"Every Light Is Full Red"

Maybe it was U.S. Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge's visit to London. Or maybe it was just more aftershocks from last month's bombing in Bali. But Europe was starting to feel a lot like the U.S., as terror alerts were issued across the continent. In Britain, the Home Office issued a statement saying that terrorists may "try to develop a so-called dirty bomb or some kind of poison gas," though within an hour the statement was replaced by a less frightening one. In Berlin, Germany's intelligence chief, August Hanning, said on TV: "The fear is very concrete that we must reckon with a further attack ... of perhaps great dimension." Hans-Josef Beth, who heads the international counterterrorism unit of Germany's foreign intelligence agency, fingered Abu Musab Zarqawi, a one-legged terrorist with known al-Qaeda connections, as the probable mastermind of possible chemical attacks on European targets. Zarqawi has ordered trained operatives into Europe, Beth said at a meeting in Berlin. "Something big is in the air," Beth warned. The French, too, were alarmed. "We're absolutely scrambling here," said a top French terrorist judge. "Every light in every service in France is full red."

When could an attack come? Omar Bakri Muhammad, the London-based leader of the radical Muslim al-Muhajiroun youth movement, points to the month of Ramadan, which began Nov. 6. It is "the month of jihad," he told Time, when "the inspiration of fighting against occupiers and invaders will be very high. That is why I would not be surprised if al-Qaeda strikes in the month of Ramadan." Scared yet?