Europe on alert for anniversary outrages

Tight security was enforced across Europe tonight on the eve of the anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the US.

In Germany, police detained a Syrian-born man for questioning on suspicion that his clothing business was a front for smuggling in Islamic holy war fighters and that he had contacts with the Hamburg-based terror cell behind last year’s attacks on New York and Washington.

Though European security officials reported no specific terror threats, fears linked to the anniversary led authorities to tighten precautions at airports and other locations across the continent.

"Now, we always have to consider the unthinkable," said Belgian Interior Minister Antoine Duquesne.

About 10 unarmed London policemen, backed up by armed soldiers were on duty at the US embassy on Grosvenor Square, where security has been stepped up. The embassy will be a focus for ceremonies on Wednesday.

Other embassies enforced precautions put in place since Sept. 11. "Security remains at a very high level," spokesman Mark Smith said at the US embassy in central Berlin, sealed off for a block on all sides by heavily armed police.

The US military in Europe said stringent security was being maintained but that individual base commanders could order extra measures if needed.

Protection for US forces is at the second of four levels of alert, where it has been for months, said a spokesman for the US European Command in Stuttgart, Germany.

With the al-Qaida network apparently disrupted by the war on terrorism, European officials were warning of the threat that individual Islamic extremists who might carry out attacks without outside direction.

The prosecutor who led the probe into Osama bin Laden’s operations in Italy said the new threat to Europe in the aftermath of September 11 comes from "free-lance" terrorists without direct connections to al-Qaida.

"At the moment, we are not threatened by the same network as before Sept. 11," Dambruoso said.

"Al-Qaida as we knew it has been largely dismembered."

"But there are many frustrated Muslims in Europe, who live on the fringes of society. They are close to fundamentalist groups but don’t belong to any organisation."

In Asia, terror fears prompted the closure of three US embassies, a security lockdown in the Philippines and a white-powder scare in the mailroom of the US embassy in Wellington, New Zealand.

The worst jitters were felt in Southeast Asia, a region that has become known as the second front in the war on terror. Dozens of Islamic hard-liners allegedly linked to the al-Qaida terror network have been arrested over the last year in Singapore and Malaysia, while authorities in the Philippines have escalated a fight against Muslim rebels.

The US State Department issued a worldwide caution urging Americans to remain especially vigilant, saying there was a "continuing threat of terrorist actions, which may target civilians and include suicide operations."

In Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation and home to several hard-line Islamic groups, the US Embassy announced it was closed until further notice because of a "credible and specific" terrorist threat.

"We know that the al-Qaida network is still far from defeated," said Ambassador Ralph Boyce. "We received another graphic example of that in just the past few hours with the news about ... the specific terrorist threat against our embassy."

The ambassador implied that the warning was received through intelligence sources, saying it was "more than an anonymous e-mail or a phoned in threat."

US officials in neighbouring Malaysia, a mostly Muslim country of 23 million people, said the embassy there would close until further notice, citing specific and credible threats.

The US diplomatic mission in Cambodia will also shut for at least three days as a security precaution, said charge d’affaires Alex Arvizu.

In the Philippines, where elite US military units have trained Philippine soldiers fighting Islamic extremists, authorities moved to tighten security after a suspected al-Qaida member reportedly revealed a plot to carry out attacks.