High-Alert Holidays

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The small, anxious-looking man who stood before a judge last week in London's Central Criminal Court hardly resembled the feral terrorist British police are linking him to. But Saajid Badat, 24, faces charges of having conspired with fellow Briton and convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid, who tried to blow up an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001. And Badat is just one of 21 people detained by British police in the past three weeks under antiterrorism laws (some suspects have since been released).

All across Europe, in fact, it is a busy time in the war on terrorism. German police two weeks ago announced the arrest of an Iraqi, 29, identified only as Mohammed L. He is suspected of having dispatched a dozen radicals from Germany to Iraq to carry out suicide attacks against U.S. troops. More than 5,000 police officers  raided locations tied to 1,200 supporters of Germany-based Turkish militant Metin Kaplan. His Caliphate State group, which seeks to replace Turkey's secular government with an Islamic one, has been linked to terrorist plots there. Five people were arrested on weapons, drug and illegal-immigration charges. Meanwhile, Syria has handed over 22 suspects sought by Turkey in connection with the November Istanbul blasts. And French police rounded up four people accused of assisting an al-Qaeda operative last year as he passed through France on his way to London. Are police methodically rolling up terrorist networks—or frantically trying to stave off a suspected holiday attack?

Perhaps a little of both. "There are very big, very important police operations under way (in Britain)," notes a senior French antiterrorist official. "Concern is high that attack plots may be advancing swiftly. I've never seen the British quite this alarmed." British authorities are tight-lipped about their concerns, but the nation has been on its second highest terrorism alert for about a month now. "Given the number of operations by British police," says French terrorism expert Roland Jacquard, "they're apparently going after more than one plot and group." Three weeks ago, London Mayor Ken Livingstone said police had thwarted four separate plots "to actually cause mayhem and take life in this city."

Security sources say the most significant arrest so far is that of Badat. He is charged with "unlawfully and maliciously" conspiring with Reid "and others unknown to cause ... an explosion of a nature likely to endanger life or cause serious injury to property in the United Kingdom or elsewhere." A handprint and hair found in Reid's shoe-bomb explosives did not belong to Reid, suggesting the bombs were prepared for him by an accomplice shortly before his failed attack. According to two U.S. law-enforcement officials, British investigators have made a forensic link between Badat and Reid. At the time of his arrest, Badat—whom neighbors described as a quiet student working to become an Islamic cleric—was in possession of a small quantity of explosives.

Experts believe Badat first crossed paths with Reid during a five-year stint in religious schools in Pakistan. Reid was identified by detained veterans of al-Qaeda's Afghan training centers as having attended the Khalden camp, which catered to European-national jihadists and taught kamikaze tactics. Both Zacarias Moussaoui, the accused 9/11 20th hijacker, and the so-called millennium bomber Ahmed Ressam were Khalden graduates. Intelligence information obtained by Jacquard indicates that Khalden veterans arrested by Western countries have identified Badat as a fellow camp alumnus. "There are clear indications Badat and others he's involved with are up to something very sinister," Jacquard says.

The fear is that jihadists will seek to strike in Britain as the holidays near. Last year's Christmas season came amid high anxiety but proved blessedly uneventful, but this year the country has even more reason to be tense. Once accused of being lax toward extremists, Britain's crackdown on Britain-based radicals—plus Prime Minister Tony Blair's backing of the war in Iraq—may have made London a prime target. "Both sides have reached a point of confrontation," says Mustafa Alani, an analyst at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies in London. "Terrorists might attempt something in London over Christmas for political and practical reasons." Security forces in other countries have raised their own levels of alert. This Christmas, like the last, is a season to be wary.  

—With reporting by Helen Gibson/London, Elaine Shannon/Washington and Charles P. Wallace/Berlin