Sleeper cells: A ticking clock

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Invading Iraq to unload the Saddam Hussein regime would go a long way to shrinking the menace of transnational terrorism. At least, that's what some of the war planners firmly believed. Saddam, the "neocons" argued, was the evil genius behind September 11, 2001. At one point, 60 percent of the American people went along with the disinformation. Fighting the terrorists over there so they wouldn't come over here was a popular refrain. Now, the stats tell a totally different story.

Terrorist incidents have increased sevenfold since Saddam was overthrown. Pointing to the increasing use of suicide car and truck and chemical bombs, the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) said casualties from terrorist strikes rose 40 percent in 2006 compared to 2005. The NCTC stats also said there had been a 91 percent increase in attacks in the Middle East and South Asia, including the latest terrorist refinement of chlorine bombs.

Five chlorine truck bombs in Iraq killed scores in Iraq and injured many more after they breathed the toxic fumes. Even more alarming, the U.S. Chlorine Institute, a trade group that represents 200 companies that make and distribute the stuff, alerted the FBI to several thefts and attempted thefts of 150-pound chlorine tanks from water purification treatment plants in California. But then, the FBI says it has no evidence of al Qaeda-type "sleeper cells" in the United States.

Day in and day out, there are new revelations about terrorist sleeper cells in the U.K. and other European countries. In Britain, with a population of 1.8 million Muslims, most of the suspects arrested and/or tried had links to Pakistan, where they had undergone terrorist training or visited madrassas, the Koranic schools that fire up the enthusiasm of teenagers for martyrdom.

Admittedly, the U.S. environment is not propitious for recruitment. Most Muslims are integrated in American society at a higher level than the one they, or their parents, left in the old country. But then, young terrorist extremists arrested in Europe came from comfortable middle-class families. And U.S. intervention in Iraq has been the driver and force multiplier for suicide bombers. It would be a miracle if all young American Muslims had been immunized by their parents against conceding any sympathy for the jihadis.

The Internet's 5,000-plus pro-al Qaeda Web sites operate in the virtual ummah, a global, borderless caliphate in cyberspace where the only law is Shariah, or Islamic law. Some of these sites carry recipes for all manner of explosive cocktails.

The principal reason for the sleeper cells in the U.S. that are still asleep with "Don't Disturb" signs on their doorknobs, is the ongoing acute shortage in the language skills the problem requires -- Urdu, Pushtu and Farsi. There are also inhibitions by Muslims inclined to answer the call to serve lest they become Mosque informants for the FBI, or stoolies.

London is a six-hour flight from New York. Last summer, the Brits discovered a terrorist scheme to hijack 10 airliners bound for the U.S. from London, and arrested 24 suspects. And for the last six years since September 11, South Asian Muslims holding British passports were free to enter the U.S. without visas. In fact, any Muslim holding a European Union passport enjoyed the same dispensation.

In the U.K., a joint police-MI5 investigation, codenamed Operation Rhyme, uncovered new plots directly funded and controlled by al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They involved "dedicated and well-trained" British terrorists.

Last week, MI5's Operation Crevice, begun in 2003, saw the end of a yearlong trial and life sentences for five men accused of conspiring to set off explosions with 1,300 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer. It was Britain's largest ever counterterrorism operation that involved tens of thousands of surveillance hours and a tap on 97 phone lines and cells. But it missed the July 7, 2005, plot that led to the attacks on three London subway trains and one double-decker bus.