How web of intelligence led to Pakistan

Birmingham baker's son with links to al-Qa'ida thought to be behind plot

The links between the British conspirators of the liquid bomb plot and Pakistan are defined by a Birmingham baker's son with links to al-Qa'ida who is suspected of playing a key role in a succession of attacks on the UK.

Rashid Rauf is widely believed by British intelligence sources to have been a key co-ordinator and planner of the conspiracy to blow up airliners travelling from Britain to at least seven North American cities. Indeed, it was the unexpected arrest of the 25-year-old Briton, allegedly as a result of White House pressure on the Pakistani authorities, which led to the bringing forward of the Scotland Yard operation to arrest the liquid bomb suspects in August 2006 at a time when police were still gathering evidence on their plot.

The connection between Pakistan and the three men convicted yesterday of the plot to blow up airliners was at the heart of the investigation led by Scotland Yard as detectives tried to piece together the network of radicalised Islamists based in London and the Home Counties town of High Wycombe, and the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan that border Afghanistan.

It is thought that the series of coded emails sent by the bomb plot ring leader, Abdulla Ali, and his so-called quartermaster, Assad Sarwar, who was in charge of acquiring the chemicals and equipment needed to make the liquid devices, to jihadist masterminds in Pakistan was, at least indirectly, received and answered by Rauf, who officers believe was know by the codename "Paps" or "Papa".

The Independent has been told that Rauf, who was by marriage distantly linked to a founder of the Pakistani Islamist group Jaish-e-Mohammed, may have first met Ali and Sarwar separately in 2003 after the two men travelled to the city of Quetta to work as volunteers in a camp for Afghan refugees fleeing the war in Afghanistan. Further key planning meetings are thought to have taken place in 2005. In June 2006, Sarwar travelled to Pakistan to learn how to boil down hydrogen peroxide safely, in order to produce a high concentration.

Rauf was already a wanted man. After an unremarkable childhood in Birmingham, he fled the Midlands in 2002 after his 54-year-old uncle, Mohammed Saeed, was stabbed to death. Western intelligence sources believe he subsequently became a significant link man between al-Qa'ida and recruits destined to attack Britain.

In particular, he was last year named by MI5 and MI6 as a possible "facilitator" of the July 7 attacks on London in 2005 and is also thought to have met Mukthar Ibrahim, the "emir" of the failed July 21 bombings. But it was as a result of a meeting chaired by George W Bush on 7 August 2006, which discussed the Briton as a threat to American security, that an order was issued to secure his arrest. Scotland Yard, aware that news of Rauf's arrest could make its way back to Ali, Sarwar and their co-plotters, launched its operation within hours. But Rauf escaped in December 2007 and disappeared into the hinterland of Waziristan.

Last November it was reported that he had been killed by a drone in Pakistan but his family denied the reports. British sources say he is likely to be dead.