THE most wanted terrorist in Iraq is recruiting cell members in Britain and Europe. Terrorism experts believe Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is preparing his new recruits for attacks somewhere in Europe.

Al-Zarqawi, who has a $25m reward on his head and now leads Al-Qaeda in Iraq, is also thought to be using Europeans for his terror campaign against the Americans in Iraq.

Rohan Gunaratna, one of the world’s foremost Al-Qaeda experts with access to intelligence, said last week that al-Zarqawi was a growing threat.

“He is the biggest recruiter in Europe. He has become better known among extremists in Britain and Europe and his group is becoming very multinational,” said Gunaratna, author of Inside Al-Qaeda and a former research fellow of St Andrews University’s centre for the study of terrorism and political violence.

Fears of a plot led by al-Zarqawi will heighten the sense of alert among western Europe’s intelligence agencies. He has claimed responsibility for a series of beheadings in Iraq, including the killing of British hostage Kenneth Bigley.

The threat of Islamic terrorism in Europe was highlighted last week by Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan police commissioner. He said Britain’s security forces had thwarted an attack in London on the scale of the Madrid bombings, which killed 191 people. “We are still in a grave area of great threat,” Stevens warned.

A new generation of British and European Muslim militants has been heading to Iraq to fight alongside the Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi, following the recruiting pattern set by Al-Qaeda in the 1980s and 1990s, when it sent fighters to wage war in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya.

Those earlier fighters are now middle-aged, but al-Zarqawi has the support of the young. “Many of the old Al-Qaeda networks have been taken out and al-Zarqawi is trying to reconnect with them and provide new leadership,” said Gunaratna.

Some of al-Zarqawi’s holy warriors are already returning home to bolster support and encourage new recruits. Several Islamic militants are known to have resurfaced in Paris after joining his forces in Iraq.

“The thinking used to be that fighters were on a one-way mission to die in Iraq, but they’re becoming more confident and we’re now seeing them return in a rotatory pattern,” said Gunaratna.

Between 150 and 200 European jihadists are estimated to have entered Iraq, usually through Syria or Iran. A western intelligence official said: “The new land of jihad is Iraq. There, they are trained, they fight and acquire a technique and the indoctrination sufficient to act on when they return.”

An Iraqi resistance leader told The Sunday Times in September that three Britons were part of the beheading gang that seized Bigley. Abu Muawiya, who spent eight months in the Tawhid wal Jihad, said the Britons were among “a handful of non-Arab foreigners” who had joined al-Zarqawi after being recommended by “clerics abroad”.

Earlier this month, German authorities arrested three Iraqis with links to al-Zarqawi on suspicion of planning an attack against Iyad Allawi, the Iraqi prime minister, during his visit to the country.

Experts agreed at a Washington conference this month that Europe was the likely target of the next big Islamic terror attack. Marc Sageman, a former CIA officer, warned of “a succession of Madrids, Casablancas and Istanbuls”.

Sageman, now a forensic psychiatrist and author of Understanding Terror Networks, said three-quarters of Al-Qaeda members have upper-middle-class backgrounds. Most have wives and children and 60% are college educated, mostly in science and engineering subjects.

Half studied in Europe or America and the average age is 26. Sageman said half come from religious families, 10% are converts from Christianity.

“These guys are the best and brightest in society, they speak three, four or five languages and they’re computer savvy,” he said. “They go abroad to study, they become homesick. Expatriates look for people like themselves and where do they find them? Mosques.”

Sageman said 68% of men who joined in jihadist activities already had friends doing the same. Twenty per cent joined because their fathers, brothers or cousins were involved.

The new security measures introduced across the world since 9/11 may mean it will be more difficult for disenchanted men to go off to somewhere such as Afghanistan to fight — although Iraq is now a tempting alternative — but perhaps, said Sageman, our concerns should be closer to home.

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