The Lawfare Podcast: The Largest Counterterrorism Investigation in History, with Aki Peritz

In 2006, al-Qaeda-trained operatives planned and nearly executed an operation to destroy passenger aircraft over the Atlantic Ocean. Because it was discovered and stopped, it did not accomplish its purpose: killing thousands of people in the air and possibly hundreds or thousands on the ground.

Aki Peritz is a former CIA intelligence officer and current adjunct professor at American University who has researched and written all about this transatlantic airliner plot. He has recently published a new book about it all called, “Disruption: Inside the Largest Counterterrorism Investigation in History.” David Priess sat down with Aki to talk about the conspiracy and the heroic efforts by the intelligence services of the United States, Great Britain and even Pakistan to uncover and crush it.