JEDDAH, 6 March 2004 — An international anti-terrorism investigation code-named “Mont Blanc” has foiled at least three terror attacks in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, Al-Watan reported yesterday.
Quoting The New York Times, it said the investigators disrupted the attacks after monitoring conversations between terror suspects using Swisscom chips, which were popular among terrorists because they could buy them without giving their names.
The investigation began in April 2002 when authorities intercepted a short mobile phone call that consisted only of silence.
The investigators were suspicious of the call and believed it may in fact be a signal between terrorists. They were able to follow the trail from one terror suspect to the next, and eventually were led to terror cells on three continents.
“Before the investigation wound down in recent weeks, its global net caught dozens of suspected Al-Qaeda members and disrupted at least three planned attacks in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia,” The New York Times reported.
The search for the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and one of the world’s most wanted men, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, was helped by the investigation, according to three European-based intelligence officials. Mohammed was arrested by American authorities in Pakistan last March.
Investigators said they were able to follow the conversations and movements of several Al-Qaeda leaders and dozens of operatives for two years after discovering the suspects favored one particular brand of Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card chip. These chips have prepaid minutes and can be used around the world.
The chips, made by Swisscom of Switzerland, are believed to have been chosen by terrorists because they could be bought without giving any names.
“They thought these phones protected their anonymity, but they didn’t,” a senior intelligence official based in Europe was reported as saying.
“This was one of the most effective tools we had to locate Al-Qaeda,” said a senior counterterrorism official in Europe.
“The perception of anonymity may have lulled them into a false sense of security. We now believe that Al-Qaeda has figured out that we were monitoring them through these phones.”
Officials considered operation Mont Blanc one of the most successful investigations since Sept. 11 attacks and an example of international cooperation between agencies.
The investigation was led by the Swiss and involved agents from over 12 other nations, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Germany, Italy, Britain and the United States.
Mobile phones were being used by Al-Qaeda lieutenants to set up conversations on a more secure telephone lines. It was this type of call that sparked the Mont Blanc investigation.
The call was placed on April 11, 2002, by Christian Ganczarski, a 36-year-old Polish-born German Muslim whom the German authorities suspected was a member of Al-Qaeda.
From Germany Ganczarski called Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, accused of being Al-Qaeda’s military commander, who was running operations at the time from a safe house in Karachi, Pakistan, according to two officials involved in the investigation.
No word was uttered during the call, counterterrorism officials said.
Instead, the call was a signal to tell Mohammed of an Al-Qaeda suicide bombing mission at a synagogue in Tunisia, which took place the same day, according to two senior officials. The attack killed 21 people, mostly German tourists.
The German authorities traced the call using electronic surveillance to Mohammed’s Swisscom cell phone, but did not realize at first who it belonged to.
Two weeks later, the German police searched Ganczarski’s house and found a log of numbers, including one in Pakistan that was traced to Mohammed.
