Europe: Chemical attack feared

2005-03-30 13:53

Berlin - Iraq's most wanted man, the fugitive Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been planning a chemical weapons attack in Europe, a German magazine said on Wednesday, citing intelligence sources.

"We in Europe have been afraid that a big bang is coming sometime and that Zarqawi is planning it," an official at Germany's BND federal intelligence service told the April edition of the political monthly Cicero.

According to the magazine, the Jordanian extremist and his supporters, who are linked to the al-Qaeda network, have been trying to get hold of arms components in Russia's volatile north Caucasus region and in Georgia.

Another BND source said that it was unclear whether Zarqawi's attempts had been successful. "We only know that he is working on it," the source said.

Cicero said that at least 150 security officials were searching for evidence of any possible attacks, particularly in the southern states of Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg and in the capital Berlin.

Zarqawi and his group, al-Qaeda Organisation in the Land of Two Rivers, has claimed responsibility for scores of deadly attacks in Iraq since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein.

He was handed a sentence of 15 years hard labour in Jordan in absentia on Sunday for involvement in an attack on the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad.

A special court found him guilty of planning an August 2003 car bombing that killed 14 people, including a Jordanian national, and wounded more than 40.

Jordan had already sentenced Zarqawi to death last year for his role in the murder of a United States diplomat in Amman in October 2002.

The United States has placed a $25m bounty on his head.

Zarqawi is also being tried in absentia by Jordan's courts for planning a major chemical weapons attack that was uncovered by the authorities.

- AFP