Raids at dawn stop bombers

By ANDREW LAXON and AGENCIES

Terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden were planning to fly a helicopter full of explosives into the United States Embassy in Paris, say French police.

Intelligence sources in the US and Europe said yesterday that the ring of 50 terrorists was also planning to attack Nato headquarters in Brussels, the European Parliament in Strasbourg and the US consulate in Marseille.

Their plans were foiled by dawn raids across Europe which netted 35 of the alleged terrorists from Costa del Sol, Spain, to Leicester, England.

Meanwhile, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt said that bin Laden had planned to assassinate US President George W. Bush at the G8 summit in Genoa in July with "an aeroplane stuffed full of explosives".

The Times in London reported that one of three men arrested in Leicester by Scotland Yard and MI5 was master bomb-maker Kamel Daoudi, aged 23. He was to have assembled the explosive device for a helicopter which the Algerian-based group Tafkir wal Hijra (Anathema and Exile) planned to fly into the Paris embassy.

The plot was uncovered after another terrorist, Djamel Begal, was arrested with a false French passport in Dubai in July.

Begal - who was allegedly on his way back from a bin Laden-linked training camp in Afghanistan or Pakistan - led police to three cells in Europe, which were planning the attacks in Paris and Marseille.

French and American authorities reportedly knew about the European targets before the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington, but were still watching the terrorists.

They were forced to move more quickly after the hijackers struck, making arrests in France, Belgium and the Netherlands last week.

On Wednesday, Spanish national police, working with the FBI, CIA and Spanish military intelligence, raided six Algerians alleged to be members of bin Laden's network. Fake identity documents and computer material that could be used to forge air tickets were seized.

The militants were members of an Algerian Islamic cell called the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, one of the 27 terrorist entities whose assets have been frozen.

The six - Mohammed Boualem Khnouni, Mohammed Belaziz, Yasin Seddiki, Hakim Zerzour, Hocine Khouni and Madjid Sahouane - allegedly used credit card fraud to finance their activities.

The Spanish Government said they were directly related to two men detained last week in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Alleged hijack ringleader Mohammed Atta is said to have spent 10 days in Spain in July and met some of the arrested men.

In Britain, seven men - one German and six Iraqis - were found hiding in a lorry outside RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, a large military airfield which is home to US Air Force fighter-bombers.

They were held for questioning under anti-terrorism laws.

Mr Mubarak told the French newspaper Le Figaro that the threat against President Bush was contained in a video made by bin Laden on June 13.

"It spoke of assassinating President Bush and other heads of state in Genoa. It was a question of an aeroplane stuffed with explosives."

His comments support earlier claims of a plot against Mr Bush by Russian and German intelligence a few weeks before the summit.

But the New York Times reported that people who have viewed the videotape said it made no reference to stuffing an aircraft with explosives or killing Mr Bush.

With fears over germ warfare attacks increasing on both sides of the Atlantic, the British cabinet was to be briefed overnight on contingency plans for protecting London and other cities against terrorist attacks, particularly the use of chemical and biological weapons.

In the United States 10 suspected truck bombers, some linked to the hijackers who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, have now been arrested and charged with having false licences to drive trucks containing dangerous chemicals.

Telling Congress about the arrests, Attorney-General John Ashcroft said: "Terrorism is a clear and present danger to Americans today." In law, this phrase allows the President to take covert action to protect national security.

New York traffic ground to a standstill as the FBI began checks on tens of thousands of truck drivers with hazardous goods licences.

A scare about a truck carrying a deadly cargo that terrorists wanted to explode in Manhattan caused New York police to block bridges and tunnels to the island and search all heavy vehicles.

Meanwhile, the New York Post said terrorists had tried to buy a Boeing 727 from a dealer in Denver six months before the September 11 hijackings.

The information was passed to the FBI at the time, but it was said to have been "not specific enough" to have thwarted the attacks.

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