First Bhutto, Now Barcelona?

By Paul Cruickshank

Late last week Spanish authorities arrested 14 suspects, 12 of them of Pakistani descent, suspected of plotting an attack in Barcelona. Explosives were seized in the raids.

The revelation that several of the plotters were of Pakistani descent will alarm European counter-terrorism officials because Al Qaeda only seems to be gaining ground in their country of origin. A Spanish newspaper on sunday reported that the Spanish authorities were tipped off that a known Pakistani militant had traveled to Spain from Pakistan in order to organize the plot. Spain holds a general election this March, almost exactly four years after North African Al Qaeda linked militants launched an attack on Madrid commuter trains killing 191 just before a general election.

There is a growing consensus in Washington DC and London that Baitullah Mehsud, a Taliban commander with links to Al Qaeda ordered Bhutto killed. Mehsud would presumably only have ordered such an attack if he felt secure in his South Waziristan strongholds. In the last week Mehsud's forces upped the ante by seizing a fort from the Pakistani army in South Waziristan. And jihadists in Pakistan have launched a wave of suicide attacks in the country in recent weeks, that have reached even Lahore in the relatively peaceful east. The Barcelona arrests, whatever the alleged cell's exact links to Al Qaeda and Pakistan-based jihadists, underscore how Al Qaeda's safe havens in Pakistan threaten the west.

The Spanish Media linked the plot to Musharraf's state visit to several European capitals this week and reported that other European countries including Britain, had been warned by the Spanish authorities of "imminent attacks."

As I wrote in a November article for the Guardian, so far it is the UK that has suffered most from the terrorist fallout emanating from Pakistan, the victim, according to the new MI5 director of a "deliberate [al-Qaida] campaign against us." Britain's high profile involvement in Iraq goes some way to explain why the country has been singled out by al-Qaeda but what makes it particularly vulnerable is the fact that 400,000 visits are made back home by its large Pakistani diaspora each year offering al-Qaeda ample recruiting opportunities.

However continental Europe too is starting to wake up to the threat posed by the Pakistani terrorism training camps. In September, German authorities broke up a suspected al-Qaeda plot to bomb Ramstein airforce base and Frankfurt airport involving three suspects, two of them German citizens, who trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan in late 2006. The timing of their training is significant because it followed President Musharraf's September 2006 decision to call off military operations against al-Qaida and the Taliban in the tribal areas, a peace-deal, described by a July US government report as crucial to al-Qaeda's ability to successfully improve its core operational capability."

There is also significant concern amongst counter-terrorism officials in Europe about the national security implications of record numbers of Pakistanis entering their countries, most of them illegally. The continued instability in Pakistan, if it dents economic growth in Pakistan will only increase this flow further. Although the very large majority of this Pakistani diaspora has no time for al-Qaeda, there have been a concerning number of European Pakistanis cropping up in counter-terrorism investigations of late in countries such as Spain, Italy and France.

Additionally, one of the chief suspects arrested in an alleged al-Qaeda plot in Denmark this September was of Pakistani origin as was one of the suspects still at large in the Ramstein plot. This development has caused particular concern because as one senior Belgian counter-terrorism official confided to me recently: "We just don't understand these guys like we do the north African networks whom we have been dealing with for a long time."

TrackBack