LONDON, 8 April 2004 — Fears that extremists may again strike a European capital rose yesterday after British police foiled a chemical bomb plot and the president of Pakistan warned that the war in Iraq was draining resources from his country’s frontline battle against Al-Qaeda.
The fears were further heightened by the discovery of a new stash of explosives, money and maps in a Madrid apartment where six suspected train bombers blew themselves up on Saturday rather than surrender to police.
A court source said the suspects had “sufficient material to carry out further attacks, a new March 11.”
He was referring to a coordinated wave of bombings on four crowded suburban trains, which killed 191 people and injured 1,900 in the Spanish capital last month.
So far 26 people, almost all of them Moroccan, have been arrested over the bombings, and 15 have been provisionally charged. Spanish media said police were trying to locate a safe house where other fugitive bombers or their accomplices might be sheltering.
In London, Metropolitan Police Commissioner John Stevens, who recently said a major terrorist attack was inevitable, warned in an interview published yesterday “we are now in a state of real danger.”
His remarks appeared in the weekly Spectator magazine one day after media reported that police had thwarted a plot to explode a bomb containing a highly toxic chemical, osmium tetroxide, after US and British intelligence intercepted communications between Al-Qaeda sympathizers.
Home Secretary David Blunkett told BBC radio that reports of the plot vindicated his decision to bring in tough anti-terror measures.
“All of us, for two and a half years, have been indicating that that is precisely what the network called Al-Qaeda, in its loose form, are actually about,” he said.
Last week, nine men were arrested in a raid, which netted half a ton of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer that can be used to make explosives. The suspects were all British citizens but mostly of Pakistani descent.
While many commentators have disputed a claim by US President George W. Bush of links between Al-Qaeda and the regime of Iraq’s ousted president, Saddam Hussein, fears have been expressed of a terror strike on April 9, the first anniversary of the capture of Baghdad by US forces. The anniversary falls this year on Good Friday.
An Italian security official said security had been stepped up to protect Pope John Paul, including the erection of electronic screening gates on St. Peter’s Square.
The Rome newspaper Corriere della Sera, quoting Italy’s military intelligence service SISMI, said that Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq were preparing to launch simultaneous attacks on US-led forces on Friday that could also target foreign civilians working in Iraq.
