by Norm Dixon | September 6, 2006
The “foiling” of an alleged “terror plot” to bring down passenger planes between Britain and the United States has revealed the existence of a highly coordinated international network that aims to spread public panic and create distrust between communities in order to undermine hard-fought-for freedoms. The seat of this conspiracy is not in the working-class neighbourhoods of London, but in the corridors of power in Downing Street and Washington, and in the plush suites of the media moguls’ HQs.
As of August 29, 11 men had been formally charged with conspiracy to murder and “preparing acts of terrorism”. Three others were charged with failing to tell the authorities about the alleged plans, and a 17-year-old has been charged with possessing materials “useful to a person preparing acts of terrorism”. All say they are innocent. Five people remain in custody without charge under the British Labour government’s harsh “anti-terror” detention laws and, so far, four others have been released without charge.
The official charge sheets add little to the accusations made by police at the time of the arrests in London, Birmingham and High Wycombe on August 10. Following the early morning raids by hundreds of police on up to 50 homes and businesses, London’s Metropolitan Police deputy commissioner Paul Stephenson declared that “untold death and destruction” and “mass murder on an unimaginable scale” had been thwarted. “We believe that the terrorists’ aim was to smuggle explosives on to planes in hand luggage to detonate them in flight”, he alleged.
In Washington, US homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff provided the starting point for the more spectacular “off the record” claims by anonymous officials. “It was sophisticated, it had a lot of members and it was international in scope”, Associated Press quoted Chertoff on August 10. “It was in some respects suggestive” of an al Qaeda plot. He also claimed that the attack plans, to be carried out with bomb components “disguised as beverages, electronic devices and other common objects”, were “close to execution stage”.
In the following days, the Western media disseminated a vast array of unsubstantiated (and often conflicting) accusations by anonymous government, police and intelligence “sources”, each more hair raising than the last. These were dutifully repeated and elaborated on by an army of media-appointed security “analysts”, “experts” and “commentators”, then regurgitated as established fact by the fashion parade of air-headed TV anchors and hosts.
Doubts, questions multiply
Yet almost from the moment the arrests hit the headlines, big holes began to develop in the propaganda against the detainees, and doubts about the extent of the “terror plot” — and even whether it ever existed — have multiplied.
It is now clear that the claim that an attack was “imminent” was completely false. No airline reservations had been made or tickets purchased by the accused; several didn’t even have passports. No bombs had been constructed.
The August 28 New York Times reported on British officials backtracking on significant aspects of the case and admitted that “investigators have still not determined whether there was a target date for the attacks or how many planes were to be involved. They say the estimate of 10 planes was speculative and exaggerated”. British Home Secretary John Reid’s August 20 assertion on the US ABC program This Week that it is “relatively simple to make quite an effective bomb” on an aircraft has been thoroughly discredited.
The August 19 Guardian reported that “police sources have confirmed that the alleged plot involved the use of TATP, triacetone triperoxide ... This has led to speculation that [hydrogen] peroxide, acetone and sulphuric acid might have been disguised as bottles of drink to get through hand baggage checks. Forensic explosives experts say if this was the case the liquids would have had to be mixed on the plane to attain the crystallised TATP explosive.”
However, as Gerry Murray from the Forensic Science Agency in Northern Ireland told the Guardian, “this would be very difficult, particularly if carried out in the toilet of a passenger jet. “The liquids have to be kept at freezing point when they are mixed and the TATP crystals must be dried before being ignited, a process which could take several hours. Some 250g (9oz) of solid TATP would be needed for a substantial explosion, but ... if the individual had never made the explosive before he would need a great deal of luck to manufacture it on a plane.”
The official charges against those accused of planning to construct a bomb mention only the possession of hydrogen peroxide, found under most people’s kitchen sinks, and unspecified electronic devices. But as former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray pointed out in an August 17 post on his website(
'Pakistani link’ disappears
But the biggest blow to the “unofficial” government-media tag team’s case has been the collapse of the “Pakistani link” between the plotters and al Qaeda. Without a shred of evidence, article after article quoted US officials, unnamed government “sources” and sundry “experts” declaring that the alleged plot bore the “hallmark” (or “footprint” or “fingerprints”) of al Qaeda. It was to be the “real deal” (a phrase that really caught on among TV’s Kens and Barbies), “another 9/11”. A day after the arrests, the British Independent baldly stated that a “British-based al Qaeda cell” was behind the plot.
Based on yet more anonymous “sources”, this time from Pakistan’s notorious secret police agency the ISI, as well as statements from Pakistan’s military dictatorship, the Western media was awash with claims that the arrests in Britain were triggered by Pakistan’s detention on August 9 of Rashid Rauf, a dual British-Pakistan citizen resident in Pakistan since 2002. Rashid’s brother Tayib was among the 24 detained on August 10.
For two weeks, almost every media report claimed that Rashid had “links” to al Qaeda. Rashid Rauf is “a key al Qaeda operative”, Islamabad’s foreign minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao told the August 12 NYT. “American officials in Washington concurred that Mr Rauf was believed to be the principal facilitator [of] the plot”, the newspaper reported. The August 17 NYT reported that “a former Pakistani official with close ties to intelligence agencies ... said Rauf had 'longstanding links with [the outlawed Kashmir terrorist organisation] Jaish-e-Mohammed and also had al Qaeda connections”. The official cited “frequent calls” from those in Britain under surveillance (i.e., his brother Tayib) as evidence for his role.
Not to be outdone, the August 18 Guardian wrote, “Pakistani security sources claimed that the alleged plot had been sanctioned by Ayman al-Zawahiri, the man believed to be al Qaeda’s second-in-command ... a senior official said yesterday: 'We have reason to believe that it was al Qaeda sanctioned and was probably cleared by al-Zawahiri.’” The August 19 British Daily Mail went even further, claiming on the say-so of unnamed ISI sources that Rashid “went to Afghanistan twice, where he made contact with senior al Qaeda commanders”.
Meanwhile, the August 18 Scotsman developed its unique version of events: “An al Qaeda operative who masterminded the alleged plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic is hiding in mountainous terrain in north-eastern Afghanistan, a Pakistan intelligence official has claimed ... The suspect allegedly exchanged messages, carried by a courier, with detained British national Rashid Rauf ... The wanted al Qaeda operative is also said to be a close aide to Egyptian-born al-Qaeda No2 Ayman al-Zawahiri, the official said. Detained terror suspects have told interrogators that al-Zawahiri probably approved the plan to blow up passenger planes.”
The August 20 NYT, in a detailed version of the tale, reported that a “British police official, who has been briefed on the inquiry”, claimed that the Rauf family had “been flagged red for months” for its “links with extremist groups in Pakistan that ... work hand in glove with al Qaeda”. According to the police source, authorities saw Tayib as the leader of the plot in Britain and Rashid as the connection to Pakistan.
Further into the article, it became clear that the tenuous Rauf family “links” with “extremist groups” in Pakistan and al Qaeda were little more than guilt by association. The NYT wrote: “About a year after arriving in Pakistan, Rashid Rauf married and later settled in ... Bahawalpur, which is also the home of [Jaish-e-Mohammed], one of the most extreme Islamist groups in Pakistan, with strong ties to al Qaeda. His sister-in-law is married to the brother of the group’s founder ...”
On August 23, Tayib Rauf was quietly released without charge. On August 28, the government announced that it had requested the extradition of Rashid Rauf from Pakistan. However, the request was not related to the alleged terror plot, but to an investigation into the murder of a relative in 2002.
Exploiting 'terror’
Following the arrests, onerous “security” measures were immediately imposed on airline travellers. Hand baggage was banned on flights out of Britain. All liquids, lotions and gels were banned. Baby milk and essential medicines were allowed only if their owners tasted them in front of airline or security officials.
In the US, the Homeland Security Warning System was set, for the first time, at “red alert”, which indicates a “severe risk of terrorist attacks”, and in Britain the threat level was raised to critical.
Yet all these measures took place after the arrests of all the “main suspects”. This prompted the British Guardian on August 19 to conclude: “It seems the measures forced upon British airports for several days were unnecessary. Police sources and the government indicated that if they were looking for anyone else those individuals were peripheral to the inquiry.”
Senior US and British government officials and the capitalist media seized on the alleged “al Qaeda” terror plot to opportunistically incite fear and panic among the general public, and to exploit the chaos and tension to shore up the flagging credibility of the unpopular US-British war in Iraq and Israel’s US-British-backed carnage in Lebanon.
US and British politicians also pressed for more draconian detention and spying powers, arguing that civil liberties need to be curbed to fight “terror”. On August 18, US President George Bush announced that he would pursue congressional approval for warrantless phonetapping. In Britain, the Labour government is again seeking the power to detain people suspected of terrorism for 90 days before being charged (currently 28 days), and Washington is pushing to be able to hold people without charge for 28 days, up from the present domestic norm of around 48 hours.
From Green Left Weekly, September 6, 2006.
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