Britain: Observer claims threats by Washington prompted Heathrow terror raids

The newspaper, which states that the information came from a “senior intelligence source,” explains:

“American intelligence agents told their British counterparts they were ready to ‘render’ Rashid Rauf, a British citizen allegedly linked to Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and who was under surveillance in Pakistan, unless he was picked up immediately.”

This demand “dismayed the British intelligence services, which were worried that it could prompt terrorist cells in the UK working on separate plots to bring forward their plans or go underground,” the Observer claims, as “Britain wanted more time to monitor Rauf.”

However, the US was determined to move immediately, “even if this meant riding roughshod over its closest ally,” the newspaper continued.

“Immediately following the US’s veiled ultimatum that MI6 should ‘lift’ Rauf, which was communicated to ISI [Pakistan’s security service], he was arrested by Pakistani intelligence officials, a move that forced the British police to carry out a series of arrests as they looked to pick up those allegedly linked to him.”

During early morning raids on August 10, 24 people were arrested and detained. Emergency measures imposed at all UK airports created chaos and lengthy delays and, in the atmosphere of panic and hysteria that ensued, there were numerous incidents of airplanes being turned back mid-flight due to bomb scares.

The Observer article is not the first to claim that it was the arrest of Rashid in Pakistan that triggered the emergency security measures. Press reports at the time alleged that Rauf was the “mastermind” behind a plot to explode up to a dozen transatlantic planes mid-flight so as to cause “mass murder on an unimaginable scale.”

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/oct2006/heat-o04.shtml