The US is still looking to European governments to speed up the extradition of terrorist suspects, Robert Mueller, the director of the FBI, made clear on Wednesday.
“We are always looking to see how we can make the extradition process go faster,” Mr Mueller told the FT. “We think we owe it to the victims of terrorism to see to it that justice is done efficiently and effectively.” He added that successful cases of extradition of terrorist suspects to the US had the additional “benefit” of increasing the intelligence available generally to those fighting terrorism.
While diplomatically steering clear of criticising individual countries, Mr Mueller made clear that he wanted European Union co-operation with the US in the war on terrorism to go much further, despite the concern that European human rights groups feel at the threat to domestic civil liberties from the long arm of the US law. Although UK trials have been holding up the extradition of individuals wanted by the US authorities, Mr Mueller paid tribute to the UK as one of the US's strongest partners in the war against terrorism.
He said joint US/UK law enforcement and intelligence efforts had helped thwart terrorist attacks on Britain prior to the London bombings. He defiantly rejected the suggestion that the threat of terrorism had been fuelled by the war in Iraq.
“There was no Iraq war before September 11 . . . Islam is a peaceful religion but there are terrorists and radical extremists in the context of Islam that have to be dealt with,” he said.
Mr Mueller emphasised that the need for international co-operation in law enforcement and intelligence sharing had become all the more urgent because of the developingthreat in a number of countries from “home-grown extremists”.
“The lessons of the London bombings was that what we had understood previously as the possibility of home-grown terrorism developing was actually taking place,” he said.
He listed Bali, Casablanca, Madrid, and London as examples of Islamist attacks where terrorists with domestic links had struck successfully. Asked whether the US could face a similar threat from “home-grown groups”, Mr Mueller answered emphatically: “Absolutely, it could.”
According to Mr Mueller, the nature of the continuing threat to the US had been underlined by the indictment of four men three US citizens and a man from Pakistan in recent weeks in southern California in what he described as a terrorist plot to attack US military installations and synagogues.
Mr Mueller refused to answer questions more directly linked to foreign policy, for example on the extent of evidence that Iran was becoming more involved in supplying insurgents in southern Iraq.
Questioned on the sensitive issue of whether the FBI had responded to the Lebanese government's reported request for US security help, Mr Mueller said: “Generally, without suggesting any particular country, when we are asked to help we try and accommodate.”
