12 Somalis arrested amid terror attack fears

AMSTERDAM - Dutch police have arrested 12 Somali men in the key port city of Rotterdam on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack, the public prosecutor said.

The men, aged 19 to 48, were detained on a tip from intelligence services that they were planning an attack shortly in the Netherlands.

There was no immediate information on the alleged target, but Rotterdam is Europe's biggest port and a hub of maritime commerce, with huge oil and gas storage facilities and dozens of massive docks.

European officials stepped up security around the holidays this year after a Nigerian man in 2009 left Amsterdam Airport on Christmas Day and allegedly tried to blow up a plane over Detroit with explosives taped to his underwear.

Holiday security concerns are growing in Europe following a suicide bombing in Sweden, terror raids in Britain and attacks on two embassies this week in Rome.

Dutch police searched an internet cafe, four houses and two motel rooms in the Rotterdam area, prosecutors said yesterday. No weapons or explosives were found. Six of the suspects lived in Rotterdam, five had no permanent residence and one came from Denmark, they said.

Asked how serious the threat was, a senior prosecutor said the intelligence tip warranted action. "It's uncertain whether we escaped from an attack. What we did is take away the threat that was formed by these people," Gerrit van der Burg said on NOS television.

Prosecutors must bring the suspects before a judge by Wednesday or release them.

The Dutch National Terrorism Co-ordinator left the terrorist alert level unchanged following the arrests, indicating the likelihood of an attack was "limited".

Dutch intelligence services have reportedly been closely watching the growing Somali community in the Netherlands. One US citizen of Somali extraction is under arrest and is fighting extradition to the US, suspected of supplying money to the al-Shabaab insurgent group for weapons and to finance trips for potential recruits.

Heightened nervousness of a holiday terrorist attack has led to mistakes in the past. Three months ago, police arrested two Yemenis travelling from the US on a request from US law enforcement agencies who feared they were conducting a dry run for a terrorist attack. They were released two days later for lack of any evidence of a crime.

On Friday, anarchists sent mail bombs to the Chilean and Swiss embassies in Rome, injuring two mail employees. A top Italian security official said the attackers wanted to avenge blows by those countries against their movement.

Last Monday, 12 men were arrested in Britain in the largest counterterrorism raid there in nearly two years. The men - whose ages ranged from 17 to 28 - were arrested in London, Cardiff, Stoke-on-Trent and Birmingham. At least five were of Bangladeshi origin.

Security officials said a large-scale terror attack was aimed at British landmarks and public spaces.

Police removed computers from the suspects' homes and have up to 28 days to either charge the men or release them.

French officials, meanwhile, have ordered plainclothes police patrols in key tourist sites for the holidays, including an extra 6000 police for New Year's Eve.

The Observer reported that intelligence services throughout the Middle East and Europe are scrambling to track down more than two dozen fighters linked to al Qaeda who have recently left their base in Lebanon.

The missing men are thought to have gone to Europe by a newly established route through Syria, Turkey and the Balkans.

"Yes, they have left the camp," confirmed Munir al-Maqda, a senior Palestine Liberation Organisation official in the Ain el-Hilweh refugee camp, where the fighters had been hiding for the past few years. Because the Lebanese Army is not allowed to enter the country's 13 Palestinian refugee camps, militants have long sought refuge inside them.

The militants, who based themselves in an area on the outskirts of the Ain el-Hilweh camp, had been a disparate group of freelance fighters and jihadists thought to have carried out a series of attacks in Lebanon over the past five years.

One European Union intelligence official confirmed to the Observer that an operation to hunt down Arab fighters recently arrived from Lebanon was under way, but could not link this group to recent concerns about possible holiday attacks by al Qaeda.

"We have received warnings of a significant militant plot in Europe during the holidays and we have been warned about these missing fighters from Lebanon," he said. "But we wish we knew if the two threats were related."

EUROPE TARGETED

2004: Madrid train bombings: shrapnel-filled bombs killed 191 people and wounded about 1800.

2005: July bombings: suicide bombers killed 52 commuters in London on three Underground trains and a bus.

2006: Plane plot: United States and British intelligence officials thwarted a plan to explode nearly a dozen transatlantic planes.

- Observer, AP