ANOTHER U.S. AL-QUEDA LEAK

Exclusive: British, American security services clash over terror intelligence
Michael Smith

American officials compromised another intercept operation during the investigation into the September 11 attacks when they leaked details of two mobile telephone conversations between al-Qaeda members that with hindsight appeared to refer to the attacks.

The conversations sent immediately before the attacks had not been processed until the day after because of the amount of material that was available and as a result became a controversial part of the evidence of intelligence failure.

British intelligence had barred its US counterpart from releasing details of the actual telephone conversations because it would alert those who made them to the fact that not only their phones but the phones of the people they were talking to were being monitored. But they were leaked anyway, cutting off another potential source of intelligence on al-Qaeda activities.