Global hunt for terrorists a first
Police from 120 nations join forces in unprecedented civil effort

Bill Wallace / SF Chronicle 29nov01

Washington -- Since Sept. 11, law enforcement agencies in 120 countries have joined in an unprecedented effort to track down alleged terrorists -- an effort that amounts to a global civilian front in the war.

This international police work stands in sharp contrast to earlier failed attempts to fight crime globally.

After the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon:

• Hundreds of terrorist suspects were arrested or indicted by authorities in 24 countries, according to U.S. State Department sources. Nations that made arrests include Sudan and Syria, both of which have been identified by the State Department as sponsors of terrorist organizations.
• The latest example: German authorities' arrest yesterday of Mounir El Motassadeq, suspected of funneling money to the Sept. 11 hijackers while they were learning to fly planes in the United States.
• Law enforcement agencies around the world seized $56 million in suspected terrorist assets and froze accounts containing millions more, the Treasury Department says. Of the money seized, more than half -- $29 million --was taken by authorities outside the United States.
• Even nations that have been zealous guardians of banking secrecy such as the Bahamas and Switzerland have played critical roles in the attempt to ferret out terrorists and their funds.

U.S. officials believe that the unified response has prevented -- or at least delayed -- further attacks by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network.

"We are aware of three planned incidents that did not occur, two of them involving U.S. embassies," said a State Department representative who agreed to speak anonymously. The representative identified only two of the three -- planned attacks on U.S. embassies in Paris and Yemen.

"We think the reason they didn't happen was because the large number of arrests since 9/11 has disrupted the network they have outside Afghanistan," the State Department official said.

The global police effort in the aftermath of the attacks in New York and Arlington, Va., has been characterized by remarkable coordination among national police services often at odds with each other. Its success to date stands in sharp contrast to many earlier attempts to mount an international offensive against criminal activity.

"There is no question that there has been an unprecedented degree of international cooperation in the response to the attacks," said Rob Nichols, a Treasury Department deputy assistant secretary.

How long that cooperation will continue is an open question, though.

UNHAPPY WITH BUSH TRIBUNALS
Last week, Spain agreed with Great Britain to circumvent lengthy traditional extradition agreements and quickly hand over suspects in cases of terrorism. But Spain also said it would not extradite eight alleged members of bin Laden's al Qaeda unless U.S. authorities pledged not to try them with the military tribunals President Bush plans to convene.

Other countries have expressed reservations about the tribunals, saying that the panels -- and U.S. death penalty -- violate the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.

Whether the alliance holds together in the long run, it has been remarkably solid for the past two months: Within days of the Sept. 11 attacks, representatives of the police services of 135 nations affiliated with Interpol,

the global police network, met in Budapest to pledge cooperation in battling terrorism.

Before Sept. 11, Interpol had operated only during business hours five days a week. After the attacks, the agency switched to a 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a- week system and implemented a new command center, giving it the ability to speedily respond round-the-clock.

It also issued more than 55 "red notices" -- international warrants for the arrest or extradition of suspects -- in the days after the attacks.

The Financial Action Task Force is a specialized section of Interpol that consists of representatives of 29 nations that share information and investigative techniques on money laundering by large criminal organizations.

Late last month, officers of the group met in Washington to switch their focus to investigating the methods terrorists use to transfer funds.

EU AIDS U.S.
Interpol is not the only international civilian agency that has enlisted in the war on terrorism. Shortly after Sept. 11, representatives of the 15 nations that form the European Union met with President Bush to pledge increased intelligence and law enforcement cooperation.

The response to the attacks stands in sharp contrast to many previous attempts to forge a transnational front against crime.

For years, attempts to stop the transfer of narcotics and dangerous drugs between nations have been stymied by problems that include uncooperative attitudes and differing priorities and procedures among law enforcement agencies.

The current investigation has been a completely different story, U.S. officials said.

Consider the seizure earlier this month of roughly $1 million worth of assets in the United States and the United Arab Emirates from the al-Barakaat banking network, allegedly a primary channel for al Qaeda funds.

"The Barakaat service was shut down due to intelligence information we received from foreign (police) services," said Treasury's Nichols. "The recent success we have enjoyed has largely been due to an increasingly cooperative international effort."

Some countries involved in the effort hope to gain U.S. support and financial aid in return for their assistance. Others, such as Syria and Sudan, want to avoid facing the same fate as the Taliban government of Afghanistan.

MOTIVATED BY SELF-INTEREST
"Countries behave first, last and always in self-interest in cases like this," said William Nash, a retired general who commanded peacekeeping forces in Bosnia and currently heads the Center for Preventative Action at the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York think tank.

"Pakistan's President (Pervez) Musharraf went on TV and told his country's people he had decided to participate in the war on terrorism because it was in Pakistan's interest to do it," Nash said. "The fact that our old friend Syria is turning people over to us (for prosecution) isn't happening because they think it seems like the right thing to do."

Others say at least part of the motivation is the fact that many nations see the Sept. 11 attacks as evidence that terrorism has entered a new, more deadly stage -- one that requires swift and decisive international action.

"Every one of the countries of Europe already has had bombs, assassinations, hijackings. They have had every conceivable act," said Eric Moonman, a former Labor Party member of the British Parliament who now teaches at the City University in London.

"We (the international community) are not coming from another planet here," he said. "We understand what has happened. We know what's at stake."