Britain Looks for Links to Transit Blasts

LONDON —  The detectives who last week rounded up 23 suspects accused of conspiring to bomb U.S.-bound planes in midair knew their quarry well: They had been tracking their every move for months.

Despite all the evidence amassed through aggressive surveillance of the men’s travel, phone calls and Internet communications, however, police still must answer key questions about the masterminds, international connections and potential ties to previous plots here, British officials said Monday.

Investigators have focused on one potentially significant lead, officials said: suspected links between the alleged airline plot and the suicide bombings on London subway trains and a bus that killed 52 people July 7, 2005.

Police are investigating whether several suspects crossed paths with two of the London transit system bombers in Pakistan, where the pair are believed to have met and trained with Al Qaeda figures, a British security official said.

“That’s being investigated: if the actors were there at the same time and same place, or at a different time but in the same place,” said the official, who asked to remain anonymous. “The question is, do people in the two groups go to Pakistan and meet the same people in the same network? Is there overlap in any sort of way: at the same madrasa, the same training camp?”

If the investigation confirms that figures from the two cases crossed paths in Pakistan, it could help fit the suspected plane bombing plot into a string of other cases in which Pakistani British radicals acquired expertise, inspiration or both from Islamic militant networks in their ancestral homeland.

That pattern recurred in the transit bombings, an aborted truck-bombing plot here in 2003, and a plan that allegedly targeted U.S. financial institutions. It also surfaced in the failed follow-up transit attacks two weeks after the July 7 blasts, in which four East African immigrants have been charged. Although that case was initially seen as a copycat attempt, the discovery that at least one of the July 21 suspects also traveled to Pakistan suggests at least an indirect link, officials say.

The investigation in the murky militant underworld of Pakistan, where as many as 17 suspects have been arrested in connection with the alleged airline plot, will help determine the extent to which the operation was the work of Al Qaeda or its allies there.

“One of the big questions is if this is an Al Qaeda attack or an Al Qaeda-inspired attack,” the British security official said. “As has been said, it has the hallmarks of Al Qaeda: big, well planned, very bold.”

Other aspects of the case are becoming clearer, officials said. Despite persistent reports that as many as five dangerous fugitives were at large and other networks might be preparing attacks, authorities believe that they have captured the major players: leaders, bomb-makers and aspiring suicide bombers.

That’s why the government lowered the terrorism alert status from “severe” to “critical” Monday and eased restrictions on carry-on baggage at the nation’s overwhelmed airports, officials said.

“The assessed intelligence is that the immediacy of the threat has gone away,” the official said. “An attack is still highly likely, and it could happen without warning. But the intelligence is that it’s not imminent.”

Meanwhile, a theory is coming together about the group’s plan to bring down as many as 10 airplanes over the mid-Atlantic. Investigators believe that the group planned to deploy two-man teams to smuggle liquid explosives aboard in containers of sports or health drinks, along with rudimentary ignition devices concealed in iPods or flash cameras, the official said.

The use of a duo would make detection harder, by separating bomb materials, which would then be assembled on board the plane, probably in a bathroom, officials say.

“The most likely way would be teams of two,” the official said. “That is the operating theory. Psychologically, it would also be easier to do in teams of two; they would support each other. That’s how these cells actually work.”

If the theory is correct, it could mean that as many as 20 suspects intended to die in the attacks. But the official cautioned that it had not been determined if the plan called for two-man teams for every plane, or whether all the would-be bombers had been recruited.

In fact, some intelligence analysts in the U.S. and Europe wonder whether the alleged operatives, who included a 21-year-old who converted to Islam only six months ago, had the expertise to pull off the ambitious attack under pressure.

In previous cases, the progress of plots by the homegrown militant cells in Britain depended on lead figures who went back and forth to Pakistan for training and direction.

Mohamed Sidique Khan, the lead figure in the transit bombings, went to Pakistan in 2003 and was there again sometime between November 2005 and February, accompanied the second time by accomplice Shahzad Tanweer. Officials believe it is likely the two met with Al Qaeda figures and that Khan trained at a militant camp in the Pakistani badlands, according to a report by the British government.

In the alleged airline plot, suspects including Rashid Rauf, a Birmingham businessman described as a key figure in the case, traveled several times to Pakistan, where his recent arrest led to the roundup of accused accomplices here.

Family acquaintances say the suspects went to Pakistan to participate in relief efforts for victims of October’s devastating earthquake. Rauf’s involvement in a quake relief charity has raised suspicions that donations have been siphoned off by militants, though officials remain cautious.

Rauf has acknowledged meeting with a leading Al Qaeda operative in Pakistan, according to Pakistani officials. But police have not determined whether the alleged plan was hatched by figures in Pakistan or by one or more of the suspects in custody.

The difficulty of identifying a mastermind and nailing down potential links among the transit and alleged airline plots lies in the fluid nature of Islamic networks. Connections among suspects may or may not be vital.

In 2003, for example, subway bomber Khan surfaced on the edges of an aborted plot in which suspects stockpiled explosives for a massive truck-bombing, but investigators did not keep him under surveillance because they saw him as a minor player.

The transit attacks blindsided Britain and raised concern about the reluctance of Muslim communities to report activity by radicals to authorities.

In contrast, informants in the community this time provided tips that helped police target the suspected plane bomb plotters last year and helped develop the wide-ranging investigation, officials said.

“At the very early stages, certain people in the community were very helpful,” the official said. “It’s the kind of information that helps you know what to look at.”