MADRID — The trial of eight Britons charged with plotting to blow up transatlantic flights ended in London this week with a mixed verdict. But to anti-terrorism officials, two things are clear: The 2006 plot was an ambitious effort by Al Qaeda to match the carnage of the Sept. 11 attacks.
And it failed.
Today's seventh anniversary of the attacks on the United States finds anti-terrorism officials optimistic that they have damaged Osama bin Laden's network and its offshoots, but wary of the evolving nature of the threat.
Newly disclosed intelligence illustrates that the airplane plot was part of a broader campaign. British anti-terrorism officials said information that couldn't be used in court linked the plot to the bombing of the London transportation system in July 2005 and a failed follow-up attack two weeks later. Intercepts and other evidence indicate that leaders of the plots had contact with each other, converged in Pakistan and were trained by Al Qaeda bosses, officials said.
But only the first attack, which killed 52 people on the public transportation network, succeeded.
Because a foremost objective of Al Qaeda has been to strike in the West, the absence of attacks since 2005 appears to reflect the network's weakened state. Its North African offshoot wages a deadly campaign in Algeria, but has done little elsewhere. Fears about returning fighters from Iraq targeting the West have not materialized. Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, are still fugitives and are thought to be in Pakistan. But a barrage of U.S. missile strikes near the Afghan border has slain at least three of their frontline operational chiefs this year.
"It's clear that pulling off big attacks is more difficult," said a senior European police official who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of his work. "The police have gotten better. Intelligence services have penetrated the networks. They have the desire to attack, but whether they have the capacity is less clear."
Still, anti-terrorism forces are on guard.
Al Qaeda's core leaders, and forces including foreign militants and Taliban fighters waging war in Afghanistan, have carved out a sanctuary in northwest Pakistan. The flow of militants that originates in the Muslim world and Europe has shifted its destination from Iraq to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border zone. The Internet has contributed to the rise of a generation of homegrown extremists. And past major attacks by Bin Laden's network took years to prepare.
