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| Europe |
| 15 major terrorist attacks prevented in Europe since 9/11 |
| 2005-02-18 |
| Since 11 September 2001, at least 15 major terrorist attacks have been prevented in Europe, according to a Norwegian research institute. In an interview with Radio Netherlands, a spokesman for the institute claims that all these attacks would have caused many casualties had they not been foiled. The Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) is the chief adviser on defence-related science and technology to the Ministry of Defence and the Norwegian Armed Forces' military organisation. Its key tasks include mapping out terrorist activity by radical Muslims in Europe. This resulted this week in a report on last November's murder of Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh. A typical al-Qaeda-inspired assassination chiefly carried out for political reasons such as the presence of Dutch troops in Iraq, concludes the FFI. The institute also looked at the organisation of the so-called Hofstad-network, the group of mostly young radical Muslims of Moroccan extraction to which the murder suspect, Mohammed B, allegedly belonged. There are striking similarities in structure between this particular network and other Islamic cells based elsewhere in Europe, according to the FFI. The 15 thwarted attacks were so-called 'mass casualty attacks' designed to take a great number of lives for maximum impact, according to an FFI spokesman, who refused to give further details to Radio Netherlands. In response, the Dutch intelligence and security service AIVD divulged that at least three major attacks had been foiled in the Netherlands since 2000. In addition, several arrests had been made in an alleged plot to blow up the US embassy in Paris. In another reaction to the Norwegian estimate, terrorism expert Glenn Schoen, of the US security firm 'Transecur', pointed out that the number of foiled terrorist attacks could be elevated to 20 or even 30 depending on the definition of "major attack". More specifically, he listed five thwarted attacks in France and an equal number in Spain, three each in Germany and Britain, and one in Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands. Added up, the total would be 19, four more than estimated by the Norwegian research body. And those 19 are only cases about which the authorities has chosen to release details. The real number must therefore be higher, somewhere between 20 and 30, according to Mr Schoen. One also has to bear in mind that the figure of 19 only refers to cases in which hard evidence supporting allegations that a high-profile attack was in the making. If less clear-cut cases are included, the number is set to be much higher. Take the Netherlands, for example. The AIVD secret service told Radio Netherlands about four thwarted major attacks, but says only one of those meets the strict legal criteria for such a qualification, the other three are therefore not included in the total of 19. That single case involves the October 2003 arrests of four suspects who were found to possess basic bomb-making equipment. Among them was Samir A, a notorious member of the Hofstad network. All four suspects were later released for lack of legally sound evidence, which shows how difficult it is to thwart terrorist plots in the courtroom. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |