The small, anxious-looking man who stood before a judge last week in London’s Central Criminal Court hardly resembled the feral terrorist British police are linking him to. But Saajid Badat, 24, faces charges of having conspired with fellow Briton and convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid, who tried to blow up an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001. And Badat is just one of 21 people detained by British police in the past three weeks under antiterrorism laws (some suspects have since been released). All across Europe, in fact, it is a busy time in the war on terrorism. German police two weeks ago announced the arrest of an Iraqi, 29, identified only as Mohammed L. He is suspected of having dispatched a dozen radicals from Germany to Iraq to carry out suicide attacks against U.S. troops. More than 5,000 police officers raided locations tied to 1,200 supporters of Germany-based Turkish militant Metin Kaplan. His Caliphate State group, which seeks to replace Turkey’s secular government with an Islamic one, has been linked to terrorist plots there. Five people were arrested on weapons, drug and illegal-immigration charges. Meanwhile, Syria has handed over 22 suspects sought by Turkey in connection with the November Istanbul blasts. And French police rounded up four people accused of assisting an al-Qaeda operative last year as he passed through France on his way to London. Are police methodically rolling up terrorist networks–or frantically trying to stave off a suspected holiday attack? Full Story
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