Norway ‘bomb plot’ underscores al-Qaida pitfalls

After returning to Norway in June 2009, Davud re-established contact with his old acquaintances Jakobsen and Bujak, officials said. While Davud knew both men well, they did not know each other.

Within two months, authorities believe, the plot was in motion.

Documents reviewed by the AP show that over two weeks in late August and early September 2009, Davud tapped Jakobsen and Bujak, separately, to help him buy the materials that police would later seize from the basement of Bujak’s Oslo apartment. Those included nail polish remover, a one-liter bottle of 30-percent hydrogen peroxide, citric acid, flour and laboratory equipment, including a scale, gloves and dust masks.

The acetone in nail polish remover, hydrogen peroxide and acid can combine to produce the explosive triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, which served as a detonator for the bombs used by the terrorists who carried out the 2005 London bombings that killed 52 people. U.S. authorities believe the three New York men also intended to use TATP in that city’s subway.

Flour and hydrogen peroxide can be used to make a larger explosive.

Davud has told police “the purpose (of the chemicals) was for legitimate civil use,” said his lawyer, Arild Humlen.

When Davud asked Jakobsen to order the peroxide — common to both TATP and main-charge bomb recipes — from an Oslo pharmacy, Norwegian authorities acted to ensure that, no matter how the plot unfolded, the men would be unable to detonate an explosive, according to documents and officials.

Overnight, police moved to have the pharmacy give Jakobsen a dummy liquid that resembles hydrogen peroxide but would not work in a bomb.

What happened next suggests some of the many problems that can set back the kinds of terrorist operations — driven by poorly vetted, undertrained amateurs — that al-Qaida has come to rely on since losing a stable sanctuary and much of its top leadership following the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Unlike the New York plotters, Davud and his alleged accomplices never attempted to make bombs, and in contrast to both the other plots, the suspected Norway cell never chose a target.

Investigators believe one reason could be that, in September 2009, shortly after obtaining the chemicals, Davud was briefly detained by police — for reasons that are unclear — during a monthlong trip to Turkey.

Officials say the incident spooked Davud, who began to behave in a more secretive fashion upon his return to Norway.

For example, Davud had received from an unidentified contact in Turkey four passport photographs of a suspected al-Qaida affiliate. Back in Norway, he asked Jakobsen to obtain a fake passport from an Eastern European country for the man, but told Jakobsen only that the man was a relation he wanted to bring to Norway.

Then, in November, Ahmad stopped responding to Davud’s e-mails.

The following month, al-Qaida’s chief of external operations, Saleh al-Somali, who officials believe helped organize the New York, Manchester and Norway plots, was killed in a CIA drone strike in Pakistan. Ahmad answered to al-Somali and his captains, and while there’s no definite connection, the timing suggests the traceable electronic communication required to coordinate the three plots may have contributed to their organizer’s demise.

In the meantime, a fissure had developed in the Norway cell.

In late 2009, Jakobsen went to Norway’s Police Security Service and began providing information on Davud’s activities after what he described as a worrisome change in the Uighur’s behavior, Jakobsen’s lawyer Kjell T. Dahl said this summer.

“There are strengths and weaknesses in decentralization,” said Magnus Norell, a terrorism expert at the Swedish Defense Research Agency. “It’s a strength because it’s difficult to find these plots unless you stumble upon them or have very good intelligence. Also, you can bring in people who might not be able to join otherwise. The weaknesses — they came to the surface in these cases.”

Although the bomb plot stalled, Davud apparently did not. Officials believe that, despite the loss of contact with al-Qaida in Pakistan, Davud had his next move in the works. He was planning to travel abroad sometime later this summer, according to documents and officials.

While authorities do not know exactly where he planned to travel or why, they suspect he may have been aiming to meet an al-Qaida-related contact, possibly one of several in Turkey tied to the facilitator who brought him to the training camp in Waziristan.

Davud and the two others remain in detention in Norway awaiting trial, which is expected to begin sometime next year.

Norwegian prosecutors have said they plan to file terror conspiracy charges against the men, who face up to 12 years in prison if convicted. The suspects’ lawyers say their clients intend to plead not guilty.

___

Associated Press writers Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman in Washington; David Stringer in London; Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin; and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report.