The 2010 European terror plot was an alleged al-Qaeda plot to launch "commando-style" terror attacks on the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.[1] The existence of the plot was revealed in late September 2010 after it was disrupted by intelligence agencies.[2][3][4] Thought to be ordered by Osama bin Laden himself, the plot led to an unprecedented increase in Drone attacks in Pakistan and travel advisories from several countries to their citizens to be careful while traveling in Europe.
The existence of the plot was revealed by several media sources including Sky News on 28 September 2010.[5] Intelligence officials stated that the plot was ordered by Osama bin Laden himself.[6][7] The plan was to launch attacks similar to the 2008 Mumbai attacks.[2] It was discovered and disrupted by the combined efforts of the security services of the United States, UK, Germany and France.[2] According to Der Spiegel, the first information came from a 36-year-old German man from Hamburg identified as Ahmad Siddiqui, who was detained by authorities in July, 2010, while attempting to fly from Kabul to Europe. He was a member of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and had trained in Pakistan, where he was sheltered by the Haqqani network. Currently he is in custody of NATO at the Bagram Airfield.[6][8] The German Muslims linked to the plot were associated with the Al-Quds Mosque Hamburg, the mosque frequented by the September 11 terrorists.[9][10] German authorities have closed the mosque.[11][12]
According to German intelligence officials, in early 2009, Sidiqi and 10 others left Hamburg for the tribal areas of Pakistan where 8 of them joined the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).
One member of the group was Rami Makanesi, 25, a German citizen of Syrian descent. Another was Shahab Dashti, a German citizen of Iranian descent. He appeared in an IMU video in late 2009. Wielding a knife and gun, he urged other Germans to join in jihad against U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Several other Germans in the video were shown firing weapons in what appeared to be live-fire exercises. Several scenes featured what appeared to be the group's members using rockets and guns to practice storming enemy positions, learning the type of combat skills that Western counter-terrorism officials fear could be used in Western cities in an attack similar to 2008 Mumbai attacks. One European counterterrorism official said Sidiqi told his interrogators that Naamen Meziche, a French citizen of Algerian descent had assumed a planning role in the terrorist plot which Osama Bin Laden himself approved. Pakistan officials captured Naamen Meziche in a raid near the border with Iran sometime in the middle of June 2012.[13]
On 3 October 2010, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the FBI issued a joint bulletin warning that terror attacks were being plotted against targets in Europe.
German officials said the Hamburg group members were recruited from the Taiba mosque in Hamburg. In the 1990s, that same mosque - then called Al Quds - was attended by Mohamed Atta, who went on to become the lead hijacker in the 9/11 attacks.[14] Hamburg authorities shut the mosque a few weeks after Sidiqi was arrested since they said the mosque had become a recruiting center for jihadists across Europe.