I have been writing about the German Al-Qaeda plot for some days now. Militant Islam Monitor.org has a magnificent summary about some other aspects which are terribly significant about what happened. Here is an excerpt, below is the link.
Operation Alberich began last October, when the US National Security Agency, the NSA, began intercepting suspicious emails between Germany and Pakistan. It ended last week in the central German Sauerland region, with the arrests of two German converts to Islam, Fritz Gelowicz, 28, the son of a southern German doctor, and 22-year-old Daniel S., who had learned how to handle weapons during his military service in the western German city of Saarlouis. His neighbors in nearby Saarbrücken had noticed that he prayed to Allah “often and very loudly.” The third man arrested in the sting was Adem Y., a 28-year-old Turkish national. The trio was caught in the act of mixing chemical ingredients to make explosives at a vacation house in the mountainous Sauerland region.
When they searched the house, German investigators found military detonators from Syria
that a courier had smuggled into Germany, as well as 60 liters of hydrogen peroxide. The materials were apparently intended for use in three car bombs that the group may have planned to detonate in front of a US military base in Germany, a nightclub or possibly a major airport. When troops from the GSG 9 elite commando unit stormed the house last Tuesday, the pungent stench of chemicals was already in the air. According to investigators, what the men were planning could have been one of the bloodiest attacks in European postwar history — worse than London or Madrid. In addition to the three terror suspects, German authorities are investigating more than 45 people.
Since the conversation with Bush during the G-8 summit, the Chancellor knew that the diabolic plot not only threatened people’s lives, but that if US soldiers were killed in Germany, it would endanger the trans-Atlantic relations that were so important to her. America feared a new spectacular attack from a resurgent al-Qaida — possibly even a second Sept. 11. Another attack against America planned on German soil had to be prevented.
These experiences and fears explain why Operation Alberich was conducted from both Berlin and Washington, with a joint CIA and German task force set up in Berlin. US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff told SPIEGEL last week that cooperation between the two countries was “the closest it’s ever been.”
But from the US perspective the German investigation was also a trial by fire. American authorities kept ramping up the pressure on the Germans, with both CIA Director Michael V. Hayden and US Ambassador William R. Timken meeting with authorities in Berlin. In early June Chertoff traveled to German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble’s hometown of Gengenbach and over dinner urged him to do everything he could to prevent a possible attack. “We care,” Schäuble assured him.
Read it all… 
Austria arrests three in latest Islamist Terror Plot in Europe.
Austrian Interior Minister Günther Platter said on Wednesday, Sept. 12, that the trio suspected of producing the video had confessed to having links to al Qaeda. The video demanded German and Austrian soldiers leave Afghanistan.
The three, however, had not established an independent terrorist cell, and at no time was Austria directly in danger, he added.
“Austria was not under threat of an attack at any time,” Platter told a news conference. “We could determine that based on the actions of the three.”
Video relates to Afghanistan mission
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Austrian Interior Minister Güther Platter said there were no concrete threats against Austria
The three, who were under covert police surveillance for months, were arrested by anti-terror forces in Vienna. All of them are second-generation Austrian citizens with Arab origins. They include a 20-year-old man, his 21-year-old wife and another man of 26.
The online video, aired in March this year, showed a masked speaker urging Austria and Germany to cease their support of the United States in Afghanistan.
Of course, US authorities are concerned:
During an interview yesterday with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell stated that U.S. authorities are concerned about “sleeper cells” of Islamic terrorists inside the United States and admitted that since 9/11, several plots against the United States have been thwarted. “We’re safer but we’re not safe,” stated McConnell about the current threat environment.
[…] This and other non-governmental web sites have been recently urged by intelligence agencies to alert the public to report any instance of suspicious activity that including individuals taking video, photographing, or sketching various locations, including but not limited to federal buildings, law enforcement locations, areas of critical infrastructure such as subway and train stations, dams, bridges, airports, railways, power facilities, military bases and recruiting locations, and sea ports.
In this climate, it’s normal that there are people writing some theories about what Al-Qaeda is going to do now. The other day I linked to an article in The Midnight Sun, in which they consider the probability of a nuclear attack in US soil.
Yesterday I found in Hyscience and Noisy Room.Net another theory: Could US (and the rest of Europe…) suffer an attack like Beslan?
Glenn Beck is running a series on CNN called “The Perfect Day,” in which Glenn describes a plan that the DHS, FBI, and CIA have been following and for the most part sitting on for some time. Apparently, these agencies have discovered several bits of evidence that point to the possibility that a plan for a Beslan type assault on schools in America is very real, so real that it is in motion as we speak.
[…] Beslan was a first attempt. There are aspects of the assault on the Russian School that have heretofore not been revealed to the public. First and foremost, the assailants were not Chechens as have been described, there were several nationalities there, including Pakistanis, Taliban Afghans, and others. Secondly, All the female children were raped and tortured before being killed. Beslan was intended to inflame the Russians into committing retaliatory attacks on muslims of all stripes.
Continue reading. 
The link contains a disturbing video about what happened in Beslan. WARNING: IMAGES DISTURBING. THE VIDEO WAS FILMED OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL.
Noisy Room.Net has more.
From my point of view -and I am no expert-, I really believe that all measures must be taken to prevent such things, though I also believe that if there are published reports that mention it, the terrorists may (not must) change strategies, because this one has been uncovered. If a terrorist plot is clear, then it’s no plot.
Anyway, it’s interesting this information is released to have more information about how they act. Just to be prepared…
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Al-Qaeda’s Saudi donors are still not pursued by Saudi authorities:
“If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia,” Stuart Levey, the under secretary of the Treasury in charge of tracking terror financing, told ABC News.
Despite some efforts as a U.S. ally in the war on terror, Levey says Saudi Arabia has dropped the ball. Not one person identified by the United States and the United Nations as a terror financier has been prosecuted by the Saudis, Levey says.
“When the evidence is clear that these individuals have funded terrorist organizations, and knowingly done so, then that should be prosecuted and treated as real terrorism because it is,” Levey says.
Among those on the donor list, according to U.S. officials, is Yasin al Qadi, a wealthy businessman named on both the U.S. and U.N. lists of al Qaeda financiers one month after the 9/11 attacks.
Al Qadi, who has repeatedly denied the allegations, remains free, still a prominent figure in Saudi Arabia.
Al Qadi’s London-based attorney, Guy Martin of Carter-Ruck law firm, said the United States has never produced any evidence in support of the allegations against his client.
The best thing in that link is when the Al-Qadi’s attorney – 
– says his client is in a “financial Guantanamo“. 
Can they please change the motto?
But Pakistan is not trusted either:
U.S. officials say they are equally frustrated with what they call the empty promises of Pakistan to go after al Qaeda’s sanctuaries in their country.
Pakistan says it is willing to take action if the U.S. provides details.
“If they had specific information, they should share it with us, and we would go after them,” Pakistani Ambassador to the U.N. Munir Akram told ABC News.
When asked whether the U.S. can trust his country, Ambassador Akram said, “Well, if the U.S. doesn’t trust Pakistan, how can Pakistan be an ally of the U.S.?”
A question echoed by many in the U.S.
With fresh funds and a safe haven, al Qaeda has been able to recruit and train a new class of terrorists as well as send out a stream of new propaganda tapes.
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After the 1st and the 2nd tape, Al-Qaeda (this time without Bin Laden, I wonder why… Must be his dyed beard was not at all fashionable… 
) is going to release another tape 
.
Al-Qaeda will release a third video to mark the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to postings on Islamist websites on the Internet on Wednesday.
The websites said that the video will be entitled, “The two expeditions to New York and Washington, causes and motives“, and is expected to be a documentary which will explain the reasons why the terrorist group carried out the attacks on 11 September 2001 in the United States that killed close to 3,000 people.
Other reports, quoting US monitoring groups, say that the new video will will show Al-Qaeda’s chief in Afghanistan, Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid, also known as Sheikh Said.
But in Pakistan, Osama Bin Laden is more popular than Musharraf! Now I understand why Pakistan should not be trusted. Remember they have nukes!!
“We have conducted 23 polls all over the Muslim world, and this is the most disturbing one we have conducted,” said Ken Ballen, the group’s head. “Pakistan is the one Muslim nation that has nuclear weapons, and the people who want to use them against us — like the Taliban and al Qaeda — are more popular there than our allies like Musharraf.”
Well, Musharraf is not Bin Laden, but he is not my idol either…
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Al-Qaeda in Algeria: accused of recruiting teenage bombers (speaking about children abuse… 
)
Al-Qaeda has been accused of recruiting 40 teenage youths in Algeria for suicide attacks in Iraq.
According to a report in the Algerian newspaper, al-Khabar, the youths were being trained to become ‘little Zarqawis’.
It said one 15-year-old boy who had joined the group at the beginning of April was one of two bombers blown up in last week’s suicide bombing in Dellys.
Where is the international outrage here? I repeat: ONE OF THE SUICIDE TERRORISTS WAS A BOY AGED 15-YEARS-OLD, TRAINED TO BE A LITTLE AL-ZARQAWI. 
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Other news:
Putin threatens Czechs over US missile shield. Putin wants POland and Czech Republic to wait for 2008 because he does not exclude “that a new administration in the United States will re-evaluate the current administration’s decisions on missile defence“.
Russia tests the “mother of all bombs” (video inside) and announces it is environmentally friendly. 
Ahmadine-jihad pushes peace for all, except Israel. Of course, it’s logical… from his point of view…
Killed 45 Talibans in Afghanistan and 30 in Pakistan.
Spanish Pundit 