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UNITED NATIONS — As one unravels Al-Qaeda's intricate web of terror, there's indisputable evidence that many of the links of the Bin Laden operatives lead to Europe, where the current culture of open borders, easy access, and misplaced "tolerance" has provided an ironic carte blance to people who wish to destroy democracy and freedom.
Much as in the USA, Germany's police agencies have been hampered by both a rigid legal straitjacket as well as a sloppy security policy by Germany's left leaning Social Democratic/Green coalition government. Militants form a variety of causes ranging from Kurdish PKK terrorists, to Tamil activists, Iranian Marxists, to Mohammed Atta's death- wish skyjackers have operated out of Germany.
Al-Qaeda's layer cake of operatives reaches from the prosperous port city of Hamburg to the the golden spires of Prague with many places in between. Czech security police have traced Atta's movement in Prague where the maniacal mastermind of the 11 September atrocities met with Iraqi intelligence officers in June 2000 and in April 2001.
Atta, came to Prague not for the good beer but for a secret rendezvous with Iraqi intelligence operative Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim al-Ani, nominally Second Secretary at the Iraqi Embassy, but somebody the Czech counter-intelligence (BIS) was monitoring with very good reason. Though the meetings agenda are naturally open to wide speculation, Atta's meeting with Al-Ani that fateful June day may prove a vital link to investigators focusing on the World Trade Center attacks. Yet, after less than a day in Prague, Atta then flew to Newark, New Jersey on a CSA Czech Airlines flight.
The Czechs later booted the Iraqi "diplomat" out of Prague in April 2001 "for activities contrary to his status." Codeword: Espionage.
Why Prague? During the Cold War, the Czech capital was a classic clearing house for high-end Soviet Bloc intelligence operations. The Czech communists apparat specialized in devastating semtax explosives, terrorist training and intelligence. Interestingly during the Warsaw Pact, the Czechoslovak Peoples army was particularly adept at chemical weapons warfare. It's no wonder that the noriorious terrorist Carlos the Jackel was a longtime resident under patronage of the old regime as were exiled communist political figures and front groups.
Despite the positive political changes since 1989, only the naive cannot imagine that the old network of a particularly efficient and unpleasant secret police, would have simply melted away as a morning frost. Cadres are in place in Prague who can tap into large communist era monetary slush funds, and more importantly in this case "expertise" which could be of assistance to Atta and his Islamic fundamentalist fanatics.
Though the Czech Republic is a democracy and equally a NATO member, there are a number of possibilities for Atta's visit. Prague hosts the studios of Radio Free Europe, formerly based in Munich,Germany. Part of RFE's post-communist mission is to broadcast to Iraq and Iran--programs hardly pleasing to the respective regimes. RFE's headquarters, an open glass building in the heart of the city at the top of Wenscelas Square, may have been a target.
Both American and German police sources are conclusive that Hamburg has been the nexus of most of the nineteen hijackers in Atta's ring. German Interior Minister Otto Schilly conceded in Washington that followers of Osama Bin-Laden could still be operating in Germany and plotting further attacks.
While Germany has been a focus of the investigation — especially a technical training college in Hamburg--the terrorists are spread through Europe, particularly in Britain and France. Atta, an Egyptian with German residency, was living in the USA well before the attacks. Suspects have been rounded up throughout Europe in a bid to neutralize what Schilly called a "worldwide network."
Yet Germany, quite like the USA and Canada, has been far too lax in monitoring the activities of subversives, many posing as political refugees or for that matter students and businessmen. Many abuse the right of asylum and tolerance to foment hatred and plan violent actions. Indeed as one delves deeper, one finds Al-Qaeda to be a layer cake of covert operatives which is yet to reveal all its secrets.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
