Osama bin Laden plots Mumbai-style attacks on UK

SENIOR al-Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are involved in the latest terror plots against a number of European cities, US intelligence officials have said.

• Video shows Osama Bin Laden and contains new messages. He is said to be behind plans to recreate a Mumbai-style slaughter, below, in European cities. Pic: AFP/Getty

The multi-pronged scope of the emerging plan - which aimed to launch co-ordinated shooting sprees or attacks in Britain, France and Germany - is an al-Qaeda hallmark, as exemplified by the Mumbai slaughter of 2008.

One US intelligence official added, however, that the details of how the plan was directed or co-ordinated by al-Qaeda's leaders is not yet clear.

US counter-terrorism officials said yesterday they are now working under the assumption that Bin Laden played a role in the plot, but they would not detail what led them to that conclusion.

Agents said they believed that Bin Laden used couriers to send a message to al-Qaeda followers telling them he would like to see a Mumbai-style attack on the three European targets.

It has long been thought Bin Laden had become merely a figurehead for al-Qaeda and associated jihadists, having relinquished any operational role shortly after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre.

A Pakistani intelligence official said Thursday that eight Germans and two British brothers were at the heart of the terror plot, which is still in its early stages, and had been calling acquaintances in Europe to plan logistics. One of the Britons was killed in a recent CIA missile strike, he said.

Pakistan, Britain and Germany are tracking the suspects and intercepting their phone calls, the US officials said.

UK intelligence officials have voiced annoyance that details were disclosed this week, as further surveillance could have yielded more evidence against the plotters.

Despite extensive efforts, Western intelligence agencies have failed to located Bin Laden after he fled his hideout in Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains in December 2001, as Afghan, US and Canadian forces closed around him.Since then, senior US officials have repeatedly said they believe he is hiding in Pakistan's tribal areas, a claim denied by Islamabad.

An audiotape purportedly made by the al-Qaeda leader surfaced yesterday, calling for the creation of a new relief body to help Muslims and seeking to exploit discontent following floods in Pakistan by depicting its government as uncaring.

It was the third message in recent weeks from al-Qaeda figures concerning the massive floods that affected around 20 million people in Pakistan, signalling a concentrated campaign by the terror group to tap into anger over the flooding to rally support.

But while the earlier messages by subordinates were angry, urging followers to rise up, Bin Laden took a softer, even humanitarian tone - apparently trying to broaden al-Qaeda's appeal by presenting his group as a problem-solving protector of the poor.

"What governments spend on relief work is secondary to what they spend on armies," Bin Laden says on the 11-minute tape titled "Reflections on the Method of Relief Work."

"If governments spent (on relief] only 1 per cent of what is spent on armies, they would change the face of the world for poor people," he said.

"The famine and drought in Africa that we see, and the flooding in Pakistan and other parts of the world, with thousands dead along with millions of refugees, that's why people with hearts should move quickly to save their brothers and sisters," he added.