Piercing Al Qaeda's camouflage

That is especially true of Britain, where the alleged "20th hijacker" from the Sept. 11 attacks, Zacarias Moussaoui - a French citizen of Moroccan origin currently facing trial in the United States - is reported to have been recruited. Lotfi Raissi, an Algerian whom US authorities suspect trained some of the Sept. 11 hijackers, lived quietly outside London for several years. Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber" arrested in December as he allegedly tried to blow up a plane flying from Paris to Miami, seems to have been converted to radical Islam while in jail in London.

Earlier this week, a French newspaper reported that Reid was in e-mail contact with supporters across Europe before he boarded the US-bound flight. Reid reportedly sent a message - later found on a hard drive in a Paris cybercafe - in which he claimed to be a "martyr for the Islamic cause."

Police and intelligence agencies in Europe have not been unaware of the potential danger in their midst. The Spanish authorities say they have been monitoring extremist Islamic groups for a decade. But rivalries and different priorities between different agencies have complicated their task.

"It is a balancing act between not disturbing cells because they could lead to further arrests," which tends to be an intelligence agency's approach, and making arrests as soon as sufficient evidence has been collected, which is traditionally the police attitude, says Dr. Ranstorp.

That balance has now changed, adds Levi. Since Sept. 11, the European authorities "have adopted a preventative line, to step in. 9/11 changed the rules of the game. A clear and present danger has become part of the mental set."

Still, warns Ranstorp, the police are up against networks skilled in counterintelligence and concealing themselves - using e-mails sent from public Internet cafes rather than telephones to communicate, for example - which means that "the real problem is getting and using real-time intelligence."

Two allegedly important members of Al Qaeda, its ambassador to Europe Abu Qatada and the man suspected by the FBI of financing the terrorist cell that flew a plane into the Pentagon, Omar al Bayoumi, have so far escaped British police dragnets.

Even if they are caught, however, putting them behind bars may prove to be especially difficult, given the delicate nature of the evidence against them. Intelligence agencies, both European and American, are often reluctant to reveal anything that might shed light on how they gather their information.

Six Bosnian terrorist suspects were released from jail in Sarajevo last week because the US authorities would not present evidence against them that could be used in court (though they were handed over to US soldiers and are now en route to the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba). The British police are said to fear that they will not be able to hold and prosecute Mr. Raissi because of Washington's reluctance to provide usable evidence against him.

In the United States, the authorities plan to sidestep this difficulty with military tribunals, which will have lower evidentiary standards than traditional courts.

But in Europe, where no such tribunals have been created, the lack of public evidence is "a huge problem," says Ranstorp.

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