Europe warned of Mumbai-style terror attacks

A man captured in Afghanistan has tipped off investigators to a potential "Mumbai-style" terror plot in Europe, a German counterterror source said Wednesday. Investigators believe al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden signed off on a European attack plan, a separate law enforcement source said. But U.S. and international officials say they have seen no sign of an imminent attack.

U.S. officials said the alleged plot has no U.S. component -- at least none that has been found. One official stressed that the plot is serious and credible but that the intelligence available lacked specificity -- no who, where or how. Some names of "known operational planners" are possibly connected with the plot, but there is "no precise insight" into who may be planning an attack, the official said. Soft targets such as hotels and economic targets are of particular concern, but there is "no precise" intelligence on the mode of attack, said the official.

Another official said there are different threads coming from different places, and it's not clear how or even if they will come together. The European countries involved -- primarily Germany, France, Britain -- are tackling the perceived threats as they see fit.

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Al-Qaida Takes Lessons Learned To Yemen

Yemeni soldiers streamed into the streets of the capital this weekend after a deadly attack on intelligence services by alleged al-Qaida gunmen, underscoring the impact of what U.S. government officials and experts on terrorism say has become the world’s most active and dangerous offshoot of al-Qaida. With dozens of attacks this year on spy and security forces, including deadly raids into the very headquarters of Yemen’s mukhabarat, or intelligence branch, Yemen's newly invigorated al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is reshaping the mission, strategy and tactics of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida brand, experts say. And the Yemeni government is now stepping up its effort to confront this insurgency and doing so with pledges of more than $1 billion in military aid from the United States.

At this point, there is a "raging war taking place between al-Qaida in Yemen and the Yemeni government," said Fawaz Gerges, professor of Middle East politics at the London School of Economics, and a longtime scholar of al-Qaida. Diversifying from al-Qaida's core vision of mass-casualty attacks upon people of the distant, hated West, al-Qaida fighters in Yemen have redirected their aim squarely upon the weak, fumbling and corrupt government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Saleh this summer sided more than ever with the United States against the al-Qaida forces who have made their home in his country, proclaiming al-Qaida the greatest danger to his country.

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Terrorism’s new target: Econo-Jihad

Jihadist terror organizations have set economic terrorism as their new target, intending to harm and paralyze Western economies, the United Sates in particular, claims Prof. Gabriel Weimann, expert researcher of terrorism over the Internet at the University of Haifa. Prof. Weimann monitored websites hosted by terrorist and terrorism-supporting organizations and concludes: “For the Jihadists, the present economic crisis signifies an ideal opportunity and platform to leverage a economic terrorist campaign.”

In the course of a study that was carried out over a number of years, Prof. Weimann surveyed public and encoded websites run by Islamic terrorist organizations, forums, video clips, and practically all the information related to Islamic Jihad terrorism that is flowing through the network. According to Prof. Weimann, the focus on economic terrorism was set in motion with the September 11 attack on the Twin Towers, when Osama bin Laden stated on the video tapes that he sent out that these attacks mostly damaged the United States’ economic base and that these attacks, which cost $500,000 to carry out, cost the U.S. $500 billion. Other publications by bin Laden himself and by other terrorist leaders show that they understand that Western and U.S. power lies in their economic strength.

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Al Qaeda's Pursuit of Weapons of Mass Destruction

In 1998, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden declared that acquiring and using weapons of mass destruction (WMD) was his Islamic duty -- an integral part of his jihad. Systemically, over the course of decades, he dispatched his top lieutenants to attempt to purchase or develop nuclear and biochemical WMD. He has never given up the goal; indeed, in a 2007 video, he repeated his promise to use massive weapons to upend the global status quo, destroy the capitalist hegemony, and help create an Islamic caliphate.

Since the mid-1990s, al Qaeda's WMD procurement efforts have been managed at the most senior levels, under rules of strict compartmentalization from lower levels of the organization, and with central control over possible targets and the timing of prospective attacks. The modus operandi has been top-down -- more similar to the 9/11 attacks than to more recent bottom-up efforts, like the attempted bombing of Flight 253. For instance, al Qaeda deputy chief Ayman al-Zawahiri personally shepherded the group's ultimately unsuccessful efforts to set off an anthrax attack in the United States.

Al Qaeda concentrated its efforts on nuclear devices in the run-up to the September 11, 2001 attacks. Based on the timing and nature of its WMD-related activity in the 1990s, al Qaeda hoped to use such weapons in the United States during an intensified campaign following the 9/11 attacks. There is no indication that the fundamental objectives that lie behind its WMD intent have changed over time.

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Bin Laden takes credit for airline bombing plot; officials express skepticism

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the Christmas Day attempt to blow up an American civilian jet in an audiotape broadcast today on Arab television. U.S. intelligence officials quickly raised doubts about Bin Laden's role and suggested the statement was an attempt to score propaganda points for a plot already claimed by an increasingly independent faction of his movement in Yemen.

In the clip, Bin Laden said his group was behind the failed attempt allegedly carried out by Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight. Speaking directly to President Obama, the Al Qaeda leader vowed to continue launching terrorist attacks against the United States as long as Washington supported what he described as Israel's unjust treatment of Palestinians.

U.S. intelligence officials today did not cast doubt on the authenticity of the tape. But they expressed skepticism that Bin Laden or his lieutenants, believed to be based in Pakistan, played a meaningful role in conceiving or executing the Christmas Day plot.

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