Al Qaeda Is Plotting Assaults on European Cities, Officers Say
By STEVEN ERLANGER
PARIS — Al Qaeda and related teams are plotting new attacks on Western European capitals, European officials explained on Wednesday, but they experienced no actionable intelligence suggesting both the timing or precise locations.
French and German officers on Wednesday played down experiences of a significant new menace from the main Qaeda group hiding in Pakistan, saying that any plot appeared to become from the planning phases. One particular Western official familiar with the intelligence reported that this plot involved smaller teams of gunmen equipped with modest arms who hoped to mount commando-style raids in Western European capitals, which are regarded as softer targets than the usa.
In Britain, safety officials noted that the terrorist danger notify remained “severe,” as it may be for months, indicating that an assault is considered “highly most likely.”
But a senior French official said that France was on high alert due to the fact of an additional menace: from Al Qaeda within the Islamic Maghreb, which is linked to, but operates separately from, Al Qaeda itself.
The French official, who’s also accustomed to the intelligence from Washington and allies, said, “We have had intelligence exchanges with our United states partners over the past couple of weeks concerning prospective threats, but there was nothing along the lines of major plots in all these capitals, not with any specificity or substance behind them.”
The official reported, “Our dilemma is North Africa; it is AQIM, and it’s unrelated to Pakistan.”
The German government explained inside a assertion from the Interior Ministry that it was aware of Al Qaeda’s “long term” aim to attack Western targets, but “at present you will discover no concrete pointers to imminent attacks on Germany stemming from this.”
Alarm bells went off in Western Europe overnight, specially in Britain, soon after stories that American intelligence was warning its allies of simultaneous plots against European capitals, with armed males shooting civilians and taking hostages.
In Washington, a senior American official explained that unique plots ended up being “in varying stages of maturity” and have been “at a worrisome level,” involving either Westerners trained by Al Qaeda in Pakistan or pre-existing Qaeda cells in Europe that rely on guidance or cash from Pakistan.
France is currently on its second-highest state of alert. There may be a string of nine bomb alerts in September, which have twice meant the evacuation of your Eiffel Tower and two nearby subway stations.
But the hazard from Al Qaeda inside the Islamic Maghreb stems from a separate stream of intelligence, the senior French officials said. Tensions are already substantial normally given that the anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, and on Sept. 15, 5 French citizens, along with two African colleagues, were kidnapped from the Qaeda-linked group in a very uranium-mining region of Niger, in central Africa, the place they have been working for French businesses. The French believe the hostages are alive and being held in northwestern Mali.
The French Foreign Ministry spokesman, Bernard Valero, said Wednesday that “information transmitted by American authorities, particularly to the terror menace in Europe, have been analyzed, cross-checked and, if the will need arises, they’re taken into account in our national evaluation of the danger.”
A German official instructed the Reuters news agency that the studies may well are actually set off in component by the interrogation of a German of Afghan origin captured in Afghanistan in July. The German, said from the German media to be named Ahmed Sidiqi, 36, from Hamburg, obtained traveled to Waziristan and received firearms and explosives training. He advised American interrogators in Afghanistan about plans for assaults by modest armed teams in European cities, a senior European official reported.
Some of the possible attackers may well already be in Europe, Mr. Sidiqi said, according to the official, and Mr. Sidiqi mentioned the Haqqani network in Pakistan as concerned inside plot. The network is allied using the Taliban and has long been a target of some recent drone assaults in Pakistan.
Yet another French official speculated that the leak of Washington’s concerns about assaults in Europe from Pakistani Al Qaeda as well as the Taliban was also meant to justify the growing drone episodes on targets inside of Pakistan, to press Pakistan to make use of ground troops extra aggressively within the tribal regions and even to prepare the ground for utilizing United states floor forces, covert or otherwise, inside of Pakistan. Numerous in Washington believe that the answer to stability in Afghanistan lies in a far more aggressive offensive versus Al Qaeda and Taliban militants sheltering in Pakistan.
Inside last two weeks, French officials have gone on the record in regards to the menace from Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Bernard Squarcini, director with the Central Directorate of Domestic Intelligence warned that “all the blinkers are on red” simply because the threat to France was high.
The director common of the Countrywide Police, Frédéric Péchenard, explained in the newspaper interview on Sept. 23 that France had been warned by one more intelligence service that a female suicide bomber meant to strike in Paris that day. As well as the interior minister, Brice Hortefeux, spoke openly concerning the risk on Sept. 20.
France may be a prominent supporter of the war in Afghanistan, has passed a bill outlawing the full facial veil and has experienced an awkward debate about nationwide identity that numerous Muslims saw as aimed at them. But the French have also utilized military forces to strike Qaeda cells in northern Africa, which have taken other French hostages and killed a minimum of a person of them in retaliation in July.
In Washington, the director of countrywide intelligence, James Clapper, stated inside a assertion: “We are not going to comment on specific intelligence,” but “as we have repeatedly reported, we know Al Qaeda desires to invasion Europe and america.”
Data is routinely shared with allies, he reported, “in order to disrupt terrorist plotting, identify and take action towards probable operatives, and strengthen our defenses towards prospective threats.”
This month, the Central Intelligence Company has escalated its bombing campaign in Pakistan utilizing armed drones. American officials stated the intense bombardment in the tribal locations was intended to maintain militant teams from sending operatives across the border into Afghanistan to replenish Taliban ranks, too as to disrupt any communications between Pakistani militants and operatives who may be placed in Europe. United states officers said it was unclear what impact, if any, the drone attacks would have on a terrorism plot that could be carried out inside Europe.
On Wednesday, right after the Eiffel Tower received been evacuated the night before, the atmosphere was calm, with a lot of tourists unaware that there could be a hazard. Chellene Tamby, 21, a business student, read on the grass from the close by Champ de Mars. She acquired heard in regards to the bomb notify but said, “’France is a good energy, and consequently the country is inevitably threatened.”
Too very much public discussion just spreads panic, she stated.
André Dunstetter, 71, sat on a nearby bench. “We by no means know when and wherever a bomb strike will take place, but that doesn’t mean we’ll have to cease living,” he stated. “I imagine that Al Qaeda’s danger is usually a psychological 1, and it really is meant to destabilize security services and also the population.”
Reporting was contributed by John F. Burns in London, Souad Mekhennet in Islamabad, Pakistan, and Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt in Washington.
