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How the U.S., U.K. and Pakistan Teamed Up To Stop Another 9/11


But that didn’t mean the U.K. wouldn’t play close to the edge. In their quest to build an airtight case by catching the plotters red-handed, the British wanted to let the terrorists proceed far longer than what the Americans could stomach. At one point, according to a former CIA official, London floated an unorthodox proposal: They would permit the plotters to pass through Heathrow Airport security with their explosives, board North America-bound planes and let them settle onto their flights. At a predetermined time, the pilots would announce regretfully that the planes had some sort of mechanical problem and ask all passengers to get off. The authorities would be waiting at the entryways, beyond the jet bridge, where they would arrest the suspects.
When briefed on this plan, the Americans couldn’t believe it was serious. They gently responded, yes, it might work. Then again, the bombers might see each other inside the terminals and realize what was about to happen. One of the plotters might then decide to blow up right then and there — within the confines of a crowded airport or a fully fueled U.S. plane with 250-plus people strapped inside. The plan didn’t stay on the table for long.
As both American and British authorities unearthed bits and pieces of this plot, there remained “lots of angst and concern” in Washington that London was moving at the speed of molasses, according to Larry Pfeiffer, at the time chief of staff to CIA Director Michael Hayden. The CIA thought the 7/7 attacks the year before, in which al-Qaeda suicide operatives had struck London’s transportation system at rush hour, showed that British security services needed to ruthlessly excise the Islamist threat before an even larger plot occurred. “People thought that was the wake-up call for them,” Pfeiffer recalled of the subway bombings, “but here it was, a year later, and they still were struggling.”
From Washington’s perspective, each day the terrorists walked free, the United States was decidedly less safe. The Americans, many former officials told me, considered this plot to be the biggest operation since 9/11 and treated it as such. On the other hand, the British viewed the conspiracy as deadly but ultimately manageable through aggressive surveillance and policing. At any rate, the effort was consuming significant national security resources on both sides of the Atlantic, and the Americans wanted to crush this conspiracy as fast as possible. Thus, when an opportunity to nab the mastermind in Pakistan became available, the choice was obvious. The strong Anglo-American alliance and British legal needs notwithstanding, the United States was confident in the decision to go it alone.
As President Bush’s homeland security adviser Frances Townsend put it, “Our citizens. Our planes.”


But the Anglo-American dynamic was a symbol of harmonious unity compared to the fraught relationship with Pakistan’s spy agency, the ISI.
The U.S. and Pakistan had been carrying out joint operations on Pakistani soil since mid-2002. Pakistani intelligence officials certainly had their gripes about their American counterparts. During one meeting between the American and Pakistani spy chiefs around the time of the London arrests, ISI Director General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani muttered, “I’m tired of you Americans saying we are not doing enough to fight the terrorists.” The Pakistanis were irritated about being blamed for every slipup that occurred, and didn’t want to be left hanging if an operation on their turf went sideways. So when Kayani asked CIA Director of Operations Jose Rodriguez, “Are you with me?” — was the Agency behind the ISI in its counterterrorism operations? — Rodriguez told me he knew what answer was needed to keep the delicate relationship on track.
“Of course,” he replied.
Perhaps they should have been looking closer to where they were sipping their tea. Public Enemy Number One Osama bin Laden was lounging at his Abbottabad compound a little over two hours by car on the E35 Expressway.
Despite the freedom of movement terrorists were enjoying in Pakistan at this time, OVERT was, in many ways, the highwater point in the comity between the American and Pakistani intelligence services. The greatest level of cooperation occurred in the first years following 9/11, when the two nations worked together to down many of the worst of the worst. Sometimes, they had to take pains to cover up the extent of this cooperation, as in the case of the drone strike that took out al-Qaeda external operations chief Hamza Rabi’a in 2005. It quickly became clear that Washington and Islamabad had worked together on the operation. A Pakistani official urged the press not to examine the specifics of his death too closely. “Comments on media reports that it was a Predator strike would invoke sovereignty issues,” the official gamely noted. “Let’s enjoy the fact that al-Qaeda has lost another key person.”
The takedown of Rashid Rauf, a U.K. citizen and the liquid bomber mastermind, was a similar model of cooperation. On August 9, Rodriguez recalled, intelligence suggested Rauf was on the move in Pakistan. His phone was pinging off a series of cell towers. He was traveling fast on a highway — probably inside a vehicle, likely a bus.
Rodriguez and other former intelligence officials I interviewed described the setup: ISI officers had set up at a mobile checkpoint on a patch of earth where the highway intersected with some railway tracks. A CIA officer was on the ground, providing technical assistance. Rauf’s cellphone had been positively identified, and was headed right toward the checkpoint.
This was a golden opportunity to take down an al-Qaeda operative known to be targeting American citizens on American aircraft. To let Rauf pass through the checkpoint unmolested could mean letting him escape into the tribal areas, where it would be difficult, if not impossible, to capture him. Yet to arrest or kill him would set off a firestorm in London, since British authorities were still collecting evidence against the local cell for the trial. Rodriguez had to make the call.
Rauf was snoozing as the bus approached the checkpoint. When it suddenly came to a halt by the railway tracks, Rauf opened his eyes and glanced out the window. It wasn’t the usual bored policeman or train operator idling along the side of the road, but a unit of elite police officers armed with gleaming Kalashnikov rifles. In the group were several plainclothes men; one motioned to the driver to open the front door. The driver obeyed and the officers told him to pull over and cut the motor. The bus driver quickly complied.
As the fog of sleep lifted, Rauf quickly put two and two together. According to his written notes that were later obtained by German authorities, he felt a terrible sinking feeling when he realized he had forgotten to switch off one of his cell phones. In a desperate, pointless effort, he turned off a few phones before the authorities made their way to the back of the bus. After visually identifying Rauf, they cuffed and hooded him, bundling the terrorist mastermind into the back of a waiting van. He didn’t put up a fight. It was over in a few minutes. Rashid Rauf was in custody.

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