners are taken down. Yeah. I mean, they haven't actually built the actual bombs that are really used yet. That's crucial. They're still experimenting how to do it. Sawa is still looking at concentrating the hydrogen peroxide, but they've not put everything together yet. And there's even a conversation where, you know, someone asks Ali, what's the time frame anyway? And he says a couple of weeks. But it's true. You've got to hold your nerve at this point if you're MI5 and the police. Because if you're a lot of, you're a five in the police. Because if you get it wrong and you run this long, as they'd say, and something happens, you've got a huge loss of life. I've talked about this last time.

I mean, you've got, you know, thousands potentially dead. You've also got the fact that this would be, I think this goes back to a question you raised earlier on, which is why do it in this way from the UK rather than doing it from Pakistan. And if you think about it, what the aspiration is to have a group of British. citizens attack the US. Yeah. From Britain. So Britain be the launch pad and British citizens be the attackers for an attack on the United States, which is really significant. That's a good point. That would place more tension on the special relationship than if you had citizens that just kind of used heat row as a transit point. Transit point for the plot. That's right. And, you know,

I mean, it was interesting, wasn't it? When we were inside, AmI. and talking to Jonathan Evans, which declassified club members can hear that. Can hear those two episodes. Up on the wall, there's the plaque, you know,

connected to this MI5 operation. There's this quote from Home Secretary at the time, John Reed, who was having a conversation with Jonathan Evans about this. And,

I mean, I think this gets at the pot, like we're starting to bubble up to the politics. When an intelligence operation, a surveillance operation, is started to have political consequences or potential political consequences. Because John Reed at one point tells Jonathan Evans, and again, this quote is literally

up on the wall in MI5, if this goes wrong, I'm out of a job. You're out of a job and the government will fall. Yeah, absolutely right. And the reason the government would fall would be if it turned out that this group attacked the U.S. from the UK and they'd been under surveillance. In other words, you know, MI5 had known about it. The consequences for the US and UK, if this was to go ahead and it turns out that they'd known about it, you know, would have been just enormous. So that is John Reid's point is you better be right about this.

But I do think when you talk to people and read the accounts of it, MI5 will say that John Reeder was the Home Secretary, so responsible for MI5 in that sense, on a ministerial level, he does give them to support. You know, he basically gives them the space to keep going. think that matters, you know, that he's got their back politically to say, you better you have this right, but I have got your back and you keep going. You keep running long on this. But the decision is how long do you run it? That is the question. And this is where the Americans are going to have a slightly different perspective. Yeah. Gordon. Now, MI5 has been briefing the Americans on. Yes, right? It's not like the CIA or the FBI are in the dark. Yeah. No, that's right. There's knowledge of what's going on. And the U.S. has been aware of the

investigation from early July through liaison. So you'd imagine that Brits in Washington and telling the Americans about it, about we've got this group under surveillance. But of course, it's not yet clear how far developed it is at that point or what the targets are. And so it's early August when fears start to ramp out massively, once it becomes clear, particularly as you have those conversations in the flat and they're researching the flight times, when it becomes clear that the group are targeting the US, and it's potentially another 9-11, but maybe even bigger, maybe even more planes that are being targeted. The US system, I guess, maybe understandably goes into overdrive at that point.

Well, and I mean, I guess so this is where the intelligence, you know, sort of community reforms that happened in 0405, newly formed department for Homeland Security under Michael Chertoff, Fran Townsend is the Homeland Security Advisor. She's liaising with the White House. and I guess a big question that the White House is going to have is will these bombs even work? And I guess

MI5 had already done tests but the Americans do their own tests with a homegrown energy drink Gatorade. Yeah, they use Gatorade. Not Lucas Aid. Yes, they're going to do trials with Gatorade because you don't have Lucas Aid.

What good is having an empire if you can't use it to sort of hark your wares across the Atlantic? The US realized that this would work and that their scanners, you know, the TSA scanners, won't pick up, won't pick up a liquid. And the CIA are kind of going to work, is it going to blow up a plane? And the answer is yes, if you put the bomb in the right place at the side on that kind of fuselage of the plane. And that's what's going to really worry them.

And so the US really do start really worrying about this, which makes sense. Yeah, which I guess is the context of the Times, isn't it? It's worth saying. I think it's very hard to kind of put ourselves back into that mentality. But at this point, we are five years post-9-11. The U.S. is involved in two massive land wars in the Middle East that are connected, I mean, different ways, connected to this fight against terrorism. There's also, I think, a view in the states of just, we're never going to let a 9-11 happen again, right?

And a sense from the president on down into the, I mean, into the working level ranks of the intelligence community that we failed to prevent 9-11. And I mean, I think if you're President Bush, you're thinking your entire political future, your personal future probably depends on preventing these kind of attacks. And so it gets really a heart of things. So I can understand why the agency would, you know, would think. Let's end this thing, right? Yeah, I think the US mentality is very much like if there's a 1% chance of this happening, we want to eliminate that 1% chance. We do not want to take any risks.

I think that is a function of the time and of, yeah, the culture, I guess, that came out of 9-11 and the never-again idea and do whatever it takes to stop it. And this, it's really interesting because this plot is being briefed up to the highest levels. You know, Fran Townsend, the Homeland Security Byers, is briefing president. Bush, and it's in the president's daily brief. Yeah, which again, I think it's just an interesting case study in the liaison relationship because when you have information that's going to the CIA station in London here, probably between, you know, the liaison with MI5, that's getting turned into intelligence reports

that are then being worked up by U.S. analysts for inclusion in, you know, PDB articles about this attack plotting. So, again, I mean, there are elements of the story that are going to show the tension, between the two services, but others, I mean, this is the kind of day-to-day cooperation between MI5 and the CIA is very close. Very close. The information is going back and forth. So you can see that the US are going to be nervous once they start seeing that idea

that this could be an attack targeting the US. And that's where the difficult conversations, I think, start. Because as we said, John Reid, the UK Home Secretary, is like, trust us, we've got it under control, just give us a bit more time to collect the evidence and to do this, whereas the US are like, we're not happy with that. Well, there had been some tension, say, in the Tanner Terrorism relationship in particular, right, where I'm not sure that the US and the UK were ever sort of strategically at odds over the issue, but I think there's this questionable.

How do you deal with it? the two legal approaches taken after 9-11 were very different. You know, these issues have been tense. You know, how far do you go to get intelligence to stop plots? That's right. I mean, there was a case in 2004 where a Libyan National was captured by the CIA based on intelligence from SIS, MI6, and then he's rendered to Libya, where he's presumably not treated well.

Yeah. There's a lot of political sensitivities here in the UK to exactly how you collaborate with The CA on Canadaitarianism work. And I think there is an awareness on the UK side at that time that they're staying close to the Americans. That is very much the policy. But also the Americans are willing to do things that the Brits aren't and are in this kind of post-9-11 mindset. So I think that context is important. Can the Cheney team at the White House blown one of your agents as well?

I think it's Amund Dean, who's a really interesting agent within Al-Qaeda. And you do find these cases where the Americans are either using some British intelligence or it's leaking out of Washington into the media and the Brits. And this is a kind of frequent thing over those years. Even though after 7-7, some of the details of the bombs were leaked from the American side. And the Brits are kind of, there's a little bit of tension there. But as ever, I guess this is worth saying, the Brits are the junior partner. Americans are producing more intelligence.

So the Brits, to some extent, have to kind of deal with it. it because they know they need to be in that relationship and that's important. But here on this, it's a dispute. You know, there is a real disagreement here between the two sides. And it's essentially over whether you should move now and just arrest them. Yeah, roll them up or awake. Yeah. Because one, I mean, US official describes the situation as a loaded gun.

You know, the idea these guys are developing these liquid bombs. They want to shut down. and the MI6 team, and you hear this from some of the memoirs from the CIA side as well, are saying, don't rush, you know, give us time. An MI6 official tells Jose Rodriguez, who's an important figure, who's the CIA director of operations at the time. The MI6 guy is reported as saying to him, don't rush to judgment, you know, trust us, to which Jose Rodriguez from the CIA says famous last words. There's a very good book here by Aki Peretz called Disruption, which kind of is really good, I think,

at recounting from the American side what was going on because he's an American author about what was happening on the American side in this plot. And I guess the US view, if I could take that side for a second, is that if you let the thing run on the assumption that MI5 has it all under control and importantly as seeing all of the different players in the plot, that's fine if those assumptions are true. But if you don't have it all covered and you let it run. If one of those people gets on a plane, you just didn't know that they were there

and you miss it on surveillance, you could end up with hundreds, if not thousands of dead Americans and Brits and everybody else. Yeah, I guess that's the American view is, are you really sure you've got that good coverage if you're MI5 across everyone? Are you sure that there aren't other plotters out there? But I guess, you know,

the MI5 view would be the longer, we watch the more we know about. The more certain you can be and the more you can uncover any other kind of connections or any other cells. So I think that's where the tension lies between the two sides. I think this is another interesting dynamic in the liaison relationship is that as you get some of this cooperation fused with tension, when the stakes are this high, it starts to get political.

And so we have then PM Tony Blair and President George W. Bush start to talk about this plot in late July. And Blair is actually visiting Washington for a summit. It's one of the topics of conversation. Yeah. And MI5 and MI6, warm Blair ahead of that meeting with Bush on July 28. Washington is pushing for action. And they say, we need patience. And, you know, the American view is our citizens, our planes. So you can see the tension here about the investigation. You've got kind of. of specific American cities and planes being talked about. So by the start of August, you know, the Americans are really piling on the pressure. And supposedly twice a day, the president would contact Fran Townsend asking, are you comfortable letting the planes fly? Every day Bush wanted to shut it down, one person recalled. Or arrest all these guys, he'd say. This is all in from this Akki Peretz book, disruption. Fran Townsend, the Homeland Security Advisor as well is saying, like, I don't care about convictions in court. We just want to to stop this plot. I don't give a shit if it blows the case. That's what one person is quoted.

Yeah, which you, as you'd argue, be a little short-sighted, because if you don't actually, if you're not able to convict them, they would then go free. And the Brits are getting angry, because they view is this is not your case. They're telling the CIA and counterpart. The liaison does sound really tricky. And you know, Andy Heyman, who's one of the police chiefs at the time in his memoir, he talks about the US authorities he'd been getting edgy, seeking reassurance that this was not going to slip through our hands. We've moved from how. having congenial conversations to eyeball to eyeball confrontations. We thought we'd managed to persuade them to hold back so we could develop new opportunities and get more evidence to present

the courts. But I was never convinced they were content with that position. It's also interesting that I guess you could assume that maybe the pressure on the US side is purely coming from the politicians, but it does seem the CIA, the security officials, kind of agree with the politics. I don't think it was just like the political. I think the CIA and all. I think the CIA and all that. It was, all the officials in the White House everywhere else are also in on this. I think the Brits maybe think, well, this is just a political thing. We can talk to our liaison counterparts. And they'll be real. They'll understand. And I don't think the Brits realized at the time that actually CIA, you know, all these others were also out to do something. So I guess this is

going to push it towards, as we'll see the end game. Early August, don't you blow his on vacation. Tony Blows on vacation. In Cliff Richard, do you know who Cliff Richard is? No. A popular singer. Okay. Popular singer. He has a villa in Barbados. Oh, that sounds lovely. It sounds lovely. It's the perfect command center to stop a terrorist operation, I'm sure. Eliza Manning and Buller, who we should say is the head of MI5 at the time, is in the UK, but is on leave. So Jonathan Evans, who we've spoken to in our club episode, is the number two, and he's overseeing this.

Twice a day he's briefing the Home Secretary John Reed and then Reed, the Home Secretary briefs Blair, who's in Barbados. They're working up an arrest plan in case they need it. Interesting enough here as well, there's also talk that the. Plotters might do a dry run. In other words, they would take the components onto a flight. And actually fly. And actually fly. Okay.

Just to make sure they could get through security. So one of them would do it before getting through the whole lot to make sure they don't, it doesn't get stopped or spotted. MI5 has gotten hints of that, presumably from the surveillance, that the plotters themselves are mulling over the idea of a dry run or talking with Rashid Ralph. Yeah. There's coded references to a rap concert. I mean, Ralph later claims there had been some kind of dry run, but it doesn't look like that had happened at the UK end. And there's some intelligence. They're going to do it roundabout by the end of August 11th or around that time.

So now the US and UK are kind of worried that people are going to get on board with actual bomb components. And then I guess the problem you're starting to worry is, well, what if they just do it? Yeah, exactly. Michael Hayden, who's CIA director, says, this really pushed the needle into the red. you know, so now the US is thinking, we are really, really worried about this. Yeah, exactly. And it feels like a point from the American side of the investigation

where you just can't take risk any longer, right? So let's take a break. When we come back, we'll see how something blows the case wide open. Well, welcome back. Gordon, the U.S. has lost its patience, hasn't it? Yeah. We're usually a very patient country and reasonable. And now we've lost all of our patients.

Yeah. And this is going to be interesting because the US are going to effectively, you could say, compromise the operation or at least that's an unchair. Hold on. Oh. You're already besmirating. There is some unilateral action. There is unilateral. I'm very comfortable when we act unilateral.

It usually goes very well. And now we're going to explain how the US at unilateral is really interesting because it all centers on Pakistan. and back to Rashid Ralph, who, as you remember, is the Al-Qaeda facilitator, the kind of contact for the plotters. By coincidence, CIA Director Michael Hayden and CIA Operations Chief, Jose Rodriguez, are in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad in early August, as this is all coming to ahead. They just come from Baghdad. You don't think it was a coincidence. You think they've arrived to do what they're about to deal? I do wonder about that.

They say, by coincidence. I mean, they're coming from Baghdad, so. And they're going to Afghanistan. So it is plausible. This was a pre-arranged trip. UK police don't know they're there. We've told the Barbies that were here. Okay, okay.

I'll give you that one. The CIA has close but difficult liaison with Pakistan and its intelligence. So besides it, is that a charitable way of putting it? That's very charitable, I would say. Yeah. As we'll see from the way that this story unfold. Because most of Al-Qaeda's leadership had fled Afghanistan after the Taliban had been overthrown, and they go to the tribal areas of Pakistan.

which we should say the Pakistani authorities don't have control over effectively day-to-day. They're wild tribal areas. Pakistan has some insight but not total insight to what's going on there. And the US needs Pakistani help to deal with them. But at the same time, the Pakistanis have their own agenda, including supporting, for instance, the Taliban because they see... There's one thing. Yeah, there's one thing. For instance, supporting, we're having at least a relationship with the Taliban.

Taliban and some jihadist groups because they're more worried about India than they are about anything else. Right. And we should say that at this point in time in 2006, we're still a year or two away from the alleged drone campaign that the CIA will allegedly run in the tribal areas. Like a true former CIA of Pakistan. Getting in around 2007, the CIA began. Yeah.

But at this point, a drone campaign, but this is not happening. It's not happening yet. And so it's CIA kind of relations with that. A counter-terrorist branch of ISI are pretty good. Probably slightly better maybe than the Brits have with the ISI. Of course, because the Americans are bigger, more resources. But then there are other bits of ISI, Pakistani intelligence, who are working on different purposes. And so there's always this kind of suspicion between the two sides about what games they're playing.

Now, we do have quite a few American accounts of what happens on this visit by the CIA. So let's put those out there and then we can discuss if we think they're the, Full story, he says charitably. So people who aren't watching should note that Gordon is looking, he's looking at me with intense suspicion. So according to the American accounts, CIA director Hayden, Operation Chief Jose Rodriguez, first of all, they're taken to a military compound, probably ISIHQ, which is just outside of this number.

I visited it once. You've gone there? I've been there. If you told me before I went there that I'd visit ISI HQ, I'd have thought maybe with handcuffs on them, you know, with a hood on. But actually, it was a very beautifully manicured compound. Really? Where a group of us were kind of briefed on ISI counterterrorism by an official there.

It was very interesting. They're absolutely charming, but you also know absolutely briefed for us. Those ISI people that you make. You know what I mean? But you were charmed by them. Well, but a charmed, but also scared. Like, I remember one guy, and he kind of was incredibly urbane and sophisticated. But when I asked him about, you know, but do you kind of torture people here?

We'll come back to torture. He said something to me like, we have very different methods from you. And you kind of go, I'll take that as a yes. That was the gist I got. It's a tough neighbourhood. Yeah, it's putting it mildly. But they meet, Rodriguez and Hayden meet Kayani, who was the head of the ISA at the time, chat in a large conference room.

Kiani is annoyed at being told Pakistan's not doing enough to fight al-Qaeda. At one point he mutters to CIA Director Hayden. I'm tired of you Americans saying we're not doing. enough to fight the terrorists. This is where Rashid Ralph comes into it because the Brits have asked for surveillance of him, but it's a bit intermittent because he's mainly in the tribal areas, but he's moving around. Hayden says, well, we'd be interested to know where he was, Rashid Ralph, this is the account of it. And also, Kayani will kind of suggest to Jose Rodriguez, are you with me? You're going to kind of support me? And Rodriguez says, yeah, of course.

Hayden leaves, goes to Afghanistan. Rodriguez, operations director, stays for more talks, which I also find curious. You know, maybe it's, again, entirely understandable. We'll come back to my cynicism later. I just think that would have been. So at this point, Rodriguez is the DDL. It's plausible. It feels like a pretty normal thing.

He's flown around in a helicopter tour of the tribal areas, see where the action has happened. I've done that as well. It's very impressive. they come back to Islamabad, brief Rodriguez on the airline plot. He's been on the road for a few days. He says he's surprised by how much has happened. He hears about, for instance, the female police officer in the internet cafe in Walthamstow, seeing Ali write down the US flight times.

We should say Rodriguez is being briefed by the CIA at this point, right? ISI is not involved in... But he's suddenly realizing this is moving on. And then Rodriguez, you're right, that's CIA. and Rodriguez thinks, okay, this is getting serious. Rodriguez meets Kiani, the ISI chief, who says the Pakistanis had learned that Rashid Ralf might soon be traveling from the tribal areas towards a city. And Kiyani, this is from Jose Rodriguez's book, Hard Measures, and the title gives you

some idea about his mentality. He says, Kiyanis says, here's an opportunity. Would you support us if we captured Ralph right now? and Rodriguez says, I made an on-the-spot decision, absolutely, we want this bad guy. It seemed to me that telling Kayani anything else would have undermined the relationship we were trying to build with the ISI. And he says, I made the call despite a vague understanding that British authorities were hoping we would not move too rashly against Ralph.

And then he tells this story about after that meeting ends, he departs, he's heading for a dinner, they're in an armoured sedan, there's a kind of security convoy. The CIA's chief of station kind of joins him in the back of the car. A phone rings for a Pakistani who's with them and he's told Ralph is on a bus heading for one of our checkpoints. We want to catch him. Are you with us? And, you know, the colleague turns to Jose Rodriguez and says, what do you think, boss? And Rodriguez says, I said, let's get him. The cautious thing would have been to consult with Washington, but doing so would have been the equivalent of saying no. Washington never responds instantly. I mean, he also mentions that, I mean, in this sort of a surbic way,

would have wanted meetings, develop position papers, and consult the British. Yeah. Three things that sound tiresome, right? I think that does give you some insight into Jose Rodriguez, who, let's say, is a more controversial character in the world, controversial, hardline character in the annals of the central intelligence agency. His memoir was titled Hard Measures. He was involved in overseeing the kind of enhanced interrogation. I'm using scare quotes there because lots of people who are a torture program. I know that's something that he denied, but, you know, that's his reputation.

And his attitude is, I don't want to be in front of a commission or a congressional inquiry explaining why I didn't take the opportunity. It is interesting how this Pakistani benevolence to go after Ralph came together so smoothly. Yes. While the CIA was out there. Yes. So this is all despite the fact, we should be clear that the Brits have said, hold off arresting Ralph, we need more time to collect information.

That has been the request from Tony Blair to George W. Bush. Rodriguez says he didn't know about the presidential conversations with Tony Blair, and he only had a vague idea that Brits didn't want them to arrest Ralph. I don't know. What do you think? I'll say what I think. I think these memoirs are disguising the true thing of what happened, which is, I think, the Americans decided they wanted to do it.

Rather than the Pakistanis coming, go, oh, hey, there's an opportunity. I think the Americans said, we want this guy out. We don't care what the Brits think. We want this operation rolled up. Our way of doing it, they're not moving fast enough in London. They're not listening to us saying, roll it up. so we're going to shortcut this by getting the Pakistanis to arrest around.

I think that's probably not so far from the truth. What I guess I don't understand, though, is if you arrest Ralph, there's a world where the plotters stop. There's also a world where that accelerates. Yeah. The attack has a risk, right? There's a risk attach to it, which does make me wonder if at least pieces of what Jose Rodriguez is saying here is true,

which is that maybe. there is not a complete picture on his side of the conversations that had happened between Bush and Blair or even, you know, Jonathan Evans and, you know, Michael Hayden. Because we should say that the reason why this is, and we'll come back to this a bit later, but this is so significant arresting Ralph is we talked earlier about how Ralph was in daily constant contact with Sarwa and Ali in London. they are constantly talking to each other about the bomb, about plans, about the timings. I mean, you know, Ali's kind of there constantly communicating with him about the other.

So as soon as you arrest, Ralph, you're tipping the hand that they... Yeah, because it's good dark. They'll go dark. Yeah. Michael Hayden, CIA director says, ISI did not want to move against Ralph without American support and cover. But I have to say, some Pakistanis suggest that it was the Americans pushing for Ralph's arrest during the meetings, including the one. I think that makes the most sense. Yeah.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to me that the Pakistanis would. You know, oh, yeah, we could do this for you now. We could do this for you now. I mean, there must have at least been a set of conversations that happened where the Americans bring up Ralph. Yeah. And then the Pakistanis realize, oh, this guy's. They want the Americans.

And we can demonstrate our value by arresting him. And that feels like the more the more. I mean, there were some U.S. reports I read, which even said the U.S. had threatened to render Ralph themselves. if the Pakistani didn't pick him up. Andy Heyman, the UK Police Chief also says he thinks, you know, the US, his words lost their nerve and triggered the arrest in Pakistan. And it's interesting because the CIA will try and blame what happens on the Pakistanis

and suggest it was therefore a not a US decision. And it's very interesting because the person who has to come into MI5 and MI6 in London and tell them that, what I think a lot of people think is a bit of a half-truth or a non-truth that it was the Pakistani's fault and not the Americans. Interesting enough, is the CIA head of counterterrorism in London, which is Jennifer Matthews, who we, you know, talked about in a previous episode who dies in the hostpomings. Yeah, the series we did on the coast bombings. Yeah. And she was very direct and uncompromising, you know, generally. But some Brits, I think, will later

almost feel sorry for her because their view is she's being sent to come into MI5 and MI6 and basically tell them an untruth, which is this is all the Pakistani's forms when I think they view it as an American decision. So anyway, that is the issue. So in Pakistan, you know, Jose Rodriguez was supposed to be out for dinner. They scrapped plans for dinner. They set up a command center to get a live feed of the forces providing a blow-by-below count of the arrest of Rashid Ralph. And he says the capture was carried out by Pakistani troops with CIA officers providing high-tech assistance nearby. Again, that strikes me as the fact they had a CIA team nearby ready to go

also suggests this was, you know, not a, oh, he happens to be here. It's taken, it makes it sound a little bit less per of the moment. Although the agency would have had lots of resources in Islamabad. Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe. So Ralph is asleep at the back of a bus. It reaches a checkpoint by a railway track. He opens his eyes and he looks out the way. window and he can see armed police, including plain clothes police, waiting. The bus stops. They

come towards the bus. Ralph realizes at that point he's in trouble. He actually wonders at first if it's something that Ali and the guys in the UK have done, which has compromised him and, you know, led the authorities to him. But actually, he realizes he'd left his own phone on, which allowed him to be tracked, which is how they get to it. And he tries to turn it off. It's too late. The officers come to the back of the bus, quickly see it's him. They cuff him, hood him, take him to a van and to an army camp. That is it for the moment, for Rashid Ralph. For the moment. And Jose Rodriguez writes in his memoir that he called Langley and told his chief of staff, who was Gina Haspel, what had happened. And he says, you know, I asked Gina to go down the hall and brief the then deputy director Steve Kappasper. She called back minutes later. Steve is livid. He wants to know why you let the Pakistanis conduct the takedown.

Because I agreed with them was my simple answer, is how Jose Rodriguez describes that. And, you know, Gina says that the Brits are insisted on following the leads in the case a while longer to see. Who else might be implicated? President Bush had apparently told Prime Minister Blair a few hours earlier that we would move slowly on this plot, she said. I would imagine that over at Thameshouse,

There was some consternation. I think there would be. I mean, at CIA, it sounds like this consternation. Because, you know, Rodriguez says, all hell broke loose at my headquarters. I was glad to be in a war zone. So it does, I mean, it does suggest whether it was Rodriguez himself, but it's going to be absolute fury from the Brits. I mean, the Americans are slightly, you know, this is bad, but it's bad because they know

how angry the Brits are. So the fact that the deputy director of the CIA is furious about this. suggest to me that what may have happened is Jose Rodriguez goes out for liaison meetings with ISI. There's going to be a whole bunch of different items on the agenda. One of those things might have been Rashid Ralph, which may have just been a discussion about him, and then when the Pakistanis realized that this is interesting, as you're sort of doing the wheeling and dealing, because these meetings are sort of commerce. Yeah.

If Rodriguez is suggesting that this guy is valuable. and the Pakistanis think, well, we're already watching him, and we don't care about handing this guy over, potentially. He becomes immediately in that commerce, that sort of bargaining chip. And all of this could be going on without any knowledge, certainly in London or back at headquarters in Langley. Yeah. And it could just happen. Yeah, it could do. So that's the charitable view, which is, it's basically Rodriguez and the Pakistanis making their move. being only half-sighted of what the higher-ups would explain why

Cappas was furious. Yeah. Or, yeah, if you're going to buy that account. I'm still, I still think maybe there was a bit more. But Rodriguez, you know, says himself, it was better to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission. Yeah, that's very Rodriguez. But as we said, the problem is Ralph is in such regular contact with the plotters.

When he breaks contact, the fear is they'll know something he's up. just at that moment Rashid Ralph is being arrested some of the plotters are recording what are believed to be Martyrton videos in that Forest Road flat and the Americans have kept the Brits in the dark

about this plan to arrest Ralph so the Brits have no idea Ralph is approaching the checkpoint that's going to be arrested they don't know anything that's going on and when they find out that is going to cause them to hit the panic button in London

So we're there with the Brits slamming the panic button and the special relationship in tatters. Let's end the third episode. When we come back next time, we will see how it all comes together and how the special relationship really is able to mend all wounds. Isn't that right, Gordon? I think we'll see how difficult it really gets. That's right. But if you don't want to wait, don't wait.

Go and join the Declassified Club at the Rest is Classified.com. get that last episode right now, binge the whole series, and also get access to our two-part interview with Jonathan Evans, who was overseeing this operation at MI5 at the time and has some really amazing insights into how it all went down. We'll see you next time. See you next time.