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Fbi prevention Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020619/wl_nm/attack_europe_dc_1"FBI assistant director James Caruso echoed the comments, saying the agency had shifted its attention from investigation to prevention."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020619/wl_nm/attack_europe_dc_1
Top Cops Say Europe Faces Inevitable Terror Attack
Wed Jun 19,12:15 PM ET
By Sinead O'Hanlon and Michael Holden
LONDON (Reuters) - Top European security chiefs said Wednesday a terror assault on Europe was almost inevitable, and the next attack on the West could be nuclear.
David Veness, the head of Britain's anti-terrorist police, said a nuclear or biological attack was "sadly the next logical step," while the director of the European Union ( news - web sites)'s police agency, Europol, said it was a question of "when and where" not "if," an attack would occur in Europe.
"We are talking about attacks beyond macro casualties. This, I'm afraid, represents a step we can all anticipate," Veness said at a high-level international crime conference in London.
"Since September 11, we need to add in the dimension of the CBRN (chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear) threat."
U.S. officials have repeatedly expressed concern that Saudi-born fugitive Osama bin Laden ( news - web sites), whose al Qaeda group is blamed by Washington for planning the September 11 attacks which killed almost 3,000 people, had tried to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
Just over a week ago, U.S. officials arrested Jose Padilla, a suspected American al Qaeda operative, in Chicago on suspicion of planning to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb."
Veness said the scale of the "new dimension of terrorism" was illustrated by the lines crossed on September 11 -- "no notice" suicide attacks, mass deaths and simultaneous attacks.
"Our great fear is the change that will be wrought when inevitably a suicide attack occurs in western Europe," he said.
EUROPOL WARNING
Jurgen Storbeck, the director of Europol, said he believed the European Union was facing a terrorist threat.
"Most experts, and I agree with them, are not discussing 'if' there is a new attack, but 'when' and 'by whom'," he told Reuters in an interview. "There is a threat to the European Union, to the institutions of the EU and citizens of the EU."
He said he had been shocked that many EU states had been aware of terrorist cells in their own countries before September 11 but had not passed on the information.
"We were not able to share enough intelligence to see that there was a network there and something prepared," he said.
"It is not a criticism of national law enforcement agencies. It is a typical approach. You concentrate on that cell acting in your area and the moment such a cell has international contacts you neglect it."
He said since September 11 the EU had shown the political will for better international cooperation.
Veness, who believed London was an obvious target, said the next three years were critical for the UK's counter-terrorist agencies to adapt to the new threat.
"The challenge for us all in the counter-terrorism community ... is to move from the reactive, tactical and bureaucratic to a proactive, strategic and dynamic response."
FBI ( news - web sites) assistant director James Caruso echoed the comments, saying the agency had shifted its attention from investigation to prevention. He said that was now the focus of the FBI director's daily briefing with President Bush ( news - web sites).
"The president asks what have you done to prevent the next terrorist attack," Caruso told the conference.
Veness also said the public was getting complacent about the terrorist threat. People thought terrorism was no longer part of daily life as there had not been another attack.
"But the somber message is...that it is," he said.
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