IS AL-QAEDA PLANNING FRESH WAVE OF VIOLENCE AGAINST U.S.?
by DEBKAfile, 24 February 2002
"A freshly-carved hole in an underground passageway
next to the US embassy on Via Veneto in Rome was one of several ominous signals
that the al Qaeda terror network has resumed its terror offensive against
the US and Europe.
According to DEBKAfiles intelligence sources, counter-terror authorities
have been on the lookout in the last two weeks for an unknown number of terrorist
squads known to be on their way to West Europe and the Middle East from bases
in Iran, Yemen, Pakistan and the Central Asian Ferghana Valley. Their routes
west took them through Turkey.
At the end of January, two top terror masters dropped out of sight at the
same time: Imad Mughniyeh, the Iranian-Lebanese arch-terrorist who is one
of bin Ladens top operations officers, was reported to have passed through
the Lebanese Beqaa Valley and disappeared; and Shamil Basayev, the Chechen
operative who liaises between the rebel movement and bin Ladens group,
left Chechnya for an unknown destination.
Both have long records as organizers, planners and innovators of large-scale
terror plots in the name of radical Islam. Their disappearance triggered alarums
in both sides of the Atlantic.
Saturday, February 23, in Lakewood, Colorado, the FBI went on the alert after
sensitive information about roads at Hoover Dam - an engineers identification
badge and computer hard drives - was stolen from a Federal Highway Administration
Office. Situated thirty miles east of Las Vegas, Hoover Dam is the largest
man-made reservoir in America.
The hole found near the embassy in Rome confirmed the direst fears of the
FBI and Italian police working together of an al Qaeda plot to launch a chemical
attack on the city, focusing on the centrally-located US embassy.
The potential assault was apparently aborted by the arrest in Rome last Tuesday,
February 19, of four Moroccan men, members of the extremist Algerian Islamic
Armed Group GIA, associated with al Qaeda. Found in their possession
were 4 kilos of cyanide, 10 kilos of explosives, maps of the water, electric
and gas networks around the US embassy building and 100 false identity papers.
At first, Italian officials claimed the cyanide was harmless. Later, it transpired
that an explosion turning the cyanide compound into a toxic gaseous cloud
would have caused many deaths first in the US embassy, then spreading
through the tunnels under the center of Rome. The Moroccan cell numbered altogether
seven suspects. Three, in addition to the four arrested, were originally charged
with possession of forged identity papers. When the Rome police sought to
increase the charges to include association with terrorist groups, two of
the three suspects were found to have flown. One was picked up in an intensive
search; the second is still missing..."