Meanwhile, the threat from Pakistani-based groups has widened from Britain. Last year, German and Danish police arrested suspects allegedly trained by the Al Qaeda bosses who were implicated in the British plots. Partly because of Danish caricatures of the prophet Muhammad published in 2005, Denmark has become a top target.
In January, an undercover informant for French intelligence helped Spanish police round up a group of Pakistanis accused of plotting a suicide bombing on the Barcelona subway. But no explosives were found. European and U.S. investigators say the danger was real, but the imminence was exaggerated.
European anti-terrorism chiefs also have worried about war-hardened foreign fighters in Iraq returning home. But many of the militants die in combat. Moreover, U.S. intelligence services work closely with allies to track surviving foreign fighters when they depart Iraq.
Security forces have detected a new trend starting this spring: Dozens of foreign fighters leaving Iraq have found refuge in Bosnia-Herzegovina rather than returning home, according to two senior European anti-terrorism officials. The veterans are assisted by an infrastructure of Arab militants who obtained Bosnian passports after fighting there in the 1990s, officials said.
"They go from Iraq to Bosnia and stay there awhile," an anti-terrorism official said. "They are mainly North Africans. It's not easy, but they enter Bosnia and live semi-clandestinely with the help of the mujahedin who have always been there. Eventually some show up in countries like France or Italy."
Despite Western worries about an attack tied to the Sept. 11 anniversary or the U.S. presidential vote, the danger is more long-term and profound, the senior British anti-terrorism official said.
"It's more the ongoing reality that we, and you, are high-profile targets and that there is active plotting," he said. "We know about passage of individuals to train in Pakistan. And that key individuals in the '06 and '05 cases are still at large."
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rotella@latimes.com
