The Return of Al Qaeda

The news of the German effort to track the movements of suspected Islamic militants to and from Iraq follows disclosures of possible connections between Al Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate—known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, or AQI—and one or more suspects in the recent attempted car bombings in London and Glasgow.

One of the British suspects who is believed to have built and planted the London bombs and then ridden in a booby-trapped Jeep driven into a Glasgow Airport terminal was Bilal Abdullah, an Iraqi doctor working near Glasgow for Britain's National Health Service. Authorities charged Abdullah last weekend with conspiracy to cause explosions. A second man in the Glasgow airport Jeep, Kafeel Ahmed, an aeronautical engineer, was severely burned after setting himself on fire during the airport incident, and may not survive his injuries.

Two officials close to the British investigation say that some intelligence has already been collected indicating that one or more of the suspects in the London/Glasgow plots had been in contact with AQI, and possibly with AQI leaders. (One of the officials said there is no indication that the plotters were in direct contact with AQI's notorious founder Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the bloodthirsty Jordanian-born jihadi who was killed in U.S. r strike last year.)

A similar concern about possible threats from Iraqi jihadis seems to have prompted the recent decision by the German government's Joint Counterterrorism Center (known in Germany as GTAZ) to set up an "Iraq travel movement project."

German sources, who agreed to discuss the matter in exchange for anonymity, said the number of suspects whose movements are being tracked by the project is classified; that figure is also the subject of some debate in government circles. But it is "more than a handful," according to one source. Another source said German authorities know "for sure" that there have been movements from their country to areas in Iraq where jihadi groups like AQI are believed to hold sway. "A number" of jihadi suspects who have returned to Germany after spending some time in Iraq are on the travel project's radar screen, the source says.

The sources said the project coordinates the activities of several German agencies. They include the Federal Criminal Police (Germany's FBI); the Federal Border Police; spy units like the Federal Intelligence Service (Germany's CIA); and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (the equivalent of Britain's MI-5). The object is to monitor "quite closely" the movements of German-based suspects to and from Iraq and nearby countries.