Topic: Official Says European Terrorism Threat Higher

Washington Post
February 14, 2008
Pg. 17
Al-Qaeda and like-minded terrorist cells pose a greater threat to Europe than they do to the United States, the acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center said yesterday.
"Violent extremism in Europe remains at the center of our concerns, both for the danger it poses to our European allies and our interests," Michael Leiter, who became acting head of the agency in November, told the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Osama bin Laden's threats to Europe, along with disrupted plots in Barcelona last month and Denmark and Germany over the summer, have reinforced the counterterrorism center staff's belief "that al-Qaeda is attempting to divide Europe from America by appealing to the large Islamic emigre population in Europe to pressure their leaders to leave Afghanistan," Leiter said.
Unlike the Middle Eastern men who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, Leiter pointed out, most of the plotters in the recent European bombing plots "were legal citizens of the countries they allegedly targeted."
The United States remains a prime long-term target of bin Laden and senior al-Qaeda officials, Leiter said, but "our analysts do not assess that we face the same level of threat from al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda-inspired cells as Europe." He added that the scope of al-Qaeda-inspired plotting in Britain "is something we thus far appear to have avoided."
The NCTC is the principal intelligence agency responsible for terrorism analysis.