Neil Doyle: Ominous warning of a new al-Qaida atrocity

The hunt is on for 10 terrorist suspects who are believed to have orders to mount one or more commando-style terror attacks in a city in Europe. It is not clear if they are in an EU country at present or what their targets may be – intelligence agencies have detected chatter about a possible plot that might see simultaneous attacks in France, Germany, the UK and, perhaps, the US.

The Prime Minister has even taken part in a secret dress rehearsal to practise the response of the police and security forces to an assault on government buildings by suicidal al-Qaida terrorists armed with automatic weapons, grenades and improvised bombs.

Online chatter suggests that diversionary car bomb detonations could be used to stretch the resources of the emergency services. The attack could even be the first to include a concurrent cyber attack to, perhaps, disable traffic lights and increase the number of casualties by hampering the movements of paramedics.

Many scenarios have been conjured up since it was reported that a captured German Taliban recruit had apparently revealed details about a conversation that took place in North Waziristan in Pakistan involving al-Qaida's new head of military operations. Ilyas Kashmiri is said to have boasted during a "campfire chat" about having sent cells to mount attacks in Europe.

Kashmiri is best known in security circles as a leader of the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba which was responsible for the 2008 raids on prominent buildings in Mumbai. Some 170 people were killed and over 300 more were injured in the attacks, which might explain the fears about the probability of similar attacks being attempted elsewhere.

The allocation of extra funds to train police officers contain infantry assault-type attacks is significant and hints at activity that has been going on behind the scenes. The role of armed police would be to contain a situation until SAS troops were called in to end it.

The expansion of police training, and increased firepower, suggests that the authorities are expecting a larger than previously anticipated number of simultaneous attacks on different targets. It has been suggested that, in an effort to evade increased security, that targets might include cities beyond London.

Such a plot is believed to have revealed during interrogation by the US of a German Taliban volunteer, Ahmed Siddiqi, who surrendered after becoming disillusioned while enduring the hardships and tough realities of fighting jihad. As many as 100 German nationals are thought to be undergoing training or fighting alongside al-Qaida and the Taliban on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

A battle to prevent attacks in Europe has been ongoing for some months in North Waziristan, where Predator and Reaper drone attacks have reportedly been targeting militants suspected of being involved in the plan; many German Taliban recruits have perished. Senior al-Qaida leaders, however, appeared to have shipped out to avoid the crosshairs.

The exodus is believed to have started after a CIA double agent turned into a suicide bomber and killed seven CIA agents during a meeting in Khost in Afghanistan. They were at the heart of gathering intelligence for drone attacks.

Related perhaps to a feared backlash from that, and perhaps for other planned retaliation for drone attacks, senior al-Qaida leaders suddenly became a rare sight on the streets of Miran Shah in North Waziristan, which is at the eye of the current drone storm.

A Nato official has told journalists that it is believed that Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri are currently living in some comfort in the relative safety of the Kurram agency further to the north, and just over the border from the former Taliban and al-Qaida strongholds of Jalalabad and Tora Bora in Afghanistan.

It's almost as if the so-called "war on terror" has turned full circle. One suggested plan to emerge from chatter being monitored by intelligence agencies centres on a series of mass casualty attacks using hijacked airliners, once again.

Operatives are said to be training to use martial arts to rapidly overpower the crew and exploit apparent security flaws in so-called "weapon-less" takeovers of aircraft. Several airliners would then be plunged into packed sports stadiums and skyscrapers, killing up to 250,000 people.

The jihadists think that victory is within sight in Afghanistan, but this has not curbed their ambitions – far from it. Much of the recent propaganda put out by al-Qaida's media wing has included suggestions that it is poised to avenge the oppression and killing of ordinary Muslims caused by coalition military action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Fortunately, perhaps, history suggests that al-Qaida leaders tend to scale down plans in order to improve the chances of success.

Neil Doyle is an investigative journalist specialising in international terrorism, and author of the book Terror Base UK.