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- [00:04]
David McCloskey
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@therealDisclassified.com you're deep into.
- [00:18]
Gordon Carrera
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- [02:28]
David McCloskey
Breaking news we're getting from the PA Newswire that there's been reports of an.
- [02:32]
Jonathan Evans
Explosion outside Liverpool street station.
- [02:36]
David McCloskey
Well, there may be fatalities.
- [02:38]
Jonathan Evans
We need ambulances and water to Russell to Pink Cross. They're moving back please. Most Londoners actually are not going to be afraid by this. I think they're going to continue their daily business. Consider the attack last week on British soil.
- [03:00]
David McCloskey
An attack on the civilized world and.
- [03:03]
Jonathan Evans
What we are confronting here is an evil ideology. It is not a clash of civilizations. All civilized people, Muslim or other, feel revulsion at it. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.
- [03:21]
David McCloskey
We were already feeling under the Kosh and worried. They got wave after wave to the throw at us. Can we cope? Are we running out of troops? Well, welcome to the Rest is classified. I'm David McCloskey.
- [03:33]
Jonathan Evans
And I'm Gordon Carrera.
- [03:35]
David McCloskey
And that was the deputy head and later head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, reflecting on what it was like in the aftermath of the July 7 bombings when London, two weeks later, on July 21, almost gets hit again. Now, we should clarify here for our American listeners, what does it mean to be under the cosh?
- [03:55]
Jonathan Evans
Under the cosh is under pressure.
- [03:56]
David McCloskey
Okay. This is the feeling in my five that someone has been beating them with a stick.
- [04:00]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah.
- [04:00]
David McCloskey
For two weeks.
- [04:01]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah.
- [04:02]
David McCloskey
And then all of a sudden we have another, I mean, nearly successful.
- [04:06]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah.
- [04:07]
David McCloskey
Attack, close run thing. Multiple attempted suicide bombings in London on July 21. The bombs have kind of fizzled, not gone off. And the last time we left this story, there's essentially a manhunt on now to try to capture the potential bombers.
- [04:26]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah, that's right. It's come out of the blue. The warriors, you've got these people who are willing to kill and to die. They could have more bombs ready to go. So it is a manhunt. Now, it's interesting, at this point in the manhunt, one of the things they do is use communications data to track them down. Now, if you remember back to our Snowden episodes, Happy Days, when one of the things Snowden reveals is that the US had a massive database of all the phone calls made in the us. This kind of metadata, not the content of the calls, but the connections. Well, the UK actually had something very similar, but very, very secret at the time. And it was interesting because I remember talking to people and gchq, if they'd been asked, could have said, no, we don't collect phone records in bulk like Snowden says, you know, the Americans do.
- [05:10]
David McCloskey
GCHQ being the uk.
- [05:13]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah, that's right. But the reason they didn't really want to kind of go out saying that was because they knew MI5 did. So MI5 was collected bulk phone records from the phone companies in order to be able to do data analysis. And this is the first time after 2017 when they really use this kind of tool to do contact chaining, where you're looking at what phones are connected to what Other phones, because they realized that the attackers had abandoned their phones. They'd used good operational security. But by looking at the call records in bulk, they could try and work out which phone calls have been connecting to other phone calls, try and track down kind of family and associates of the men. So they're doing this kind of contact chaining through the numbers that they've got for these men, through some of the phones that maybe have been abandoned or where they've got IDs for some of the bombers, where they can then find a phone and using data analysis to try and track them down.
- [06:06]
David McCloskey
So just to bring us into that moment, though, so we essentially have. We have bombs that haven't gone off.
- [06:11]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah.
- [06:12]
David McCloskey
And then once the suicide bombers realize it's been unsuccessful, they essentially.
- [06:17]
Jonathan Evans
They flee.
- [06:18]
David McCloskey
They flee. Yeah. Now, so what is the connection? How does MI5 work from that?
- [06:24]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah.
- [06:24]
David McCloskey
To phone numbers?
- [06:26]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah. So in some cases they've got material from the bombs and from the devices and the rucksacks, which of course have not exploded, which they can recover and use. They've also got to get to a name to get to a name, and that's the crucial thing, is they're going to get names and bits of IDs from effectively the bags. So a bit similar to 77 in that sense. And they've also got CCTV of the bombers, you know, in some cases. So they've got some clues and it's easier than 77 where it's been blown up and it's in a tunnel underground.
- [06:57]
David McCloskey
And I guess these guys having planned to die. Yeah, they brought their wallet with them.
- [07:02]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah, exactly.
- [07:03]
David McCloskey
There's. There's pocket litter in bags. Even though MI5 wouldn't have the. The sort of real time ability to conduct, like, facial recognition analysis, they'll have the CCTV and photos that they can sort of start to use to get an id.
- [07:18]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah. Because these men have just kind of fled. Weirdly, one of them actually flees. I mean, this sounds bizarre, but the one who was at Shepherd's Bush Station flees down, I think, Wood Lane, which is where I was sitting. The BBC.
- [07:31]
David McCloskey
I must have gone, maybe ran right by Gordon, maybe.
- [07:33]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah, maybe 100 yards from me, maybe while I was sitting at my desk.
- [07:37]
David McCloskey
And I guess at that point, not like there was police chasing him, he just.
- [07:40]
Jonathan Evans
No, it's failed to go off and he's just run. So, you know, they've just escaped. Now they're going to then try and trace where those phones are and try and geolocate the phones. I Mean, we talked a bit about how you do that in the bin Laden story in Pakistan.
- [07:53]
David McCloskey
They took their phones with them.
- [07:55]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah, in some cases. And so, yeah, and they're looking for the phones that they're associated with, but in some cases they've got their phones and they've been able to work out which phones they've got. And so they're doing that thing, a bit like the Bin Laden thing, where you've got people driving around trying to kind of geo locate the phones and seeing if they can work out where they are. And so they're going to eventually catch one of them in Birmingham, another two in West London in a kind of dramatic raid where armed police surround a building with TV cameras waiting. As they come out in surrender, they see one other phone signal zipping through London really fast and they're like, well, you know, how's this person moving so fast? And the reason they work out is that the target is on the Eurostar and they're heading to Paris, you know.
- [08:34]
David McCloskey
That'S why 150 miles an hour, 150.
- [08:37]
Jonathan Evans
Miles to London, you don't do that in the traffic in a car. And that person is actually going to end up in Rome where they're going to be able to trace him and his name is Hussein Osman. But by this point, the hunt for Hussein Osman has already, by the time they catch him in Rome has already ended in, I think, one of the most terrible tragedies of this period. So going back to your kind of question about how they trace them. So on that night, the first 24 hours after the attack, about 2:15am, so I, I guess that's 14 hours after the first attempt to carry out the bombings. The police are going to find a gym membership card for Hossein Osman in one of the bombers abandoned bags. Now they then trace that to a block of flats not far from Stockwell, which is actually fairly close to where we're sitting right now in South London. And that's also a station where one of the bombers was thought to have got on the tube and they've got a picture of him now and they codename him Nettletip. So this is the guy they're looking for, Nettletip Nedletip, which is, you know, again, feels like a randomly generated codename rather than something. So they've got a block of flats they've got from the gym, the address linked to it, and it's called Scotia Road, Tulse Hill. Two police surveillance teams who've got members of the military attached because I think it's all hands to the deck. Arrive at this address early hours of July 22nd. So again, very early morning after the bombing. First problem is it's a communal block with nine flats. They've got an observation van parked outside which is trying to capture video of people who are going in and out. Now, meanwhile, a firearms team from CO19, which is the firearms team of the Metropolitan Police, had only been deployed later that morning. And they're racing to get there to this block of flats, but they're not there yet. Now, a surveillance officer, apparently from the sas, from the Special Forces, is in the van, but he is urinating into a bottle, which is what you do if you're a surveillance officer.
- [10:34]
David McCloskey
You can't leave.
- [10:34]
Jonathan Evans
You can't leave. But he's doing that at 9:30am When a man in a denim jacket comes out, so he can't video him, but he gives a quick description and says it could be worth someone having a second look at this man. And they've got this picture of Nettletip Hussein Osman and they're looking for him. Now, other surveillance follow the man as he gets onto a bus and they're trying to get a good look at him. No one officially confirms it was the man in the picture. One person, one surveillance officer says there's a resemblance between the picture they've been given and the man. A good likeness. Others say they can't confirm it, though. Now, then, the man gets off the bus at Brixton tube station. He makes a phone call as he does and then gets back on the bus. Now, again, someone who's watching him says there's a likeness and they also say he's kind of twitchy or nervous. Now, could he be looking for surveillance?
- [11:24]
David McCloskey
But of course, there is particularly hard evidence at that point. Right. And there's no. Again, this is 2005, so it's not like there's an algorithm that they're using to sort of.
- [11:34]
Jonathan Evans
To confirm it.
- [11:35]
David McCloskey
Confirm it.
- [11:35]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah, you've got often getting glimpses of him through surveillance, and the general view seems to be he looks a bit like him and he's done this weird thing of getting on and off the bus at Brixton tube station. Now, some people kind of at the time think, well, is that suspicious? But actually the reason is Brixton tube station has been shut, so there's an absolutely plausible reason for it. Meanwhile, there's lots of confusion at the control centre at Scotland Yard, which is at room 1600, 16th floor of Scotland Yard. It's run by a woman called Cressida Dick, who's in charge that morning. She later becomes the Commissioner of the Met. So the head of the whole Metropolitan Police police. There's about 20 or 30 people in the room. The screens on the wall, there's officers with headphones in touch with the surveillance officers and they're reporting what they're seeing through kind of tiny covert microphones they've got hidden in their clothing called cougar radios. But there's quite a lot of confusion. There's a lot of different messages, a lot of different things going on. Somehow some people seem to become more certain that the person that they're following is Nettletip, even though there's not been a positive identification.
- [12:36]
David McCloskey
Why are they becoming more certain?
- [12:38]
Jonathan Evans
That's what's not clear. And there's definitely different levels of confidence within the team. And meantime, the firearms team are now still racing to kind of catch up with what's going on, but they're not there yet and they're just hearing that someone's being followed, that he might be twitchy, things like that. Now, at the control room, there's also an order to stop the suspect and from Cressida Dick, who's kind of in charge of the operation, a decision that he mustn't be allowed to get on the Tube. But, you know, what does that actually mean? Yeah, stopping him mustn't be allowed. Does that mean intercept him, arrest him, kill him? The armed police are racing there, thinking, stop him at all costs. So he gets off the bus at Stockwell Tube and he heads down to the northbound Northern Line platform and he's not carrying anything. The surveillance officers follow him down to the train and they sit around him. And now it's one of those things, you know, the train just happens to be waiting at the platform for a signal to leave and it's going to wait there for longer than normal. It's being held up. Meantime, the armed police now arrive and they're going to vault the ticket barriers and they are racing down to the. To the train. The comms don't really work properly. Underground, back to headquarters. The surveillance officers then are blocking the doors so they can't be shut. As the armed officers arrive, there are 17 other passengers on the carriage who are going to have very confusing accounts of what goes on, as you can understand, because it's going to all unfold in a matter of seconds.
- [14:00]
David McCloskey
Total chaos.
- [14:01]
Jonathan Evans
It's total chaos. Where is he? The armed officers shout. Surveillance officers point to the man. The man stands up a Surveillance officer pushes him back into his seat and restrains him. And then an armed officer runs up to him, fires seven shots point blank into his head. And it's a few minutes past 10am wow.
- [14:23]
David McCloskey
Before we even talk about who this guy actually is, I mean the seven shots into the head at point blank range feels, I mean, is that procedure?
- [14:31]
Jonathan Evans
I mean it's interesting. There is a procedure called Kratos. And the Metropolitan police and it's their firearms officers have learned this from talking to Sri Lanka and Israel which are two countries which have dealt specifically with suicide bombers. So the fear is, you know, you've got someone who might detonate. So if you think that's the case and they could have their finger on the trigger or be able to reach for a trigger to a bomb, you.
- [14:57]
David McCloskey
Basically have to shut their nervous system down.
- [15:00]
Jonathan Evans
Exactly. So you go for the brainstem. So they haven't got time to actually press a button or do anything. And people have been trained and there is a procedure, but it's not actually clear that Kratos has been authorized. No one has given the decision. This is Kratos.
- [15:11]
David McCloskey
And there is actually inside the Met, a procedure to authorize that.
- [15:15]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah, okay, yeah. So you get a picture of just chaos, confusion, miscommunication, poor procedure. I mean it is disaster. And of course when the news first breaks that morning, the assumption is this is one of the bombers. And I mean I watched there's a very good BBC TV documentary about this period which was on a few months ago and I was taken a bit aback by watching it because at this point in the story they play a clip of me, a younger version of me on the, on the lunchtime news.
- [15:43]
David McCloskey
I think 22 year old Gordon Carrera. Yeah, not a shock of gray.
- [15:47]
Jonathan Evans
And the words I say that the police are insisting that the shooting was directly linked to the attempted bombing the day before. Now on one level it's true because I am reporting and it's a good lesson for journalists which is always report your sources. Because you know, I'm not saying it was directly linked, I'm saying the police are insisting it was directly.
- [16:07]
David McCloskey
Right.
- [16:07]
Jonathan Evans
Which is what they were saying that morning. So I'm reporting accurately what I'm told. And you know, the police at that point point are saying this was linked. And of course in the broadest sense it is linked because you know, it's part of you.
- [16:19]
David McCloskey
I think it's linked.
- [16:20]
Jonathan Evans
But there's going to be some, I would describe them as dodgy briefings at that point. For instance, the claim that the man had been seen jumping the barriers, but that was actually the police who were vaulting the barriers. He picks up a copy of a free newspaper, taps his car to get in and walks down perfectly calmly. And yet the briefings are going to be like someone was seen running and jumping. Or also that there was an Asian man with a rucksack. Actually, that's one of the surveillance officers. So there's a lot of information.
- [16:45]
David McCloskey
Are they sourcing that from just random passerby who then say, oh, someone jumped the barriers and so that gets brought into the briefing as the suspect.
- [16:55]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah. So in some cases, this is eyewitness accounts which are wrongly confusing surveillance officers or armed officers with the man. I mean, there is one particularly bad moment, though, where there's a previously scheduled news conference conference they're doing that afternoon to show CCTV from the bombing the previous day, and they go ahead with it. And the Met Police Commissioner says, I understand. The man was challenged and refused to obey. Now, that is not true.
- [17:21]
David McCloskey
This is not true.
- [17:22]
Jonathan Evans
Which is not true. So, I mean, again, he's, you know, saying what he thought was true, but that's absolutely not true. So, I mean, it's pretty disastrous. And, of course, it becomes really clear after they've shot him. You're going to check the documents on him. It's absolutely clear. Almost instantly, actually, after that 10am shooting, that the man they've shot dead isn't one of the bombers. It's only the next morning, it's confirmed he's an innocent Brazilian electrician called Jean Charles de Menezes. It is still, I think, one of the most shocking things that happened, because it is basically an execution.
- [17:55]
David McCloskey
Right.
- [17:55]
Jonathan Evans
Of an innocent man. I just think you put yourself back into that moment and you think, this guy's just getting on a bus.
- [18:01]
David McCloskey
Just getting on.
- [18:01]
Jonathan Evans
He's getting on the bus, getting on the tube.
- [18:03]
David McCloskey
Wow.
- [18:03]
Jonathan Evans
Trying to go to work, and suddenly police, you know, shouting, it's him, pointing to him. And then someone comes in.
- [18:10]
David McCloskey
He doesn't even resist.
- [18:11]
Jonathan Evans
He doesn't even resist. He just kind of gets up because someone's saying it's him. And the next thing you know, someone comes and fires seven shots into your. I mean, it's just like, wow, it's totally shocking.
- [18:21]
David McCloskey
I mean, I guess, Gord. I mean, one very obvious, I mean, tragedy and aftermath of this is the shooting of the Brazilian electrician, John Charl de Menezes, by the police. I mean, I'd imagine there's a whole set of inquiries.
- [18:36]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah.
- [18:37]
David McCloskey
For that. I Mean, where did that end up?
- [18:39]
Jonathan Evans
And, I mean, there was independent Police Complaints Commission inquiries into it. You know, there was quite a lot of controversy about it and about some of the evidence and whether the evidence had been collected properly at the time and eventually a kind of set of inquests and called compensation. So it is going to be something which kind of really haunts particularly the Metropolitan Police for years, the mistakes that have been made that day and in that operation.
- [19:00]
David McCloskey
Yeah. Let's take a break and when we come back, we'll see who the actual bombers were and their link to the 77 attacks.
- [19:10]
Jonathan Evans
See you after the break.
- [19:12]
David McCloskey
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- [19:20]
Jonathan Evans
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- [19:24]
David McCloskey
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- [20:03]
Jonathan Evans
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- [20:14]
David McCloskey
Well, welcome back. We are now, I guess, Gordon, finally going to figure out who in the world these bombers actually were who attempted to conduct multiple suicide bombings two weeks after 7. 7 on July 21, 2005.
- [20:31]
Jonathan Evans
That's right. And the key figure in, in 21 7, as it's known, is a guy called Mukhtar Said Ibrahim. Interestingly enough, he's not from the Pakistani community. He's actually an Eritrean immigrant who'd moved to the United Kingdom when he was 12 and he'd recruited the others. So he is the ringleader. He's the Muhammad Sidi Khan of this cell. And generally they come from around Finsbury Park Mosque in London, which was known at this point, it's not anymore, but was known at that point to be a kind of hub for radical jihadist activity way back from the 90s. Most of the others in his cell are going to be linked to Africa. Mukhtar had some run ins with the police, found religion, was a kind of regular at the mosque. Interesting enough, he a bit like Mohamed Sidi Khan, maybe not quite to the same extent, is going to have come to the attention of the authorities multiple times. Lower level stuff, Outward Bound trips in the uk, photographed, you know, under surveillance as part of a kind of wider surveillance at Finsbury Park Mosque later in the year. He's also going to get involved in a violent confrontation with a police officer. But the crucial bit here is Mukhtar also went to Pakistan and he's the only one of the group involved in this plot to go to Pakistan, and the others are then recruited by him. And crucially, here, Mukhtar is also linked to Rashid Ralph.
- [21:43]
David McCloskey
And Rashid Rauf is the sort of Al Qaeda facilitator, middleman, the connector, who is. Who's fled the UK because he stabbed his uncle.
- [21:53]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah.
- [21:54]
David McCloskey
And is in Pakistan serving almost as a talent spotter for Britons who are coming on this journey over to Pakistan. And he's sort of, I guess, calling through this community to figure out who could be useful to Al Qaeda.
- [22:05]
Jonathan Evans
Exactly. And, you know, we looked last time at him having done that for Mohammed Sidi Khan and Shahzad Tamwir from 77 and actually Mukhtar from 217 looks like he's out there roughly the Same time, late 2004, and again is going to be taken around the tribal areas by Rashid Rauf. Mukhtar actually heads out December 2004 with some other wannabes. He claims they were stopped by MI5 at the airport and they missed their initial flight after being questioned, which shows, again, he's kind of, you know, attracting attention, actually more on the way out than Mohammed Sadiq Khan was. And he says, oh, I'm unemployed. And then he's carrying £2,000 in cash, brand new video camera, and he claims, well, I'm going to a wedding. And he's got a full cover story. He's got a fake ring for the wedding and he says the cash for the wedding. So eventually he's allowed to go.
- [22:50]
David McCloskey
Would he potentially have been flagged because he's actually not Pakistani? Like, I don't know if those connections would have been made inside Special Branch, but that would be an obvious reason, sort of say, yeah, wedding. Yeah.
- [23:02]
Jonathan Evans
Whose wedding?
- [23:02]
David McCloskey
Now, did Mukhtar Said Ibrahim, did he encounter MSK And Tenwyr the 77 plotters, when he was there.
- [23:10]
Jonathan Evans
So Ralph is the connecting person and they're out there definitely at the same time at the very end of 2004. But there's no evidence about the meeting. And Ralph later will say he received information that a new group of three Britons had arrived in the tribal area. Mukhtar is one of them and he again takes them out to be trained in explosives. Now, I mean, this is crazy. During the training, two others with Mukhtar are killed. They are blown up when mixing the chemicals. So Mukhtar is kind of a bit, bit away from them. And so he's nearby and he doesn't die, but he continues with his training and then he heads to Britain, but he rushes it a bit because his visa is going to expire. Now. Here, I think, is the really interesting difference. Unlike Mohammed Sidi Khan, Ralph loses contact with Mukhtar. So, you know, remember Mohamed Sidi Khan? We Learned last time 77 plotter. He's having phone calls with Rashid Ralph. But with Mukhtar for 21 7, there's no contact. They lose touch. And this could have been the crucial factor because, remember, the 217 bombs don't go off properly.
- [24:15]
David McCloskey
Yeah.
- [24:16]
Jonathan Evans
And Ralph has been giving the 77 plotters advice on how to make the bombs and get them to work properly. And he's not able to do that with the 217 plotters. Yeah. So that could be the reason why those bombs don't go off when 77 did.
- [24:31]
David McCloskey
The jihad doesn't always attract the best and brightest, does it?
- [24:35]
Jonathan Evans
And I think this guy is a good example.
- [24:36]
David McCloskey
Yeah. What would explain the lack of contact, though? It was just Mukhtar is just incompetent.
- [24:41]
Jonathan Evans
Maybe he's nervous about. Maybe he's nervous about it. Not entirely clear. So, yeah, I guess that takes us post the end as we kind of look back on this story. I mean, Rashid Rauf, he's still out there. He's still out there. And I mean, Rashid Ralph is a really interesting figure. He's not done. He actually wants to plan something even bigger than not just 7 7, but even bigger than 9 11. I mean, that's what's kind of crazy. Is he. Because he's going to come up, you know, in the next year after 77 with the most ambitious plot al Qaeda ever tries to, which is known as the airline or the liquid bombs plot, which is going to be 2006. And if you wonder why you can't take liquids on planes in lots of places or, you know, there's a limit to it.
- [25:21]
David McCloskey
Rashid Ralph.
- [25:21]
Jonathan Evans
Rashid Ralph is amazing because he's behind this plot, which is to use liquid explosives in drink bottles to blow up seven transatlantic flights midair with teams coming out of the uk. So again, a kind of. It would have been like 9 11, but coming from the UK.
- [25:37]
David McCloskey
Wow. One thing about him so in the sort of MI5 wash up of 7 7. And yeah, 217 was Ralph identified pretty quickly thereafter as the sort of lynching.
- [25:51]
Jonathan Evans
So he wasn't in a lot of the reporting at the time. You know, I wonder inside MI5 how long it took them to work out. He's a key figure. They definitely work it out by the following year. Because 2006 is this airline bomb plot. We might look at that as a separate. Separate stories. It's a really interesting story and they know he is the key to that. And he actually. It's wild because he actually gets. He gets arrested by the Pakistanis as the plot is being wound up, but then later will escape and then at one point will be droned and killed. So that's the kind of fate of.
- [26:23]
David McCloskey
Escape from Pakistani custody.
- [26:25]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah. In a very odd situation, which is.
- [26:28]
David McCloskey
You know, the frenemy.
- [26:29]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah. I think he goes to the bathroom and, you know, he's allowed by the people holding him to go to the bathroom and then just does a runner.
- [26:36]
David McCloskey
Because I would have thought that once, like Mukhtar and his cell, the ones who failed to attack on 21 7, I would think that Rashid Raup's name would have come up in those debriefings.
- [26:51]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah, yeah.
- [26:52]
David McCloskey
And that there would have been a connection. Because I would think what MI5 is going to try to work out right after this is, well, who taught you how to do this and what actually happened in Pakistan and who did you meet with? And they're sort of. You're trying to get all that information. So it's surprising to me that it took a while.
- [27:09]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah. To sort of maybe people aren't talking, you know, and it should take a while. I think it's possibly takes months to do that. Going back to one of the questions I think you raised at the very start and which has been one of the kind of questions hanging over this is, was there an intelligence failure?
- [27:24]
David McCloskey
Yeah.
- [27:24]
Jonathan Evans
Could it have been spotted? I think that is one of the questions people ask. I actually think Rashid Ralph is a good way of looking at that because I think if you'd wanted to stop it and understand it and see both plots coming, the answer would have been to go upstream. If you'd had penetration of Al Qaeda at that level in the camps, if you'd had a spy in the camps or you'd been in Rashid Ralph's comms or people around him to be able to see what he's doing and what they're planning, then you'd be able to kind of Track back and see the plots kind of coming at you rather than trying to look for the traces and find the people who were here. It's kind of interesting to me because, you know that question, right? How could you have stopped it in this case? I think to me, part the answer is if you'd been upstream, then you would have been able to see this coming and stop it. And I think later they get better at that. But at this point, clearly there isn't the coverage there.
- [28:16]
David McCloskey
That's very hard. Intelligence target.
- [28:19]
Jonathan Evans
Right.
- [28:19]
David McCloskey
It's a small radicalized group that has effective sanctuary in this period in the tribal areas of Pakistan. So getting upstream and. And frankly, from at least the glimpse we've got of Rasheed Ralph in the story, he's practicing reasonable.
- [28:38]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah.
- [28:38]
David McCloskey
Com Sec. Right. Communication security. So he's not on a phone. Right. There's an understanding at this point in Al Qaeda that he doesn't have a mobile phone that he's using in the tribal areas that would really allow you to have targeted him from a SIGINT or otherwise perspective. So pretty challenging to get upstream. I guess the downstream part that I'm left wondering about is, I guess if you've got some guys going back now to the second episode of this series where we talked about this crevice counterterrorism operation in the uk, and the fact that you had, I mean, MSK and Tan Weir, two of the 77 bombers, in a car, doing this kind of dodgy car, meeting with a guy who is plotting an attack in the uk. Do you invest more in trying to run down who those guys are? And in retrospect, it's easy to say that.
- [29:34]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah.
- [29:35]
David McCloskey
It's also a question of resourcing.
- [29:37]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah.
- [29:37]
David McCloskey
But I think what I'm left wondering is, is was there a reason, just by virtue of them having that meeting, to sort of elevate them in priority? That is kind of the. Maybe the missed moment.
- [29:50]
Jonathan Evans
Yeah. I mean, I think it is interesting because, of course, you know, when this comes out that MI5 had known and they come across the radar, it becomes a big deal. And MI5, you know, understandably, are quite defensive about it and will say we had a lot of potential targets we could only put under surveillance, you know, those who we know are attack points, planning. I think it goes back to that question about what about the people who are on the journey towards attack planning, which is where Mohammed Sadiq Khan was. I think it's definitely true that at that point, even if they'd put them under surveillance after that meeting, in the car, they wouldn't have found attack planning because it only happens when they come back from Pakistan.
- [30:26]
David McCloskey
Right.
- [30:27]
Jonathan Evans
So you'd have needed occasional surveillance on all the people you'd seen in crevice, dipping back into them and coming back into them the following year to see them that now they're plotting and of course to find it. Now you could say they should do that, but I do think you'd have needed a bigger MI5. I don't think there's a kind of simple miss here. It is a much more question about resources, prioritization, having a kind of structure to go back and look at people, which I think they're going to do more after this in order to kind of spot plots.
- [30:56]
David McCloskey
Yeah.
- [30:57]
Jonathan Evans
As they're emerging.
- [30:58]
David McCloskey
We'll do the 911 plot in a future series. I'm sure in that story it sort of. Where were the Mrs. In 9 11? It's complicated. There are many different factors that led to it, but there were cases where there probably were dots that weren't connected, clear ones where, you know, for example, you had. The CIA didn't tell the FBI that there are a couple potential sort of members of Al Qaeda or sympathizers that had come into the States and were actually living things like that. Yeah, that's a big one. I think in this case. Right. We don't have something quite as. Yeah, clear of a red flag. I mean. And I guess did 77 in the same way that 911 spawned the 911 Commission, this desire to understand exactly how this happened? I mean, there are inquests, but was there the same reckoning, I guess, after 77 inside MI5 or even in inside SIS? Like, was it a similar dynamic that came out of the attacks?
- [31:53]
Jonathan Evans
I think there was criticism because it would kind of come out drip, drip, drip over the following years that they'd known bits about these guys and that would raise questions. I think that the answer is partly that they were already changing. So they're already growing, they're already regionalizing and trying to build up the regional stations. I think it does change them to put in more procedures to go back to contacts and do it. Also, you get kind of GCHQ going deeper into data analytics to try and kind of trace people better kind of triaging. There's lots of other interesting legacies, I think, for MI5, you know, drives agent recruitment, treatment, someone said, because you get a lot of agents who are offering themselves, you know, from within the Muslim community. Oh, they sign up to sign up to help, to offer information because they're like, we don't want this.
- [32:35]
David McCloskey
Right.
- [32:35]
Jonathan Evans
So you get kind of volunteering. There's some political controversy. You know, the government at the time is desperate to avoid the idea that Iraq contributes to radicalization. And so I think that was one of the kind of frustrating things that Eliza Manningham Buller, who'd been head of MI5, had warned before the invasion of Iraq, this is going to increase radicalization.
- [32:53]
David McCloskey
Yeah.
- [32:53]
Jonathan Evans
There are signs that, you know, it does kind of spark a wave of people who are kind of committed to. To terrorism at this time, but the government just, you know, because they've made the decision to invade Iraq.
- [33:03]
David McCloskey
Right.
- [33:03]
Jonathan Evans
Kind of deal with that. So you're also living with kind of changes in. In what's going on.
- [33:08]
David McCloskey
Not Iraq as a single point, but it seems pretty clear from, you know, the quote, unquote martyrdom video that MSK records that, yeah, it's a factor. It's a factor.
- [33:18]
Jonathan Evans
I mean, you know, he was involved in jihadism before jihadists were around pre Iraq invasion. So it doesn't create the problem, but I think it's an accelerant. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, this problem is going to come up again. People from MI5 will say, well, you know, the fact that when someone does something terrible, they were known to us. Is that. Is that a problem? I mean, is it almost worse if we didn't know about someone, if they kind of completely come out the blue? But I think there will be questions in the future, particularly I think, around the Manchester arena bombing, whether there were missed opportunities there. I think that's the one where I think the questions might be harder for MI5. But internally, you know, it really left a legacy, I think, for staff at MI5. Andrew Parker, who was head of counterterrorism at the time and then later becomes the head of all of MI5. I mean, he told me years later that he had pictures of all 52 victims of the 77 attack on his office wall, and it was there to remind him every day when he walks in the office why he was there to try and stop another attack like that happening. Wow.
- [34:20]
David McCloskey
Well, I mean, maybe there, Gordon, we should end this series, this investigation into the 7. 7 bombings in the aftermath. I mean, really a tragic story. And we have tried, I think, to give this as much of the sort of feel of what is it actually like to run a counterterrorism investigation with all of the ins and outs and the uncertainties. Right. And these kind of these questions of could they have prevented, I mean, just constantly looming over everything almost from from the get go. But for our declassified club members, we will have a very special bonus episode linked to the series where we'll be talking to Eliza Manningham Buller who was the head of of MI5 at the time. If you want to get that episode though, you do have to go to the restisclassified.com join up, sign up for the club, get access to that episode, all the bonus content, early access to series like this one. If not, we'll see you next time.
- [35:19]
Jonathan Evans
See you next time.