Hamburg, Germany CNN -- A group of jihadists from the German city of Hamburg is alleged to be at the heart of the recent al Qaeda plot to launch coordinated terrorist attacks against European cities, European intelligence officials said. Western intelligence officials say they learned about the reported plot after Ahmed Sidiqi, a German citizen of Afghan descent, was arrested in Afghanistan in July and taken to the U. He has not been charged and intelligence sources in Germany say he is cooperating with the investigation. In early , Sidiqi and 10 others left Hamburg for the tribal areas of Pakistan -- where most joined a jihadist group fighting U. Sidiqi told American interrogators that at least one member of his travel group was to be a "foot soldier" in the plot, with other members of the group helping to plan the attacks, a European counterterrorism official told CNN. The reported plan prompted the U. State Department to issue a Europe-wide security advisory for Americans traveling in Europe. A homeland security official said Monday that a bulletin went out a day earlier to state and local law enforcement agencies advising them that the travel alert was issued based on intelligence they had already been made aware of. It says it was issued "to raise general security awareness and as part of our ongoing effort to provide information about any potential terrorist threat against the United States or our allies in Europe. Japan issued a similar alert Monday, citing the warnings issued by the United States and by Britain, which raised the level highest for France and Germany.
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Important members included Mohamed Atta , who led the four hijacking teams in and piloted American Airlines Flight 11 ; Ramzi bin al-Shibh , who conspired with the other three members but was unable to enter the United States ; Marwan al-Shehhi , who piloted United Airlines Flight ; and Ziad Jarrah , who piloted United Airlines Flight 93 and failed to hit a target in Washington, D. They met together three or four times a week to discuss their anti-American and anti-Israeli views, and to decide how best to fight for their cause. As late as , the four core members of the group had intended to wage jihad in Chechnya , where Islamic jihadists were then and are now rebelling against the parent country of Russia. An individual named Khalid al Masri or Khalid al-Masri approached bin al-Shibh and Shehhi because they were Arabs with beards, bin al-Shibh thinks and struck up a conversation about jihad in Chechnya. When they later called Masri and expressed interest in going to Chechnya, he told them to contact Abu Musab in Duisburg , Germany. Abu Musab turned out to be Mohamedou Ould Slahi , a significant al-Qaeda operative who, even then, was well known to U. Bin al-Shibh, Shehhi and Jarrah visited Slahi in Duisburg, where he convinced them that it would be best to train in Afghanistan first, because further experience would be useful, and anyway it was difficult at that time to get into Chechnya. Slahi instructed them to travel to Karachi , Pakistan , then to the Taliban office in Quetta , Pakistan, where they were to contact a man named Umar al Masri. Atta and Jarrah left Hamburg during the last week of November Shehhi left by himself around the same time; bin al-Shibh followed two weeks later.
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