Author: Associated Press
Publication: Arab News
Date: July 8, 2010
URL: http://arabnews.com/world/article81158.ece
Three suspected Al-Qaeda members were arrested
Thursday in a Norwegian bomb plot linked to the same terrorist planners behind
thwarted schemes to blow up New York's subway and a British shopping mall.
The alleged Norwegian plot, underscoring changing
Al-Qaeda tactics in the decade since the 9/11 attacks, was said to involve
powerful peroxide bombs similar to ones aimed for detonation in New York and
Manchester, England.
All three plans were organized by Saleh Al-Somali,
Al-Qaeda's former chief of external operations, who had been in charge of
plotting attacks worldwide, Norwegian and US officials believe. Al-Somali
was killed in a CIA drone airstrike last year, but officials say the three
plots had already been set in motion by the time of his death.
Thursday's arrests suggested how decentralized
and nimble Al-Qaeda has become since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United
States. The terror group has recently focused on smaller-level attacks that
don't require the intricate planning that it took to hijack airplanes and
fly them into buildings in New York and Washington.
Last year, when the FBI and CIA thwarted the
suicide attack in the New York subway, officials called it the most dangerous
plot since 9/11. And in the past two days, revelations about the related plots
in England and now in Norway have illustrated the terror group's multi-country
scope.
Al-Qaida keeps its plots compartmentalized,
and officials do not believe the suspects in Norway knew about the other cells
involved. The Norwegian and US officials spoke on condition of anonymity because
they were not authorized to discuss the case.
The officials said it was unclear whether
the men in Norway had perfected the bomb-making recipe, but Janne Kristiansen,
head of the country's Police Security Service, said, "According to our
evaluation, the public has never been at risk." Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader,
Ayman Al-Zawahri, has called in the past for attacks on Norway. Magnus Norell,
a terrorism expert at the Swedish Defense Research Agency, said Norway's 500
troops in Afghanistan could have been a factor, as could a 2006 controversy
that arose after a Danish newspaper's publication of cartoons depicting the
Prophet Muhammad that enraged Muslims.
It was unclear whether the trio had selected
a specific target in Norway, but the alleged plot already had played a role
in Norway's decision to raise its terror alert level last year.
"The threat of terrorism in Norway was
generally low in 2009. However, certain groups are engaged in activities that
could quickly change the threat level in 2010," Norway's Police Security
Service wrote in February. Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged Thursday
that statement was referring, at least in part, to the Al-Qaeda plot.
The three captured men, whose names were not
released, had been under surveillance for more than a year as the FBI and
CIA worked with Norwegian authorities.
"The FBI worked closely with our law
enforcement partners in England and Norway throughout the investigation,"
FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said.
The US also turned over financial data that
terrorist financing experts had collected, said Stuart Levy, the Treasury
Department's top counterterrorism official.
Two suspects were arrested in Norway. A third
was captured in Germany, where he was vacationing, the Frankfurt general prosecutor's
office said. Norway's Police Security Service said the arrests made in Norway
took place in the Oslo area. Kristiansen said all three men "had connections
to Oslo." Those arrested in Norway included a 39-year-old Norwegian of
Uighur origin who has lived in the country since 1999 and a 31-year-old citizen
of Uzbekistan who had a permanent Norwegian residency permit, Kristiansen
said. The man arrested in Germany was a 37-year-old Iraqi with a Norwegian
residency permit, he said. German authorities were preparing to extradite
him to Norway.
The Uighur traveled to Pakistan's lawless
tribal region of Waziristan around the same time as Najibullah Zazi, one of
the would-be New York bombers, but the two did not attend the same training
camp or meet, a US official said.
Kjell T. Dahl, a lawyer for the Uzbek man,
would not identify his client but described him as an acquaintance of the
Uighur. Dahl said his client was shocked to be arrested Thursday morning.
"He's a family man," Dahl said.
"From what I can see and the way he behaves, he's an ordinary family
man, a self-employed, moderate Muslim with no connection to any special mosques
or groups of a religious or political character." The Associated Press
learned of the investigation in recent weeks and approached US and Norwegian
officials.
Authorities told the AP that reporting on
the case could jeopardize public safety and allow dangerous suspects to go
free. The AP agreed not to report on the investigation until arrests were
made.
"AP's knowledge of the case was only
one of several factors that was taken into consideration when deciding on
the timing of the arrests," Police Security Service spokesman Trond Hugubakken
said. "It was not the decisive factor." US and Norwegian counterterrorism
officials worked together to unravel the Norwegian plot, officials said.
Kristiansen traveled to the US this spring
to discuss closely held intelligence gathered in the case.
The arrests brought strong media attention
in Norway, and Stoltenberg urged Norwegians not to racially profile.
"These are separate individuals that
are responsible for criminal acts," Stoltenberg said. "It is always
bad to judge a whole group of people from what individuals are doing and that
is independently of what group these people belong to." In an indictment
unsealed Wednesday in federal court in Brooklyn, prosecutors added several
Al-Qaeda figures to the New York case, including Adnan Shukrijumah, a most-wanted
terrorist. The US is offering a $5 million reward for information leading
to his capture.
Shukrijumah, one of the Al-Qaeda leaders in
charge of plotting attacks worldwide, was directly involved in recruiting
and plotting the New York attack, prosecutors said.