Al Qaeda Is Plotting Episodes on European Cities, Officials Say
By STEVEN ERLANGER
PARIS — Al Qaeda and related teams are plotting new episodes on Western European capitals, European officers reported on Wednesday, but they had no actionable intelligence suggesting both the timing or precise locations.
French and German officers on Wednesday played down stories of a significant new risk from the most important Qaeda group hiding in Pakistan, saying that any plot appeared to become inside planning stages. A single Western official familiar with the intelligence mentioned that this plot concerned modest teams of gunmen equipped with little arms who hoped to mount commando-style raids in Western European capitals, which are deemed softer targets than america.
In Britain, safety officers noted that the terrorist threat inform remained “severe,” as it continues to be for months, indicating that an strike is regarded as “highly likely.”
But a senior French official reported that France was on excessive inform mainly because 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 is also familiar with the intelligence from Washington and allies, mentioned, “We have acquired intelligence exchanges with our United states partners over the past couple of weeks regarding possible threats, but there was nothing along the lines of significant plots in all these capitals, not with any specificity or substance behind them.”
The official reported, “Our problem is North Africa; it’s AQIM, and it is unrelated to Pakistan.”
The German government stated inside a statement from the Interior Ministry that it was aware of Al Qaeda’s “long term” aim to attack Western targets, but “at present you’ll find no concrete pointers to imminent assaults on Germany stemming from this.”
Alarm bells went off in Western Europe overnight, especially in Britain, soon after experiences 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 stated that various plots have been “in varying levels of maturity” and had 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 previously on its second-highest state of notify. There has become a string of nine bomb alerts in September, which have twice meant the evacuation in the Eiffel Tower and two nearby subway stations.
However the menace from Al Qaeda within the Islamic Maghreb stems from a separate stream of intelligence, the senior French officials explained. Tensions happen to be substantial normally given that the anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, and on Sept. 15, 5 French citizens, together with two African colleagues, had been kidnapped through the Qaeda-linked group inside a uranium-mining region of Niger, in central Africa, wherever they ended up being working for French businesses. The French imagine the hostages are alive and being held in northwestern Mali.
The French Foreign Ministry spokesman, Bernard Valero, mentioned Wednesday that “information transmitted by American authorities, especially around the terror menace in Europe, are actually analyzed, cross-checked and, if the need arises, they are taken into account in our countrywide evaluation with the danger.”
A German official told the Reuters news company that the stories might happen to be set off in part from the interrogation of a German of Afghan origin captured in Afghanistan in July. The German, explained from the German media to be named Ahmed Sidiqi, 36, from Hamburg, obtained traveled to Waziristan and received firearms and explosives training. He instructed American interrogators in Afghanistan about plans for attacks by little armed groups in European cities, a senior European official mentioned.
Some of the likely attackers may possibly currently be in Europe, Mr. Sidiqi mentioned, according to the official, and Mr. Sidiqi mentioned the Haqqani network in Pakistan as involved from the plot. The network is allied using the Taliban and may be a target of some recent drone episodes in Pakistan.
Yet another French official speculated that the leak of Washington’s concerns about attacks in Europe from Pakistani Al Qaeda plus the Taliban was also meant to justify the increasing drone attacks on targets inside of Pakistan, to press Pakistan to make use of floor troops far more aggressively from the tribal areas and even to prepare the ground for making use of United states ground forces, covert or otherwise, inside of Pakistan. Many in Washington imagine that the answer to stability in Afghanistan lies in the much more aggressive offensive towards Al Qaeda and Taliban militants sheltering in Pakistan.
Inside the last two weeks, French officials have gone about the record in regards to the threat from Al Qaeda inside Islamic Maghreb. Bernard Squarcini, director of the Central Directorate of Domestic Intelligence warned that “all the blinkers are on red” since the risk to France was higher.
The director general of your National Police, Frédéric Péchenard, reported inside a newspaper interview on Sept. 23 that France experienced been warned by one more intelligence service that a female suicide bomber supposed to attack in Paris that day. As well as the inside minister, Brice Hortefeux, spoke openly concerning the risk on Sept. 20.
France may be a prominent supporter from the war in Afghanistan, has passed a bill outlawing the full facial veil and has had an awkward debate about national identity that a lot of Muslims saw as aimed at them. However 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 single of them in retaliation in July.
In Washington, the director of nationwide intelligence, James Clapper, said within a statement: “We aren’t going to comment on certain intelligence,” but “as we have repeatedly said, we know Al Qaeda wants to assault Europe and the us.”
Data is routinely shared with allies, he explained, “in order to disrupt terrorist plotting, identify and take action towards probable operatives, and strengthen our defenses in opposition to prospective threats.”
This month, the Central Intelligence Agency has escalated its bombing campaign in Pakistan utilizing armed drones. American officials said the intense bombardment inside tribal areas was intended to keep militant groups from sending operatives across the border into Afghanistan to replenish Taliban ranks, too as to disrupt any communications in between Pakistani militants and operatives who might be placed in Europe. United states officers mentioned it was unclear what impact, if any, the drone attacks would have on a terrorism plot that is perhaps carried out within Europe.
On Wednesday, following the Eiffel Tower received been evacuated the night before, the atmosphere was calm, with many tourists unaware that there could be a hazard. Chellene Tamby, 21, a company student, read to the grass in the nearby Champ de Mars. She received heard concerning the bomb alert but reported, “’France is really a fantastic energy, and consequently the country is inevitably threatened.”
Too a lot public discussion just spreads panic, she said.
André Dunstetter, 71, sat on a close by bench. “We never know when and where a bomb assault will take location, but that doesn’t mean we’ll must cease living,” he reported. “I imagine that Al Qaeda’s hazard is usually a psychological one, and it is meant to destabilize safety services as well as the population.”
Reporting was contributed by John F. Burns in London, Souad Mekhennet in Islamabad, Pakistan, and Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt in Washington.