NEW YORK, June 21: Dozens of white Europeans who, US officials allege ,trained in camps in Pakistan’s tribal regions in recent months, in what officials fear may be the beginnings of a new breed of Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorism, ABC news television reported quoting intelligence sources.
In a report on Friday night, ABC said that government officials suspect the terrorists, recruited in Europe, have been dispatched to plan attacks against Europe, and possibly the United States. The alleged terrorists hail from Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Romania and Estonia, sources said.
There is growing evidence that some European recruits may have already gone operational. Two of the suspects arrested in a September 2007 plot to kill American soldiers in Germany were native Germans, and US officials say they are investigating whether they were trained in Pakistan.
An April 2008 report from Europol also alleged that an increasing number of European nationals attended training in Pakistan “and were later involved in, or suspected of, terrorist offences in the EU”.
In interviews with ABC News and in a series of little-noticed public statements and reports, intelligence officials have said they believe Al Qaeda has successfully completed a major goal: recruiting and training Western would-be terrorists.
