EU: "All the lights are red. They are flashing from everywhere."

EU: "All the lights are red. They are flashing from everywhere."



The American led cell which planned to attack the Danish Mohammed cartoon newspaper Jyllands Posten is still at large.



Via Washington Times:

Al Qaeda and its allies are taking aim at Europe, according to U.S. and Western intelligence officials, who say there are indications a terrorist plot is in the offing.

"Despite the significant counterterrorism pressure abroad, al Qaeda continues to be committed to high-profile attacks directed at the West, including plans against Europe as well as the homeland," FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III told a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told senators "there have been a number of activities in Europe — we are in constant contact with our colleagues abroad."

Ms. Napolitano spoke in response to questions from Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent and committee chairman, about recent warnings from senior European officials about an impending terrorist strike on the Continent.

European counterterrorism officials in recent days have said there are new signs that terrorist attacks against Europe are being planned.

One official, Bernard Squarcini, head of France's counterterrorism and counterintelligence agency, told Le Monde on Sept. 10, "All the lights are red. They are flashing from everywhere."

A former senior U.S. intelligence official told The Washington Times that "the threat-reporting stream today is like what we were seeing in the summer of 2001."

(...)

One cause of concern for the U.S. counterterrorism community is a network in Europe that was first disclosed to the public in the case of David Coleman Headley, an American arrested on terrorism charges in October.

The indictment against Mr. Headley states that he was sent by an al Qaeda commander named Mohammed Ilyas Kashmiri to scope out Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that in 2005 published cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.


The indictment says Kashmiri recommended contacts in Western Europe that could provide Mr. Headley "with money, weapons and manpower for the attack on the newspaper." That network of contacts is still at large, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

(more)