Terror plot investigation 'multifaceted and international'

The investigation into who masterminded and bankrolled the plane bombing plot will be a global and multifaceted probe led by British, US and Pakistani authorities but reliant on intelligence from other countries, counterterrorism experts said Friday.

Investigators are working on three key fronts: combing through forensic evidence, interrogating suspects and sifting through seized assets to see where the money trail leads.

“We already know that the Pakistanis and the United States provided key information, so the investigation is already worldwide in that sense, but you may find that other countries come into the frame,” said Col. Christopher Langton, a London-based terror analyst.

Interpol already has asked British authorities to provide details of the plot to help other countries boost security and “share any information they have which could help other police agencies around the world,” said a statement from Interpol’s secretary-general, Ronald Noble.

British officials have made a point of praising their counterparts in Pakistan - where seven arrests have been made – for helping break the plot. But they have also been keen to stress that the investigation that unfolded over more than a year was British led, and that it is ongoing.

“Most of the work was driven and conducted here in the UK,” said Home Secretary John Reid.

British police were interviewing 24 suspects in custody in the thwarted plot to blow up US-bound aircraft, and officers raided homes in London, High Wycombe and Birmingham.

Those raids could yield critical forensic evidence into the liquid explosives that investigators believe the terrorists planned to smuggle aboard and detonate by using common electronic devices.

They might also lead to more arrests. Officials in Britain and the United States have said they believe they have the ringleaders, but more suspects might still be at large.

Frances Townsend, US President George Bush’s homeland security adviser, said authorities were investigating whether the plotters had links in the United States.

“We are looking for connections between anyone in the United States and the plotters in the UK, but we don’t have any evidence there is an active threat or cell here,” he said.

Investigators trying to determine who masterminded the plot – which many experts have said bore the marks of an al-Qaida operation – will also focus hard on “the money trail that enabled the equipping of the operation,” Langton said.

“The clues will be in the area of where the finances came from, although no doubt those details will be carefully camouflaged,” he said.

Langton said authorities should take heart that a months-long undercover investigation helped them foil the plot just days before it was to be carried out, and that Britain’s decision to more than double its intelligence budget after the 7/7 attacks was a key factor.

“Clearly there is a payoff,” he said.