08-09-09 More plane terror plots 'likely'

Al-Qaeda is likely to try again to use aircraft to attack the West,Whitehall officials have told the BBC.Security correspondent Frank Gardner said they believed the airline bomb plot was part of al-Qaeda's "obsession" with using commercial airliners.The warning comes after three British men were convicted of plotting to blow up flights from London to North America using bombs disguised as soft drinks.Defence expert Michael Clarke agreed that al-Qaeda was "still plotting".On Monday,Abdulla Ahmed Ali,28,Tanvir Hussain,28,and Assad Sarwar,29,were found guilty at Woolwich Crown Court after the UK's largest ever counter-terrorism operation.Their arrests in 2006 changed the face of air travel,prompting the introduction of restrictions on the carriage of liquids.UK intelligence officers believe the plot was directed by al-Qaeda figures in Pakistan,including a British man - Rashid Rauf - from Birmingham,now thought to be dead.Prof Clarke,director of defence think tank the Royal United Services Institute,told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that al-Qaeda was more "marginalised" now than in the past, but still posed a threat to the West."There's no doubt there are people in the tribal areas on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan who have tried these plots," he said."There were four or five big plots and they've all come to light in the UK.They haven't worked,but they're still plotting." Earlier,John McDowell,head of the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command,said security staff and police were racing against time when they foiled the plot.He told the BBC the arrest of the men was "a relatively close thing". "It's always a balancing act to try to acquire the necessary evidence while at the same time ensuring that public safety is your most important consideration," he said."So,we ran this as long as we could run it as a covert,proactive operation and we moved in at the time that we felt that the risks were too great." The operation also had to be speeded up after alleged US pressure led to the arrest of Rauf in 2006.Michael Chertoff,former US Homeland Securities Secretary,said Rauf "was the individual involved in essentially supervising the plot,although he was not someone who was going to take part in the actual attack itself"

The case has reinforced calls for the use of intercepted phone calls and emails as evidence in court.Crucial to the convictions were a series emails linking Ali and Sarwar with jihadist figures in Pakistan.These were not intercepted - they came from the Yahoo server in the US - but the BBC's home affairs correspondent Daniel Sandford said they had given ammunition to those calling for intercept evidence to be used in British courts.At present,phone tap and intercepted email evidence is not admissible,but Sir Ken Macdonald,who was head of the Crown Prosecution Service when the airline plot was uncovered,says the case is proof that a change in the law is needed."This is the best evidence you can have - people convicting themselves out of their own mouths," Sir Ken told the BBC.At the time of his arrest,ringleader Ahmed Ali had identified seven US and Canada-bound flights to be blown up over the Atlantic within a two-and-a-half-hour period