From Beirut to London, new terror alerts ring out

11.45am

LONDON - Lebanon said today it had smashed a plot to attack the US embassy and Britain banned flights to Kenya as fresh terror alerts rang out across the world after the bloody suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia.

Fingers were pointed mainly at Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network as Pakistan reported bombings of Shell and Caltex petrol stations and Algerian troops hunted in the Sahara desert for 15 European tourists still held by Islamist guerrillas.

The United States stuck to its guns that its war on terror had shattered al Qaeda's leadership, but Homeland security chief Tom Ridge said: "The potential is still very, very real."

Ridge, a top appointment of US President George W Bush after the September 11 attacks in 2001, delivered his warning as FBI and CIA agents joined the hunt in Saudi Arabia for the suspected al Qaeda masterminds of Monday's suicide bombings that killed at least 34 people, including at least seven Americans.

In unusual criticism, Washington said the kingdom, birthplace of bin Laden and most of the September 11 attackers, needed to do more to fight terrorism. The US ambassador told its leaders the Saudi leadership was as much a target as anyone.

Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, admitted security lapses but rejected charges militancy was a homegrown phenomenon. Bin Laden condemns the Saudi monarchy's US ties.

The Riyadh bombings were the first big attack on US interests since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, which Washington portrayed as an integral part of its war on terror.

In Beirut, military intelligence officials said they arrested nine people plotting an attack on the US embassy and kidnappings to force the release of Islamic militant prisoners.

The Lebanese army said it and Syrian military intelligence had detained members of a cell planning "sabotage and attacks on various targets, the most important being the embassy of a major Western state". Military intelligence sources said the heavily fortified US embassy in Beirut was the target.

Britain said it had banned flights to and from Kenya because of a threat of "global terrorist activity", hours after Nairobi said the suspected mastermind of al Qaeda attacks in the African country had been spotted in the region.

Kenya called the ban excessive. "Actions like this may make it appear like terrorists are making a moral score, a moral victory," Security Minister Chris Murungaru told reporters.

The country, reliant on tourism as one of its main foreign currency earners, has been the scene of major attacks in recent years that authorities blame on al Qaeda.

The US embassy in Nairobi was one of two in the region hit by truck bombs in 1998. Last November, an Israeli-owned resort was blown up in the seaside town of Mombasa and militants fired two missiles that just missed an Israeli charter airliner.

Algeria expressed concern that news of the rescue of 17 European tourists may have jeopardised 15 others still held in the Sahara desert by Islamist guerrillas accused of links with al Qaeda. The 17 were freed this week by Algerian troops in a desert gunbattle with the militants.

Military sources and Algerian newspapers said 10 Germans, four Swiss and a Dutchman still in captivity were being held by an Islamist militant group, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat. Several European governments criticised Austria for blurting out news on Wednesday of the rescue of the 17.

"The media exploitation, while the operation is not terminated, could seriously affect the rest of the action," said Algerian Foreign Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem.

Pakistani police said small bombs exploded at 19 Shell petrol stations and two belonging to Caltex Pakistan, a subsidiary of US oil giant Caltex, in Karachi on Thursday.

Shell Pakistan, owned by Anglo-Dutch giant Royal Dutch/Shell Group, said one customer, three station attendants and a security guard suffered minor injuries in the attacks.

Pakistan, a key Muslim ally in Washington's war on terror, detained a foreigner and two Pakistanis suspected of links to al Qaeda. An intelligence official said the foreigner seemed to be hn Arab. Pakistan says it has arrested more than 400 members of al Qaeda and the Taleban since the war in Afghanistan in 2001.

The United States charged two fugitive Yemenis linked to al Qaeda with plotting the bombing of the US warship Cole that killed 17 sailors in Yemen in October 2000. They were the first US charges over the bombing.

Underlining Ridge's terrorism warning, US officials went to Chicago for the fourth day of the country's biggest disaster management test in scenes including a "collapsed" building.

The US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Robert Jordan, said terrorism was not only the enemy of the United States:

"(Monday's attack) was, if not the Saudis' September 11, certainly their Pearl Harbour," Jordan said, referring to the Japanese attack that drew Americans into World War 2.

- REUTERS