London Bombings: OPSEC Errors or Intelligence Failure?

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By Fred Burton


Nearly two weeks after the London bombings, investigators have
established a critical mass of forensic and other evidence, and it is now
certain that all four bombers died at the scenes of the explosions. The
identities of the bombers have been established, timelines of their
movements recreated, and revelations that at least one of them previously
had been under MI5 surveillance for a time have emerged. It also is strongly
suspected that the four-man cell was operating under the guidance -- or at
least was in contact with -- a shadowy fifth operative or a handler of some
type in Pakistan.

All in all, it seems unquestionable that the July
7 bombings were well-planned, well-coordinated, trademark strikes by al
Qaeda.

Yet in reviewing the growing mass of evidence, there is still
something that doesn't add up. It's the kind of thing that seems innocuous
enough, but sticks in a detective's brain -- a clue to which he returns
again and again, trying to make it fit with the rest of the puzzle. And in
this case, it's the image of all four bombing suspects together, captured by
closed-circuit television cameras, entering a train station at Luton early on
the day of the bombings.

For anyone with a background in intelligence
and tradecraft, it's hard to downplay the significance of that image. One of
the first rules learned in Intelligence Officer Training 101 is that
operatives working together on a mission should not travel together or
engage in noticeable contact, for fear of providing leads to anyone who
might be conducting surveillance. For al Qaeda, the risks of putting live
operatives together in the same place and time -- at any point, but
particularly on the day of a suicide mission -- would be enormous. And those
risks would be amplified in a place like Britain, which is blanketed with
CCTV cameras that, as we know from evidence gathered in the past, would have
been systematically noted by al Qaeda operatives conducting their own
pre-operational surveillance.

This leaves us with two possibilities:
Either al Qaeda is not as slick and as smart as the world -- and
particularly the intelligence agencies that have failed to prevent its
strikes -- would like to believe, or the 7/7 operatives were unwitting
bombers who might have been duped into carrying out a suicide
mission.





Let's consider the facts
supporting an "unwitting bombers" theory for a moment.

First, we know
from materials gathered in connection with arrests made since 9/11 that al
Qaeda conducts extensive and detailed pre-operational surveillance. This
means that before any strike, someone is sent to check out existing security
measures and other details at possible targets, and along the routes that
cell members would travel on the day of the actual mission. These all must
be countered or else somehow factored into the plans in order for an
operation to succeed.

Certainly, the 7/7 cell members -- or at least
their handler -- would be aware of the presence of security cameras at the
train stations and realize that this footage would be carefully scanned in
the aftermath of the explosions. If the bombers were aware of the true
nature of their mission, it would hardly be difficult to spread their
movements out -- arriving at the train station at staggered times and thus
throwing at least some complications into the post-attack
investigation.

Moreover, all four men were carrying their actual
identification documents at the times of the explosions, which have become
part of the forensic evidence gathered. This would be extremely foolish,
assuming they actually knew they were on their way to their deaths -- again,
since it would greatly speed certain aspects of the investigation that easily
could be dragged out, helping the trail grow cold before authorities could
close in on their handler or other operatives with whom they potentially had
contact.

Finally, it's not beyond the pale that al Qaeda would use
unwitting operatives. The informant who led U.S. authorities to Ramzi
Yousef, who planned the first World Trade Center bombings, was initially
called into service to test out a plan involving explosives planted inside
baby dolls -- and realized at some point along the way that he might in fact
be a suicide operative who wasn't prepared to die. Rather than carry out his
mission, he reported it to authorities instead.

Our longstanding
assessment of al Qaeda has been that it is an extremely resource-scarce
organization -- for operational security reasons, if no others. The fewer
people who know about or are part of a plot, the safer they and their plans
are. We also believe it to be an extremely risk-averse and
security-conscious organization; otherwise, it could not have achieved the
success it did with 9/11, the Madrid attacks and other
operations.

This assessment remains firmly intact -- and the
implications for the future spin forward in terrifying ways if it can be
assumed that the 7/7 operatives were unwitting bombers. Speaking from the
standpoint of a professional who has trained operatives in the past, it
makes perfect sense to me for all four bombers to be seen traveling together
if they believed their purpose was to conduct a training run. For a handler,
it's just easier to keep the group together in tow.

Of course, we
must speculate here, but suppose the handler -- who might have been Mohammed
Saddique Khan, the elder statesman of the four-man cell, or a shadowy fifth
operative who may or may not have visited Britain prior to the attacks --
had called the group together under the guise of testing them. Perhaps the
goal was to plan "another Madrid," or simply -- in the cell members' minds
-- to determine what was possible and where the risks in an operation lay.
In this scenario, the training run would be most easily carried out if they
departed from a central point, timed their runs and then met again afterward
to report their findings.

However, they would have been -- without
their knowledge -- carrying explosive devices with pre-set timers, and only
their handler would have been aware that the cell members would not live to
possibly change their minds or tell tales. In that case, the presence of the
cameras or other security measures could be more easily discounted, and al
Qaeda's operational security (OPSEC) would remain intact.

If we stand
by this argument, there are several potential aftereffects that would play in
al Qaeda's favor. Not the least of these is the fact that the bombers were
British-born citizens who carried out an attack on their home soil. It is
extremely difficult for many to accept that native-born citizens could be al
Qaeda sympathizers, and this tends to amplify the terror effect of the
strikes.

That said, we must examine the other possibility -- that the
bombers knowingly undertook a suicide mission. The tale then follows a
standard pattern: a four-man cell of hard-core militants, intent on death
and destruction.

There is plenty of evidence to support this case as
well -- particularly as more details emerge about the operatives' movements
in the days prior to the attack.

For instance, it has been confirmed
that three of the bombers visited Pakistan last year -- two of them, Khan and
Shehzad Tanweer, arriving and departing together from Karachi
-- and
authorities believe they might have been radicalized while attending
madrassas there. Furthermore, there are now reports that the suspects
themselves purchased many of the materials used in the attacks -- including
the large rucksacks each of the bombers carried aboard the trains -- in
Leeds in the days prior to the strike.

Perhaps most damning is word
that, with forensics well in hand at this stage, there is "no evidence" of
any timing devices having been used, authorities have said. Now, that is not
the same thing as saying there is direct evidence the devices were
command-detonated, and this has been a matter of some conflicting reports
since the bombings occurred. However, the latest revelations from British
authorities strongly suggest that the bombs would have been manually -- and
purposely -- detonated.

Assuming that the London strikes were a
standard suicide mission, all the aftereffects mentioned above remain; only
the belief in al Qaeda's reverence for operational security is cast into
doubt.

And it well could be that -- as painful as this is for
intelligence and security agencies around the world to stomach, looking back
over the history of successful attacks -- the network's tradecraft really is
that lousy.

Consider Ahmed Ressam, whose behavior as he crossed the
border from Canada was so suspicious that he attracted the attention of
authorities and the Millennium Plot was unearthed. Ahmad Ajaj, traveling in
the company of Yousef, was stopped at John F. Kennedy International Airport
in 1992 carrying a suitcase full of manuals on bomb-making techniques. The
Madrid bombers all boarded the trains they blew up from the same station.
Mohammed Atta left pocket litter and documents detailing the 9/11 plot
behind in a rental car. And Zacarias Moussaoui applied to a training school
to learn how to fly -- but not land -- airplanes. The list goes
on.

As evidence continues to mount, the balance seems to be tilting
in favor of the traditional suicide mission. The bitter pill for
intelligence agents and analysts is that al Qaeda actually can be that
sloppy and yet still be effective. It's almost like a contradiction in
terms.

There is, of course, a third and final possibility -- that all
of the bombers' movements were carefully planned and calculated, with all of
the clues they left behind for investigators intended as a final, brazen
thrust.

In some respects, it would be more comforting to believe the
London bombers were duped into carrying out their mission. But any way you
slice it, something about the 7/7 operation is going to be very hard to
swallow.

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