>>Sleeper Cells Busted - U.S. Nabs Iraqi Agents in Mideast, Preventing Terror Attacks
March 28 — At least four Iraqi intelligence agents in two sleeper cells were arrested in two Middle Eastern countries while plotting attacks on U.S. targets abroad, U.S. officials said.
And the arrests, ABCNEWS has learned, have sparked investigations in nine other countries where Iraqis may be planning to attack U.S. interests.
The two cells were broken up in Yemen and Jordan, sources said, after an Iraqi agent tried to recruit a group of men to carry out bombing attacks in Yemen.
The men instead went to authorities, and led them to the agent and a safe house where explosives were stored.
The ensuing investigation and interrogation, sources said, yielded the names of Iraqi assets in nine other countries — the United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Thailand, Lebanon, Turkey, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
Two of the names the Iraqi agent gave up matched the names of two men who were arrested in Jordan two weeks ago in connection with an alleged plot to bomb a Marriott hotel, and authorities have arrested one of the people the agent identified in Bahrain.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said foreign law enforcement officers recovered the terrorist material and prevented the planned attacks from being carried out.<<
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