U.S. Shifts Terror Hunt to Europe

With the investigation into the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks slowing in the United States, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft plans to travel overseas next week to confer with European officials about the next steps in the expanding international war on terrorism, senior law enforcement officials said Friday.

FBI officials also confirmed Friday that they are moving to station agents for the first time in China and India, saying improved law enforcement cooperation with those two nations will help in the global fight against terrorism and other crime-fighting efforts.

Ashcroft’s European trip was prompted in part by the fact that Justice Department officials now believe most, if not all, of the suspects in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon either are in custody in Europe or are being sought by authorities there.

U.S. authorities also believe that many of the larger terrorist cells linked to Osama bin Laden’s global Al Qaeda network are deeply entrenched in the big cities of Western Europe. They said Friday that they want to boost their cooperative efforts with European allies in breaking up those cells, then determining what to do with suspects in custody.

“It’s all happening over there, so [Ashcroft] wants to make sure we play a role in how it plays out and to make sure we’re involved,” one federal law enforcement official said.

Ashcroft plans to visit Britain, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Italy and perhaps France, bringing with him about 10 people including top lawyers from the Justice Department and high-ranking FBI officials.

The delegation plans to first visit London, then will travel to Madrid, Berlin, Brussels and possibly Rome to meet with “foreign law enforcement officials and bilateral law enforcement teams,” an official said.

“This is an opportunity for us to remind the world that terrorism is an international problem and to thank them for their help,” one senior Justice Department official said of the European allies.

The trip’s most important goal is to map out the specifics of how to go after suspects in the Sept. 11 attacks and the larger terrorism investigation, officials said. It will also feature top-level strategy sessions about how to better coordinate prosecution efforts, they added.

More than a dozen men suspected of playing direct or indirect roles in the suicide hijackings have been detained in Europe, where authorities say Mohamed Atta and other hijackers plotted the attacks from a small apartment in Hamburg, Germany. Others, including Ramsi Binalshibh, the suspected 20th hijacker, are fugitives who have been linked to the attacks.

In contrast, U.S. officials say none of the hundreds of detainees in custody in the United States are believed to have played a direct role in the attacks, and only a few are believed to have terrorist links.

Ashcroft’s trip also will be a diplomatic effort of sorts, as European Union nations have said they won’t send suspected terrorists to the United States if they would face the death penalty.

Some of those countries have expressed further concerns about the Bush administration’s plans to try some terrorist suspects by military tribunals rather than in criminal courts. Already, Spain has indicated that, because of the tribunals, it may not respond to a U.S. petition to extradite several men accused of participating in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Ivo Daalder, director for European affairs in the Clinton administration’s National Security Council, praised Ashcroft for taking his self-described war on terrorism overseas.

Terrorism “is transnational in nature,” Daalder said. “These people move across borders, they move through Europe; most of the arrests of significant people indicted and charged have occurred there.

“So it makes a lot of sense for our chief law enforcement person to deal directly with his counterparts, to start working the connections and enhance cooperation.”

Daalder, now a senior fellow on U.S. foreign policy at the centrist Brookings Institution in Washington, suggested that the trip also will involve some risk for Ashcroft, particularly concerning the question of extraditing and prosecuting suspects. But the U.S. delegation may have some success in negotiating with European prosecutors, he said, noting a recent agreement with France leading to the extradition of an accused abortion clinic bomber.

“When we are dealing with terrorists, it will be very difficult to say we will not seek the death penalty--which may mean we don’t get some of these people,” Daalder said.

Ashcroft’s planned visit will not be the first instance of cooperation between the United States and its allies in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. Minutes after hijacked planes crashed in New York City, Pennsylvania and near Washington, the FBI mobilized agents around the world.

Such agents--called “legats,” or legal attaches--work with host governments to search for clues and apprehend suspects. Justice Department prosecutors also have worked with their counterparts overseas.

In a sense, Justice officials said, Ashcroft’s visit is important symbolically in that it demonstrates his recognition that terrorism, and other forms of crime, are global problems.

To that end, the Justice Department is expanding its deployment of legal attaches.

FBI officials said that months of negotiations with India has resulted in at least one agent being stationed in New Delhi, starting as early as this week when the bureau opens an office there.

And efforts to open an FBI office in Beijing also are on track, with only final approval by China needed, FBI officials said.

“There are a lot of players involved in opening up one of these offices,” one FBI official said. “But I haven’t heard of any problems. China is an obvious place for us because it’s a strategically important country.”