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ANTI-TERRORISM

Reports that Morocco had arrested members of Al Qaeda preparing attacks on western ships in the Straits of Gibraltar, coupled with the announcement of the capture of a U.S. citizen accused of plotting a "dirty bomb" attack on Washington, appear to have reoriented the media focus on the war on terrorism.

Several media perceive the arrests in Morocco as a threat to NATO rather than specific nations.

Among headlines: "NATO fleet in the target" (La Repubblica), "Group planned bomb-attack on NATO warships" (Sueddeutsche Zeitung), "Al Qaeda wanted to attack NATO ships in Gibraltar" Corriere della Sera, "Morocco breaks up Al Qaeda cell planning attacks on NATO ships" (AFP).

Al Jazirah satellite television channel, June 11 carried a correspondent in Rabat saying the Moroccan authorities were interrogating six Al Qaeda activists, including a woman, "on plans to carry out bombings in the NATO fleet in Gibraltar and at U.S. restaurants in Morocco."

The Moroccan authorities have just broken up a cell of "sleepers" who were planning a suicide attack on NATO ships. Morocco has just completed the very low-key arrest of Al Qaeda members who were planning to blow up ships belonging either to NATO or to the American fleet in the straits of Gibraltar. Further attacks were also apparently planned, particularly in Europe and in Africa, wrote French weekly l’Express, June 13.

Typifying the view of several commentators, The Daily Telegraph stresses that the arrest in Morocco has highlighted the potential vulnerability of sophisticated but lightly-armored modern warships in the face of dedicated terrorists prepared to ram targets with boats packed with high explosive. Against this background, the newspaper quotes Rear Adm. Cobbold, director of the Royal United Services Institute, saying that British warships passing through the Strait of Gibraltar and other vulnerable waterways will need new rules of engagement if they are to avoid suicide attacks of the kind that crippled the American destroyer USS Cole. Elsewhere, the Daily Telegraph notes, however, that security in the Strait is in the process of being improved. According to the article, Spain is erecting a cordon of sophisticated watchposts based on Israel’s early warning system and the Rock itself houses a British listening post. But, adds the article, on the water, the job of guarding the European coast usually falls to Spain’s pistol-equipped Guardia Civil and the Royal Gibraltar Police, who patrol in fast boasts, equipped with wooden batons.

The Wall Street Journal quotes security officials and analysts saying meanwhile that Morocco’s arrest of suspected Al Qaeda militants who sought to blow up western ships in the Straits of Gibraltar means that the global terrorist network is increasingly focusing on the Mediterranean as the next theater of war. The wealth of American targets in the area, and the long-established presence of Islamic militants in North Africa and among the millions of Arab immigrants to southern Europe, make it relatively easy to organize new terror missions here, these officials and analysts reportedly say. Roland Jacquard, a UN terrorism expert who heads the Observatoire International du Terrorism in France, is quoted warning: "The Mediterranean—NATO’s southern flank—is becoming Al Qaeda’s new battlefield." Jacquart reportedly indicated that materials found in Al Qaeda’s training camps after the U.S.-led military action last year include reconnaissance photo reports of major ports and seaways used by the U.S. Navy, including Gibraltar. The newspaper observes that dozens of U.S. warships attached to the U.S. Navy Sixth Fleet pass through the Straits of Gibraltar every year, as do the ships of other NATO member-states.

• AP quotes German daily Bild saying Wednesday that German security services are concerned that terrorists could try to shoot down a civilian aircraft. According to the dispatch, the daily said it had obtained a copy of a report by the Criminal Office in the western state of Hesse outlining how members of Al Qaeda might bring down an airliner in Germany. Terrorists could use heat-seeking, ground-to-air missiles or an unmanned drone aircraft carrying explosives to down a jetliner during takeoff or landing, the report said, according to Bild. According to the dispatch, the Federal Intelligence Service declined to comment on the article and security officials at the Criminal Office in Hesse could not immediately be reached.

• According to The Times, radiation experts are searching for lost radioactive material in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, where Al Qaeda operatives are thought to be active. The article claims that the team, from the U.S., India, Turkey and France, will travel on foot, on horseback and by car to cover a remote 200 square mile area in the west of the country. They are backed up by nearly 80 Georgian nationals. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has organized the search, reportedly believes that the area contains two abandoned strontium-90 thermo-electric generators, which had been used by communications stations.

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