Press: Attack Planned in Europe

Iraq's most wanted man, the fugitive Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been planning a chemical weapons attack in Europe, a German magazine said on Wednesday, citing intelligence sources. "We in Europe have been afraid that a big bang is coming sometime and that Zarqawi is planning it," an official at Germany's BND federal intelligence service told the April edition of the political monthly Cicero. According to the magazine, the Jordanian extremist and his supporters, who are linked to the al Qaeda network, have been trying to get hold of arms components in Russia's volatile north Caucasus region and in Georgia. Another BND source said that it was unclear whether Zarqawi's attempts had been successful. "We only know that he is working on it," the source said. Cicero said intelligence sources presume he has at least 150 supporters. Some of them are thought to have operated in the southern states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg and the capital Berlin where they have tried to set up terrorist cells for a "holy war," it said. Zarqawi and his group, al Qaeda Organization in the Land of Two Rivers, has claimed responsibility for scores of deadly attacks in Iraq since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein.