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Cooperative intelligence helps to foil expected attacks
©New York Times, WASHINGTON -- The major terrorist attacks that the FBI warned were imminent 10 days ago might have been delayed or prevented by a worldwide campaign of arrests and detentions of suspected al-Qaida operatives and their allies, American officials say. Since Sept. 11, at least 23 foreign intelligence services -- sometimes working with American intelligence, sometimes on their own -- have disrupted terrorist cells and arrested hundreds of people around the world, American officials and foreign diplomats said. "We have a lot of friendly services around the world, friendly governments around the world, that are working with our government to do things," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. "And those things are happening. People are being picked up." American officials said the arrests disrupted suspected terrorist plots abroad and, they asserted, at home. They said they believed that they had bought time in the battle against future attacks in the United States, while fighting al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The officials caution that they believe major attacks are very likely and could come at any time. But the time that has passed since the warning was issued suggests to some officials that the arrests, along with heightened security measures here and at American facilities overseas, interfered with al-Qaida's immediate plans. American officials admit that they are running out of investigative leads in the United States and that they are increasingly dependent on evidence from overseas. The FBI warned on Oct. 11 that terrorist attacks against American interests within the United States and around the world could come "over the next several days." The warning rattled the nation's nerves. It was based on reports from American and foreign intelligence and security services, indicating that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network was ready to start a second wave of attacks. Officials have no evidence to link the anthrax attacks to al-Qaida. Anthrax was not the subject of the Oct. 11 warning. After Sept. 11, the officials said, arrests in Europe and the Middle East, coupled with stepped-up security measures, helped foil plots against American and allied embassies and other facilities in Paris and Beirut. Other targets might have included a NATO military installation in Turkey and the American Embassy complex in Yemen. All these cases are under investigation and the suspects arrested and detained are being interrogated. In France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Dubai, intelligence and security services have arrested at least 14 men who are suspected of planning an attack on the American Embassy in Paris. On Friday, a Belgian court approved the continued detention of two of those men. In Amman, the Jordanian security service helped disrupt plots aimed at the American, British and Jordanian diplomatic missions in Lebanon last week, officials said. The Jordanians relayed information to the Lebanese security services that attacks against American and American-allied missions were likely on or about Oct. 11, the officials said. One group suspected of involvement, officials said, was Asbat al-Ansar, a recently formed Islamic fundamentalist group based in Lebanon and listed by the United States as a terrorist organization with connections to al-Qaida. Members of that group have reportedly trained with al-Qaida forces in Afghanistan. In response to the warning from Jordan, the Lebanese authorities increased security measures, stationing guards and armored personnel carriers in the streets to protect Western and Western-allied institutions in and around Beirut, the scene of a multitude of bombings and kidnappings of Americans in the 1980s. And no new attacks occurred.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
