The Rest Is Classified - 129. Al Qaeda’s Deadliest Plot: Why You Can’t Bring Liquids On Planes (Ep 4)

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

Time is of the essence to stop the Al Qaeda plotters from taking down multiple airliners and MI5 are rushing to make arrests. But is there enough evidence to charge them with terror offences? In the final episode of our series on the Liquid Bomb Plot, David and Gordon unpack the suspenseful moments before the plotters are arrested and how everything nearly went so wrong. ------------------- 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: Alice Horrell 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. Plan to bring down transatlantic airlines with liquid bombs. The plotters watched by Britain's MI5, but have the CIA blown the operation by getting a key suspect early without telling their closest ally. Well, welcome to The Rest is Classified. And I'm Goulden Carrera.

I don't love that question that we started with... It is a question. It is a question. I know. I know. When we left off last time, I should say, with the MI5 and the British police watching this crew of airline bomb plotters trying to understand who's involved, where their targets might be, and ensure, I think, critically, that there was enough evidence to charge them.

The target of the bomb plot is, of course, transatlantic airliners headed to the U.S., and in the U.S. government right up to President. Bush and the CIA. Everybody is getting anxious about just how close this plot seems to be to coming to fruition. And as we talked about in the last episode, there's been a bit of an incident with the Pakistanis where simultaneous sort of an overlap with a CIA visit, the Pakistanis have actually moved on Rashid Ralph, the mastermind of this plot, and arrested, potentially

at the CIA's behest, kind of a key plotter in this transatlantic airline bomb plot. And with Russia draft now in Pakistani custody, is his arrest going to blow the operation? Let's find out after a quick word from our sponsors, HP. This episode is sponsored by HP. Most people are not counter-espionage experts, 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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Find out more about how HP can protect your business at HP.com forward slash classified. 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 So Rashid Ralph is arrested between 7 and 8 p.m. in Pakistan, local time, on August 9th, 2006.

That's early morning, 9.10 a.m. in Washington, about two or three in the afternoon in London. It's happened without the Brits knowing, as we said last time. The CIA tells the White House. Fran Townsend, who's the Homeland Security Advisor, been pushing for more aggressive action, calls President Bush, who's at his ranch in Texas. He says he'll call Tony Blair, who's in holiday in Barbados of Cliff Richards Villa, so we discussed last time. But Townsend also wants to tell her British counterparts.

So it doesn't kind of come from Blair to them. You know, you can see everyone knows that this is going to be an awkward conversation. So everyone's thinking like, I don't want them to find out from someone else. You know, that's the mood. And I'd imagine that once this trickles down to the police. Oh, yes.

In the United Kingdom, there's some frustration. Unhappiness, I think. Because it's evening in London, on August 9th, when word finally gets to the police at Scotland Yard, and they are furious. I mean, Andy Hayden, who's one of the senior police officers at the time, says it was a breaking of trust. Beneath him, Peter Clark, who's the head of counterterrorism, finds out when he's in his office at Scotland Yard, he seems to think they'd have at least two more days. And he immediately realized this could compromise the operation. The problem is Ralph, as we'd said, is in contact with lots of people every day by email, text, phone. Ali had been waiting in an internet cafe for some communication from Ralph.

The regularity of the contact is part of the problem because it's immediately going to raise alarm bells, the fact that he's not there anymore. And I guess the possibilities are that they move ahead with the plot. You know, they could suddenly just try and get on a plane or they could even detonate the bomb somewhere else. Could they race to the airports? Could they destroy evidence as well, making it harder to prosecute, knowing that Ralph has been compromised, if he'd been arrested? So police know they've only got hours, really, before the whole, this long, intense operation falls apart. So in New Scotland Yard, they put up whiteboards with the names of the suspects. They call in about 300 officers to come in and to help them basically deal with it.

And I guess worth reminding in particular American listeners that MI5 does not have powers of arrest. So this is going to, the sort of intelligence picture needs to get transferred to the police who can then actually conduct the arrests. That's right. And one of the problems is that they had to locate and arrest all the people they were worried about in a real hurry. And it's not when you'd normally do it. Because normally you do these arrests that counterterrorism arrests in the early hours of the morning, like four or five a.m. When you know someone's going to be at home probably, they'll be asleep. Now you're actually having to find them in the evening and arrest them when they're.

they're on the move. So it's chaos in the operations room at the police. The phones are ringing. Communications are hard. You'd normally want armed police to be in on these arrests. That's because you don't know if they've got bombs or what they've got. And the slight difference in the UK is you need to prepare an armed arrest team to be there and to be ready because most police in the UK are not armed. So you've only got surveillance teams out there. So that's also one of the challenges from them. They've got a surveillance team covering Ali. and they've got one covering Sawa and they actually see both Ali and Sawa

heading both to Waltham Stowe. Sawa, remember, is in High Wycombe. And that felt potentially significant because you've got the two lead figures in the conspiracy. You don't always meet up, heading towards each other into the town hall. And the worry is obviously that what if they're moving fast with the plot,

is that the signal to go? So they're trying to get arrest teams out to meet them at Waltham Stowe. town hall, but you haven't got arrest teams who can get there in times. You've actually only got the surveillance teams who'd be watching them, who were there at the time. And the arrest teams are having to come from other locations. They're kind of racing there. So it's all that sense of urgency. So they're actually going to do something which they don't normally do, which is prepared to use surveillance teams to do arrests. So normally you'd have a separate arrest team.

As I said, they might have armed backup and everything else. But in this case, it's so urgent. They're going to have to bring in the surveillance teams. And it's pretty anti-climactic, isn't it? There's no sort of fight. No. They just surrender. Yeah. It's interesting because the two cars pull into the car park of Walthamsoe Town Hall.

The two men get out, greet each other, it's dark, surveillance teams watching. They open the boot of one car. There is that worry. You know, what's if there's explosives in the boot? Well, if they're weapons. Something appears to be passed. It's actually the Martyrton video, which has just been recorded a few hours earlier, which is being passed.

Sarwar, the quartermaster, is not going to be on the flights. He's going to distribute the video. Exactly. So he's been given the video that's just been made a few hours earlier. At that moment, they get arrested. You're right. They don't put up a fight. Ali has a memory stick on it.

Who's is it? He says it's mine. On it, he says, his holiday destinations to America when asked. But it's got the list of flight plans that he'd taken in that internet cafe, as well as a to-do list about, you know, which has got on the two. To-do list. Clean batteries, perfect disguise, drink bottles, Lukazade, orange red, calculate exact drops of tang. You know, it was a basically a to-do list of everything he needed to do. I mean, right down to 1.5 drops, one teaspoon tang, one teaspoon orange, 12.

You know, it's the ingredients list to finally make the bomb. Which feels like good evidence against him. Yeah, we'll come to that. But they're going to pick up around about two dozen suspects in all. and the police officer said, we had the list of people who needed to be arrested, we had pictures of them pinned to the wall, and when the last red dot went on the last man arrested and someone said, right, we've got him, there was a sigh of relief and half a cheer. But here's the problem. It's been rushed.

And that's a problem not just for the police, but also the politicians. Rushed. Yeah. What were they missing? We'll come to that. That afternoon, Home Secretary John Reid, who we'd spoken about, had given the speech on national security warning about the risks to it, probably because he had this plot in mind. That evening, he goes to Stanford Bridge. Do you know where Stanford Bridges? That is the bridge in London with the castle on it? No. I think you're thinking about Tower Bridge, but London Bridge. London Bridge. It is confusing.

I think Stanford Bridge is not a bridge. It's not a bridge. It is the home of Chelsea Football Club. Okay. He is a Celtic fan, which is a Scottish team. And John Reed, who's Scottish, Sports Celtic. They're playing Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. He's in the nice seats. He gets the first call just before half time that he might need to come in. Then another call during half time saying, go right now. The cars are on their way. And he's driven at pace through London to Whitehall where government offices are. If Cash Patel had been the FBI director at the time, they could have just had that meeting at the soccer game. Because we should explain. Cash Patel, director of FBI, likes meeting his MI5 counterparts or wanted to meet his MI5 counterparts at

soccer games. This was according to or on jet skis. Or on jet skis. Or on jet skis. Or helicopter tours. So he doesn't like having office meetings. So this would have been good because John Reed wouldn't have had to leave the game. No, because he could have talked to the FBI. And the FBI had been in town. He could have just could have just done it right there in the box. Instead in this occasion. This is a different time 20 years ago. Yeah. He goes to London to what's called a cobra meeting, which is the cabinet office briefing room, which is the kind of our equipment of the situation

room. 10 p.m. that night, cobra meeting taking place, goes until after midnight. at 2 a.m., the UK terror threat level is, for the first time ever since it got created a few years earlier, raised to the highest point, which is called critical, which means an attack is imminent. So it's a sign that they are really worried. And I can remember this because I was a journalist for the BBC. And it was one of the few times I got woken up in the middle of the night. There were a few times where you get woken up, normally get woken up at 5 a.m. when something big is happening.

But this was like a kind of 4 a.m. wake-up call going, threat levels going up. And it was all because we got noticed that the home sector was going to give an imminent announcement of something big at the very first, you know, moment of the morning. So the news desk woke me up because COB reconvenes at 5 a.m. Because the big problem, of course, is airport security. Well, right, I guess because I mean at this point, you think you all of a sudden have a significant and potentially global threat from a new sort of explosive because at this point in time

for all of the sort of Gen Z types that are listening to the rest is classified, there was an era where you could just walk onto an aircraft with a bottle of water. Right? Yeah. Sounds amazing. It sounds amazing. And so now you have to, you actually have to adapt the rules.

And any incoming blight into the U.S., in theory, you want to make sure that it's screened for liquids that there's no liquids that anyone's spraying on that haven't been scraed. Yeah. Because the problem is that they've, you've busted this group of plotting. It's true. They've made these arrests. But it's what you can't see, which is the worry.

You can understand this worry. You've got this cell. What if Al-Qaeda, what if Rashid Routh, which if those bomb makers in Pakistan, had given another completely compartmented separate cell? You haven't seen that. You haven't seen that. You know, let's say in France or in, you know, Germany, they've given them a load of liquid bombs and then suddenly they're seeing the arrests in the UK and they go time to go time to go yeah so the big worry is

you've got this cell but you don't know what other cells out there so you have to instantly without warning because of course the CIA pushed the operation faster than people have wanted just returning to that point that you have to instantly institute effectively a global buy on liquids going to planes particularly coming into the US or UK but other other countries as well and it's august it's the peak of holiday season as well yeah Everyone's crazy. The ranch. Elizavany and Bullers on vacation.

Tony Blair's in Barbados. Yeah. It's amazing anyone's working. But because everyone's going on holiday. Yeah. All the poor people going on holiday. And it was, I mean, I can remember this. It was total chaos that day.

Because suddenly, I mean, flights are getting stopped. People are being told they can't take any liquids on. People are throwing stuff away. People don't know the rules. And of course, the airlines and airports knew nothing about, it's not like they've been pre-briefed on. this because it was a really sensitive piece of intelligence about the plot. You weren't going to start telling people, oh, we know there's a bunch of people who could

bring on liquid explosives. That's going to blow the thing. So from zero knowledge, you're having to tell the whole airline industry to stop liquids getting on planes. I guess, though, does bring us back, though, Gordon, too. So the plots disrupted. The arrest has been made in the UK. You need to charge them.

Yeah. This gets back to that central question of why was MI5 waiting? And what were they waiting for? Because now you have to go through an entire legal process in order to put these guys away. Yeah. And it's worth just reflecting on that because they had a big wall chart at the police headquarters. And every time they got a piece of evidence which could be recorded against that defendant, they would note it on this wall chart to try and build enough for each suspect.

until they got the threshold to charge them. And the problem is they're under time pressure because you can only detain people. It's just been raised, I think, from 14 to 28 days before you could charge people. So you're now able to do searches of premises and of people's phones and all those kind of things and try and collect evidence

and interview them to get together their story. But you've got a lot of defendants. We talked about a couple of dozen being arrested. And the police are saying, you know, long hours of fatigue, In the trips to fast food joints, probably more monster munch, because they're trying to see how many of these people they can actually build a case against. And in some cases, the evidence is pretty good.

You've got the USB stick that Ali had, you know, with the flight times. In Sawa's house, you find hidden in the roof of the garage was suicide, more martyrdom videos. It takes a full week to find Sawa's suitcase, which he'd hidden in the woods. Remember, he struggled to... It was a hole. He finally got around to hiding it well. I think he put it in a fallen tree trunk in the end because he struggled so much with digging. You know, and they're going to find the paroxone.

But that's going to take a week to find. But the problem is, you know, this is where they've got a problem in doing this. And I think the problems caused by that early arrest are borne out in the trials that come. Because you'd think, and I think I found this fascinating looking bad at it, you'd think it would be easy to get convictions in this case. But actually, it's not. One of the problems is no actual bombs have yet been. built. So you've had them talking about, you're having to do all these things. But

Sawa hadn't concentrated the hydrogen peroxide. You know, you don't have a workable bomb. And that was one of the things I think the police and MI5 were hoping they'd get by waiting a bit longer until you've got something. Then you've got the fact that the men, as we talked about, had been surveillance aware. You know, Ralph had warned them. They're always speaking in code about plans. There was never that one explicit line which says, we're making a bomb, which is going to take down an aircraft. He stared at the pinhole camera. Yeah, and said, that's my plan.

In the ceiling of his of his house and gave the plan. I guess also, I mean, they do have the martyrdom videos. Yeah, right? Yeah, but even there, they claim they're going to be propaganda after some demonstrative act. So they claim they're going to do something like a public demonstration, rhythmic dance. Well, you want to believe that. And that was the point of the videos was then the statement to that.

The problems of evidence are really. clear. And there was a lot of skepticism about the case. I mean, it seemed extraordinary at the time. And so they don't get as many charged or even the verdicts they expect it. Initially, 2008, eight men on trial only three. Ali, Sawa and Tamir Hussain are found guilty of conspiracy to murder. And a jury then can't reach a verdict on a specific charge of plotting to blow up an aircraft. So in 2009, they go back for another trial where they are convicted of conspiracy. to kill by blowing up an aircraft, another person convicted of conspiracy to murder, jury deadlocks against others, two others convicted of conspiracy to murder, but not the airliners.

And then there's a third trial in 2010 where three additional men were found guilty of conspiracy to murder. So you can see that. It takes multiple trials to get convictions of some of the men who'd been arrested, and we should say anyone, you know, wasn't found guilty is obviously, you know, there's no allegations against them, he says legally. But, but, but, but, There was real anger and shock from the UK side when they don't get the guilty verdicts first time. I mean, and some of them blame the Americans. You know, they do. They kind of go, the fact we didn't get these verdicts was because we didn't have those extra two, three days to really have them bang to rights, as it were.

And Jose Rodriguez, I think it's fair to say in his memoir, hard measures, sort of doesn't care. Is that right? Yeah, I think that's a fair way. He wrote the liquids, plots saga, turned out to be emblematic of my CIA career. if there was a common thread during my lengthy time at the agency, it was that no good deed went unpunished. The liquid plot incident further drove hummed me the importance of swift action, of nimble decision-making, and of being able to hold and interrogate key terrorist suspects ourselves

without relying on surrogates who have different and uncertain agendas. Wow. There's a call for unilateral action. I think that is a sign of where the tensions were when it came to counterterrorism. and Jose Rodriguez, who of course had triggered that arrest to Rashid Ralph. That's right. And Rashid Ralph, that's a good cliffhangers. We have to come back.

Oh, yes. Because there's a wild story of what happens to Rashid Rao. That's right. And it involves McDonald's. It has a little tee up. So let's take a break. When we come back, we will see what happens to the evil mastermind of this plot. Hello, everybody, and welcome to the book club, a new podcast from Gollhanger.

hosted by me Dominic Sambrook And me, Tabitha Syrods. As some of you may know, I've been Dominic's producer on The Rest of History. And we even did a mini-series last year about all things books. And since we enjoyed that so much, we have decided to roll it out as its own show. So it'll be coming out every Tuesday.

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We left off with this cliffhanger of what in the world has happened to Rashid Ralph, who had been arrested in Pakistan in 2006. But the weird saga of Rashid Ralph, the mastermind of this attack, does not end there. Oh, no. I mean, it is a kind of weird, wild story. He's arrested 2006, at the instigation, perhaps, of the CIA. Remember? He gave a false name, but the search of his room reveals a passport he'd used

to flee the UK in 2002. He's also got other passports in different names, but with his photo, one British, one South African, five mobile phones, stun guns, 29 small bottles of hydrogen peroxide. It again feels a bit suspicious. Pretty damning. He's initially held in military detention,

this is important. And now this is where the first bit of murkiness comes. He'll later claim he was tortured for two weeks before being hooded, taken from a prison, put on a plane, flown for about three hours to another prison, where he will claim he was questioned for two days by British intelligence officers. Now, the Brits and Americans, meanwhile, say they never had access to him.

Now, I mean, Rodriguez, Jose Rodriguez at the CIA says, you know, they refused to hand him over to the Brits and insisted that any questions we or the British had for Ralph be funneled through the ISI, happy as we were to have Ralph off the streets, he was not under our control. So the Brits and the Americans say we did not access him. Ralph will later say, I was tortured and the Brits were there, which he would say, but, you know, that's an interesting question. At that point, 2006, it's almost impossible for me to imagine a British intelligence officer being there. Yeah, while he's being tortured and knowing. Don't you think?

Because already by then, the whole rendition torture thing is a thing in Britain. the complicity with the US, with other... But, you know, he's a top suspect. Do you question someone and not know what's happened? You could certainly pass questions. Yeah. To the ISI. Yeah. To put to Ralph.

We should be clear that the Brits and Americans say we did not have access to him. And it's quite interesting why. Because Ralph himself later claims that Pakistani ISI get very nervous about him. And the reason is that they find out that he trained in Kashmir as a jihadist. If you remember Ralph had been kind of motivated by Kashmir, he'd also married into jihadist groups. And the problem is these are Kashmiri jihadist groups whom ISI and Pakistani had quite deep connections with because they'd use them as surrogates against India. And so there is this issue that the ISI might have gone, having picked him up, maybe

having realized, if he talks to the Brits and the Americans or gets out, he's going to point the finger at us as having perhaps supported some of the groups who he was associated with, who trained with that whole issue of how Pakistan's complicated relationship with these particularly groups which had their roots in Kashmir, but which became allied to al-Qaeda. So you can see that that would be awkward. And so it feels quite plausible that the ISI, Pakistan, are worried that letting the Brits and Americans talk to him would lead to some Blaine coming to them for having had links. And he's very well connected through marriage to these jihadist groups. So it is also plausible to me that the ISA were like, this guy, we've got a problem with him.

We don't want people to talk to him. Yeah. And maybe we, the ISI, don't actually want him in custody. Yeah, exactly. So this is where things get really crazy because Ralph's family file a petition in Pakistan's high court questioning his detention. He's moved from army to police custody. Three months after his capture, Pakistan moved to drop terrorism charge against him,

allegedly for lack of evidence. They're still holding him on some counts to do with false identities and explosives that they found with him. This talk maybe about extraditing him to the UK on the original murder charge 2002. Here's the crucial day. December 15th, 2007, he's being transferred for a court appearance. Now here's one story of what happens. Ralph arrives at court in Islamabad around midday after the appearance is over. His uncle talks to the two police. Not a murdered uncle. No. Good good good point. A different uncle talks to two of Ralph's police escorts.

Ralph's uncle convinces them to ride in his car instead of the police fan. Hmm. Back to the prison. So the four men, Ralph, his uncle and the two policemen, leave the courthouse with Ralph's uncle driving. This is driving. Ralph's uncle is driving the policeman. As I said, this is one account. They're on the road around 3pm.

Well past lunchtime. Everyone's hungry. So Ralph asks his guards if they could stop at a McDonald's. Ralph's uncle generously offers to pay for everyone's McDonald. The constables agreed. It's then afternoon prayer time. Ralph and his uncle asked to make a further stop at a mosque. Ralph Pindi, which is just outside, Islamabad, on the road to the prison on the way back.

Ralph enters the mosque with his uncle, but the cops are asked to stay in the car. His leg shackles are taken off. The police wait 20 minutes. And then he suddenly doesn't come back. Amazing. Two and a half hours later, senior police chiefs are told. half hours. There were no messages on the police radio alerting any on about it.

And the caretake of the mosque says he never saw any manhunt in the area. Hmm. What do you think? Well, I also like this detail, which is his lawyer. Richard Rouse's lawyer will say he was told of his client's escape hours before it actually happened. And also

predicted his client would eventually be dead. Well, that will prove. So there are the versions of this story, which have him escaping earlier in the day right after the court hearing. There's of these stories that one police officer's phone pings off a cell tower, off the route they were talking about, and he's actually calling the other officer, when they're both supposed to be with him. There's a British diplomatic cable which says that a probe concludes the fled with the

collusion of the police and some militants from one of these kind of groups, JEM. So there's a bit of a debate about how far there's an official role in his escape, because, of course, as we said, he could have said a lot about Pakistani complicity supporting groups. You know, the fact he's linked to 7-7 and he's linked to groups backed by Pakistan. So one theory is ISI organized the escape and then blame the police officers. Others and people I've spoken to say it was just money-changing hands and the police officers being bought off. But either way, he's gone. Well, and he goes back to his old ways of terrorist planning.

There's right back to the tribe. Straight back to it. And I guess, I mean, he continues, I mean, by late 2008, he's involved in three new al-Qaeda plots to attack the West. Including one against New York, you know, a suicide bombing on the New York subway that's being planned for 2009, which the FBI eventually bust. Plot against Manchester. Yeah. Yeah. A plot against somewhere in Scandinavia.

Yeah. So all over the place. And I guess, though, by the summer of 2008, the U.S. Pakistan relationship is. is really starting to break down. And the U.S. is pushing to do much more unilateral operations. I think we could say, which some have reported as being drone-stoyed, which some press outlets have reported, ended up becoming a massive predator campaign in the tribal areas.

And as, you know, the CIA really, I think, starts to, we're obviously still in liaison with ISI, but rely much less on the Pakistanis to deal with the country. is to deal with the counterterrorism situation inside Pakistan. Yeah, I mean, we're talking a lot about liaison here, mainly about US-UK liaison, but here with the US-Pakistan liaison, it's fundamentally changing, isn't it? Because of the frustrations we were talking about on both sides, the US is suddenly like, we're just going to use allegedly predator drones to kill

those al-Qaeda commanders and do our own thing. And there's all kinds of other tensions between the US-S Reich. And eventually November 22nd, 2008, they come for Rashid Ralph, or at least we think they do. There's a drone strike on a mudden-brick structure in North Waziristan in the tribal areas. It's a compound of a Taliban commander killing him, but also an al-Qaeda Belmaker and also its thought, Rashid Ralph. Now, there are people in Pakistan think he escaped, you know, some reports as ever. We've had this with so many of these characters that he's still alive. if he still wanted. So he's never quite conclusively identified. But other people I've spoken

to seem pretty confident that they got him and that he's dead. Yeah. I think we can say that he's dead. I think we can say he's dead. Reliable sources have told the rest is classified that Rishi Rauf has passed. He's passed. That's what we're led to believe. As his lawyer had predicted when he escaped. So he met the end that was deserved for a man who plotted some pretty awful terrorist attacks because of course this one didn't come off but some like 7-7 did and this was a guy responsible for it you know i was struck as we're going through this that this plot could have dramatically reshaped the transatlantic relationship led to the death of thousands and thousands of people had a massive economic impact and it also seems like it's just out of another era i guess it's

kind of in some ways the sort of high watermark of this al-Qaeda plotting against the U.S. and the UK that's coming out of Pakistan or getting pretty close to it. I think that's exactly right. 9-11 obviously is the big moment. But in those years afterwards, out of the tribal areas, al-Qaeda was able to recruit and was still able to organize big plots. I mean, it was able to organize this big plot with sending people back and forth with organizing bombs, something more.

ambitious than 9-11 and still focused with that 9-11 feel, I think, on airplanes. That's one of the interesting things about it. But yes, I think this was the high watermark. And after that, you see the attrition, partly because of those alleged CIA drone strikes. But it's true. The safe haven in Pakistan, diminished. It gives space to plot and organize. To plot and organize.

And 2007, 2008, that starts to diminish it to go away. And our cultural operational leadership is basically droned. into disappearing is that thing. Every few months, you know, the latest planner was being killed from Al-Qaeda. So their ability to do those big plots, I think this, you're right, this is the high watermark, this is the peak. And very fortunately, it didn't come off because it would have been absolutely enormous if it had come off. I mean, really, really, as I said, in some ways bigger than 9-11, perhaps, maybe less of a shock than 9-11 because you'd had 9-11. But in terms are the consequences for U.S., for U.S., for U.K., for counterterrorism, would have been just massive.

Yeah. I think it also, as we've, you know, teed up and alluded to throughout the series, this story says something, I think, important about the nature of the U.S., UK intelligence relationship, because throughout the story, you see the tremendous intimacy between the two services, but also I think how some of that intimacy can create enough surface area, so there's friction, if there are even slight differences, not even straightforward. strategic differences. I think with the Pakistanis, you know, in that relationship between CIA and ISI, there are big strategic differences in your priorities that leads to a kind of double game. Here, in between the U.S. and the U.K., you don't see that. But you do see still these opportunities for there to be mistrust injected into the relationship because we might not see eye to eye on how a counterterrorism investigation should run or sort of at what speed it should go. That's right. I think it's always said, oh, we have a really close relationship,

lots of intelligence sharing, counterterrorism, is really close. That's true. But it's also more complicated than that. Because even if you, whatever the tensions might be today, where you've got strategic political differences, even back then 20 years ago, this is a reminder that we've had some of those differences in it asked. In that point, it was tactics over counterterrorism. You know, were you going to, you know, use rendition and things like that? But also how much were you willing to let things run, how much risk you're going to take. Their attentions in the relationship. There's no point pretending there are.

You know, this is a good example of that. And of the Americans effectively throwing their weight around, I think. At the end of the day, they are the bigger partner in this relationship. And they can do that. And they did that in this case. And the Brits basically had to deal with it. But that's the reality of it. It's no point pretending there isn't friction in these relationships.

And that power imbalance is still the same today, I would argue. I think what is different and what is maybe an interesting question to kind of close this on is, you know, have the strategic priorities changed a bit? Because 20 years ago, both countries are really in lockstep on the geopolitical situation, right? Bush and Blair close. Exactly. And now, you know, are we in a, Are we in a different world where there are strategic differences over the way you resist the Russians in Ukraine or Greenland or tariffs? China or China.

Yeah. Where what I think about is are we in a situation where some of those strategic differences actually could go down and kind of get into the depths of the relationship and affect how it operates at a working level so that there's more. mistrust, more friction, or disconnection in some cases. Now, that's a lot easier said than done, but I do wonder about it because we're not in the world for 2006 anymore in this liaison relationship. No, I think that's exactly right. And we both talk to people who are, you know, who know this relationship very well, including at the moment, the people I speak to say, on an operational level, things are still going. The US, UK, the people operationally, whether they're dealing with counterterrorism or whether they're dealing with the Middle East, they're still talking,

working with each other. But you're right, the kind of top-level strategic tension is there, which is the difference from this time. And you do wonder when you speak to people, how long will it take before that, the strategic difference between the US and UK, the wider political and policy difference, starts to feed down into the intelligence relationship

and where the points of tension will start to come, where you'll be like, actually, can we share with them about this thing or that thing? I'm not sure it's breaking down yet. No. You wonder how sustainable keeping that close relationship is going to be in this very different environment where however much they try and pretend they're not, there are big differences, you know, between the two sides. That's right. And 20 years on, you haven't been able to take liquids on planes. Although they're starting to lift them.

Although it's starting to change. Yeah. So, yeah, I think that's a good place to end because it's 20 year legacy of this story and of MI5 busting this plot, which. where only now it feels getting over. That's right. Well, I think that's the right place to end this story, Gordon. We'd be remiss, of course, if we didn't say, go on. You've listened to this whole series.

Jump in and join the Declassified Club. Do that at the rest is classified.com. We'll also say we have a really exciting series coming up next, which is we are going to be digging deep into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. And actually getting beyond the politics of it to say what did the Russians do and not do in an attempt to affect that election. So we're going to be digging into that. And we'll also have a really exciting mini series for members looking at the connections. Again, in a really in-depth, in fact-based way, looking at the connections between Trump and his team and Russia.

and again, getting beyond the noise of the politics to say what's actually going on. It's going to be a good series. It's going to be a good series. Looking forward to that one. But in the meantime, we'll see you next time. See you then. Troy, the Odyssey, the Iliad, all of these great ancient epics depict a monumental collapse that destroyed the interconnected empires of 3,000 years ago. And to understand the Bronze Age apocalypse that Homer wrote about 400 years after it happened,

subscribe to Empire, world history, a fellow god. Goldhanger podcast where we are deep diving into the biggest imperial collapse in ancient history. To get a flavour of the series, here is a clip from our episode with none other than Stephen Fry. It is one of my favourite subjects, the story of the Greeks and the Siege of Troy and Odysseus's return home, of course. I say Greeks. Homer called them the Achaeans, the Danians, the Argyves. The word Greeks is a much later one, but it refers really to the Mycenaans, a warrior aristocracy, essentially, obsessed with honor and reputation that would give them an eternal glory, a Cleos, as they call it. It's the Cleopatra, it's in the name of so many Greeks, you know, Cleopatra

and all the sort of tea, you know, all the Eccles, Heracles, who's Hercules, you know, Hera's Glory. He was actually named Heracles because she hated him because he was a love child of Zeus, and she never liked Zeus's love child's, her husband, her errant husband. And so as a an attempt to placate her, Tariasius, because he was born in Thebes, suggested that he changed his name, as a baby, this was, to Heracles, the glory of Herod. Well, it didn't help much. It didn't help at all.

And then Athena even put her on Hera's breast when Hero was asleep because it would bond them if he suckled her milk. But she woke and saw it and tossed him away and her breast milk spread across the sky to form the milky way. I didn't know that story. Because Galaxy, of course, is from the Greek for milk, Galactic as in lactic. So the chocolate makers are right.

Anyway, this is completely separate. Lovely. Keep going. Well, we really hope you enjoyed that clip. To hear more on the Bronze Age apocalypse and how it shaped the ancient Greek epics. Just subscribe to Empire, wherever you get your podcasts.