Officials have used phone intercepts and voice tracking
software to track militants with ties to Britain and other European countries
to areas along the Afghan border. Al-Qaida would likely turn to such extremists
for a European plot because they can move freely in and out of Western cities.
Fear that such an attack is in the planning stage has
prompted the US State Department to advise Americans traveling in Europe to be
vigilant. American and European security experts have been concerned that
terrorists based in Pakistan may be plotting attacks in Europe with assault
weapons, similar to the deadly 2008 shooting spree in Mumbai, India. US
intelligence officials believe Osama Bin Laden is behind the plots.
A senior official of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence
agency, or ISI, told The Associated Press that there are believed to be
"several dozen" people with European citizenship - many of Pakistani
origin — among the Islamic extremists operating in the lawless border area.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he
was not supposed to talk about classified information to the media, said
foreigners in the area also include Chechens, Uzbeks, Arabs and Turks, one of
whom was a former F-16 pilot in the Turkish air force.
"That shows you that some of the people who are coming
are very well educated," he said. "It was very surprising for us but
they come thinking this is the pure (Islamic) ideology that they are
seeking." Britain's communications monitoring agency, the Government
Communications Headquarters or GCHQ, estimates there are as many as 20
British-born militants in the border area, especially in the North Waziristan
district that has been the focus of recent missile strikes carried out by
unmanned aircraft operated by the CIA.
Mobile phone communications have been tracked from the border
area to points in Britain, particularly England's Midlands, where there is a
heavy Pakistani immigrant population, according to a British government
official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the terror plot
investigation is ongoing.
Voice-printing software enables British intelligence to
identify and track specific individuals believed connected to terror plots, he
said.
In addition, a spokeswoman with Germany's Federal Criminal
Police Office said last week that there is "concrete evidence" that
70 people have traveled from Germany to Pakistan and Afghanistan for
paramilitary training, and that about a third of them have returned to Germany.
The presence in the border areas of Islamic militants with
Western connections has been known for years.
Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-American who confessed to the
May 1 failed car-bombing in New York's Times Square, said the Pakistani Taleban
trained him for the mission. Shahzad is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday in a US
court.
During an operation last year, Pakistani soldiers discovered
a passport in the name of Said Bahaji, which matches the name of a member of
the Hamburg, Germany, cell that conceived the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks
in the United States. Bahaji is believed to have fled Germany shortly before
the attacks in New York and Washington.
A Spanish passport found by the Pakistani military during
the same operation bore the name of Raquel Burgos Garcia. Spanish media
reported that a woman with the same name was married to Amer Azizi, an alleged Al-Qaeda
member from Morocco suspected in both the 9/11 attacks and the Madrid train
bombings in 2004.
Concern over the pool of Europeans capable of carrying out
attacks abroad rose about a month ago when US intelligence heard of a European
plot and began monitoring the people involved, according to two US officials.
The CIA recently stepped up airstrikes from unmanned aircraft in northwestern
Pakistan, in part to disrupt the plot. In September there were at least 21
attacks - more than double the highest number fired in any other single month.
A Pakistani official said some information about the plot
came from a suspect who had been interrogated at the military prison at Bagram
Air Field north of Kabul, the main US and NATO base in Afghanistan. A US
official identified him as Ahmed Siddiqui, a German citizen of Afghan origin
who was captured in Afghanistan in July.
The plot apparently called for several gunmen to fan out
across Germany, Britain and France in hopes of launching attacks similar not
only to the Mumbai assault but also to so-called "swarm attacks" that
extremists have mounted in Kabul and other Afghan cities. The tactic calls for
small teams with automatic rifles, grenade launchers and suicide vests to
strike simultaneously at several targets in a city and cause as much havoc as
possible before they can be killed or captured.
Reports of the alleged plot again cast the spotlight on the
Pakistani district of North Waziristan, where Washington believes Al-Qaeda and
its allies plan attacks against US-led forces in Afghanistan as well as targets
abroad.
Although the Pakistani military has mounted ground
operations elsewhere in the border region, it has been reluctant to do so in
North Waziristan, saying its forces are stretched too thin. Some within
Pakistan's military and intelligence establishment privately say an escalation
in drone attacks in North Waziristan and recent cross-border incursions by NATO
helicopter gunships are aimed at forcing the army into an operation.
However, the incursions have frayed relations between
Pakistan and the US and NATO. Pakistan has blocked its main border crossing to
NATO supply trucks for the past four days in response to alleged incursions
last week by NATO helicopters, including firing that shot dead three Pakistani
paramilitary soldiers who had fired warning shots at the choppers.
