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| Joerg Ziercke (left), head of the Federal Crime Office, and prosecutor Monika Harms displayed the seized chemicals Wednesday. Thomas Kienzle/AP |
'Massive' bombing plot puts home-grown terror under Europe's spotlight
Arrests in Denmark and Germany this week could spur widening investigative police powers.
By William Boston | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the September 6, 2007 edition
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Berlin - Just days before the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States, European security forces in Germany and Denmark uncovered two terrorist cells that officials said Wednesday were planning massive attacks even more deadly than the bombings in Madrid and London.
For many Europeans, the threat of a major terrorist attack still does not seem an imminent danger. But the round of arrests this week shows that terrorist cells with links to Al Qaeda are stepping up activity in Europe, and that increasingly, the plotters are European-born.
"The threat of new terror attacks continues to be high," said European Union Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini, saying Europe must push ahead with plans to set up an EU-wide airline passenger data recording system despite privacy concerns.
After months of observation, German police on Tuesday swooped down on a vacation home in the wooded region of Sauerland in western Germany, engaging in a brief scuffle with one of the suspects before arresting three men who had amassed 1,500 pounds of hydrogen peroxide that officials said could have been used to make car bombs. Two of the men are German converts to Islam, which officials called another sign of the growing threat of "homegrown" terrorism in Europe. The third suspect is Turkish. [Editor's note: The original version misstated the date of the suspects' arrest.]
In a seemingly separate development, Danish police on Tuesday thwarted a bomb plot and arrested eight people who security officials said have ties to Al Qaeda leaders. Six of the suspects were released on Wednesday and two remain in Danish custody.
Germany is increasingly seen as a target by terrorists because of its involvement in Afghanistan, say analysts. German troops have been attacked and its citizens have been kidnapped. Despite the plots, there is little doubt, poll-watchers say, that Germany won't extend the mandate of its troops in Afghanistan, a move expected later this month.
What is more likely is that the new arrests will lend support to Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble's plans to widen the investigative powers of the federal police, to give them more FBI-like preemptive investigative authority. One controversial idea is to allow investigators to use the Internet to snoop on the computers of suspected terrorists. Mr. Schäuble told reporters that "the terrorists use all the means of modern technology to communicate" and said he favored online surveillance.
"The big question will be what kind of security strategy comes out of this," says Klaus Segbers, a terrorism expert and professor at Berlin's Free University. "The most likely outcome is that this will put wind in Schäuble's sails."
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