Sources in Washington said a joint US-European operations room has been set up to deal with such a scenario; to this end, two American aircraft carriers, along with a French ship are making their way to the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.

US officials opposed to an attack on Iran fear the Bush Administration would take advantage of such terror attacks to launch an offensive that, according to the officials, would settle the Iranian nuclear crisis and boost the president's approval rating.

The officials added that should the terror attacks be masterminded by a third party, they would still be used to justify an attack on Iran.

Al-Watan also reported that the CIA and European intelligence services have enhanced their activity against Arab and Muslim institutions in Europe following the September 11 attacks. A security official in Brussels told the newspaper that intelligence services planted surveillance equipment in a number of Arab and Islamic embassies and in the officers of major international corporations with ties to Muslim and Arab countries.

The source added that undercover agents, mainly women, have infiltrated Arab and Islamic institutions; e-mails, faxes and phone calls originating from these institutions are also monitored, and even the garbage cans outside the buildings are searched for any information on the nature of the messages relayed by these organizations and their activities, according to the source.

The officials painted a picture of a diverse group of militants with competing agendas, vastly different social and educational backgrounds and a litany of gripes that makes it difficult to predict their next move. While they may be motivated by Osama bin Laden's call for worldwide jihad, they mostly operate independently of al-Qaida's leadership, the officials said.

"There is no profile; they come from everywhere," said Manfred Murck, deputy director of the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which tracks extremist activity in the northern city of Hamburg, home to three of the four Sept. 11 suicide pilots. "You can't concentrate on certain targets, you can't concentrate on certain persons ... Everything is possible, anything goes, and you just have to try and be as close as you can to the whole group."

The two deadliest recent attacks in Europe - the London bombings of last July 7 and the Madrid blasts of March 11, 2004 - dramatically illustrate the problem.

Two of the London bombers had shown up on the periphery of another terror investigation, but authorities did not deem them dangerous enough to merit closer surveillance.

Spanish authorities say they were also monitoring several of the bombers in the months before the Madrid attack - and actually stopped a car carrying the group's military planner in late February, unaware he was leading a caravan of other terrorists transporting explosives. They thought they were dealing with drug traffickers and let them go.

Armed partially with the lessons learned from those bombings, intelligence services throughout Europe are ramping up surveillance, even at the risk of provoking protests from civil liberties groups.

- In Spain, where 191 people died in the bombing of four trains, authorities have tripled the number of agents concentrating on terrorism and are watching some 250 suspected radicals, according to a senior intelligence chief at the heart of the country's counterterrorism operations, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

- In London, where four suicide attackers killed 52 bus and subway passengers, senior police officers say they are concerned about 40 to 60 people living in Britain who have received training at camps in Pakistan or
Afghanistan, and who are believed intent on carrying out attacks. Another 400 are believed to be sympathizers.

- In Italy, authorities are watching 74 people on suspicion of financing terrorism, said Gen. Pasquale Debidda of the financial police. Germany's Murck said about 170 potentially violent radicals are under surveillance in Hamburg, and that they were believed to have another 2,000 sympathizers.

The numbers look small, but the threat isn't.

In France, authorities have blocked at least a dozen attacks in the past decade, said Louis Caprioli, the former assistant director of the DST, the country's main counterintelligence agency. Tore Bjoergo, a terrorism expert at the Norwegian Police University College, put the number of thwarted attacks throughout Europe at 30 to 40 since 9/11.

Officials and terror experts say the main threat is from homegrown militants, deeply rooted in their adopted countries but still linked to networks in the Muslim world.

Most of the Madrid bombers were North African immigrants. The London attacks were carried out by three British citizens of Pakistani descent and a fourth from Jamaica. And the highly public killing of Dutch film director Theo van Gogh in 2004 was carried out by a Muslim of Moroccan background.

No link to al-Qaida has been established in any of the incidents, though British authorities are still looking into a trip two of the bombers there made to Pakistan in the year before the bombings.

Said Heinz Fromm, Germany's domestic intelligence chief: "One today cannot talk any longer of a central leadership role of al-Qaida." Bin Laden's group has become a "diffuse, amorphous organization" that provides inspiration for attacks, rather than a guiding hand, he said.

Riots in heavily Muslim inner cities of France, and the global Islamic outburst over the publication of Danish cartoons featuring the Prophet Muhammad, have further heated the climate for terrorism.

"We have recorded a significant increase in the number of threats" because of the cartoons, said Lars Findsen, the intelligence chief in Denmark.

The Internet is replacing militant mosques as the main meeting site for potential terrorists, said Sybrand van Hulst, the director of the Netherlands'
CIA equivalent, the AIVD. It has also become their manual.

The Spanish intelligence chief said a search of the Madrid plotters' computers found they had often visited Global Islamic Media, the al-Qaida-linked Web site, before the attack and after, when they needed advice on making their getaway.

Authorities believe they learned how to rig their cell-phone bombs on the Web and even used the same brand of phones - Mitsubishi Trium T110s - as did the group behind the 2002 attacks in Bali.

The official said similarities between otherwise-unrelated attacks were evidence of the Web's power to spread terror information. The suicide attacks in London and those in Casablanca on May 16, 2003, were both carried out using the same peroxide-based explosives, which are easily made with common materials, but are extremely powerful.

The official said the terrorists don't know each other but chat a lot online, sharing their lessons and tactics. "They have recipes (for how to carry out an attack). It is the classic do-it-yourself handbook," he said.

The cost of an attack has also dropped sharply.

The Sept. 11 attacks were complicated and expensive, involving international bank transfers and months of training. The London attacks, according to British Home Secretary John Reid, cost just $15,000.

Alon Ben-David, Israel analyst for Jane's Defense Weekly, said Cooperation Mako aimed mainly to improve NATO security missions in the Mediterranean and that Israel was especially interested in combined air force exercises.

"Given Israel's strategic reality, it is crucial to be part of a defensive coalition," Ben-David said.

Israel, Algeria and Morocco agreed in April to join NATO counter-terrorist patrols along their shores.

Ben-David noted Israel has stepped up its cooperation with foreign military forces as part of preparations for a possible showdown with Iran, whose nuclear program and calls for the Jewish state's elimination have raised concern in the West.

Iran, the world's fourth-biggest oil exporter, says it seeks nuclear technology for energy needs only.

Some Western officials have speculated that Israel would eventually apply to join NATO's 26 member-states. "If Iran feels that Israel is ... in the pact, it will behave differently," former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar said in March.

But full membership is seen as unlikely in Israel, given its tradition of going it alone on matters of top military priority.

Believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, Israel sent warplanes to bomb Iraq's atomic reactor in 1981 and has not ruled out similar action against Iran. For now, though, it backs U.S.-led efforts to defuse the dispute with diplomacy.

"A defense pact has advantages and disadvantages," Israel's military chief, Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz, told the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper this month. "Under a NATO pact, every decision would require consensus of 26 nations."

President Bush has pledged to defend Israel should it come under Iranian attack. Some analysts interpreted the statement as an admonition to Israel from its chief ally not to launch a preemptive strike on Iran unilaterally.

"Iranian scientists have firstly tried nuclear fusion five years ago," he added.

Through nuclear fusion, multiple nuclei join together to form a heavier nucleus.

The process of nuclear fusion is accompanied by the release or absorption of energy depending on the masses of the nuclei involved.

Nuclear fusion is employed by certain kinds of atomic bomb. The announcement came during a current visit of Russian Security Council Secretary Igor Ivanov for talks with senior Iranian officials on its disputed nuclear issue.

Tehran is under intense international pressure to stop its uranium enrichment and the United States accuses Iran of using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to achieve an atomic bomb. Iran denied the charge and insisted its nuclear program is only for peaceful use.

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany are expected to have more talks on a decision to offer Iran a package of incentives in return for Iran's suspension of its nuclear activities, after their London talks on May 24 stopped short of making a final agreement.

Foreign ministers of the six nations were likely to meet on Thursday in the Austrian capital of Vienna to discuss the matter.

Lavrov's remarks came just one day before a teleconference between diplomats of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany.

The meeting, grouping Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany, was aimed at finding common ground over "a package of stimuli" for Tehran if it suspends uranium enrichment activities, as well as penalties if it does not, Itar-Tass quoted a Russian foreign ministry source as saying.

The UN Security Council demanded that Iran suspend uranium enrichment by the end of April, but Tehran defied the deadline and announced last month that it had succeeded in enriching uranium and was doing research on advanced enrichment.

Enriched uranium can be used to produce fuel for both power generators and nuclear bombs.

Iran "must be involved in international economic cooperation and the efforts to enhance security in the region," Lavrov said, adding "in parallel, we are ready to guarantee Iran's right to develop peaceful nuclear power engineering."

But all these had to be pinned on Iran's cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), he added. "Another condition for the guarantees to nuclear energy engineering for Iran must be Iran's adherence to the treaty on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and to the additional protocol of the treaty," Lavrov said.

However, Iran has reiterated its reserved stance on Moscow's earlier proposal to set up a joint venture for Iran's uranium enrichment on Russia's territory.

Stressing the peaceful nature of its nuclear program and its right to peaceful nuclear technology, Iranian government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told a news conference in Tehran on Monday that Iran's principled position was uranium enrichment on its own territory under IAEA's control.

Negotiations between the European trio -- Britain, France and Germany -- and Iran grounded to a halt in August 2005, when Tehran resumed uranium enrichment.

The United States has accused Iran of developing nuclear weapons secretly, a charge repeatedly denied by Tehran, which insists that its nuclear program is to generate electricity to meet the country's surging demand.

An Israeli newspaper, meanwhile, reported that Iran has equipped Hezbollah with rockets capable of hitting all of Israel's major cities, including Beer Sheva in the south. The Haaretz daily, citing intelligence sources, said the rockets have a range of about 200 kilometres, or double that of weapons previously in Hezbollah's arsenal.

The Israeli commander, Brig.-Gen. Gal Hirsch, declined comment on the Haaretz report.

However, he said Iranian weapons in the hands of Hezbollah, including mortars and missiles, pose "a growing threat" to Israel.

Sunday's cross-border fighting began when Katyusha rockets were fired from Lebanon at Israel's northern Galilee region, hitting an air force base, followed by attacks on Israeli outposts along the border.

In response, Israel unleashed its fiercest artillery barrage since withdrawing from Lebanon in 2000.

"Our main effort was to destroy the front line that Hezbollah has built in the last six years," said Hirsch, who commands an Israeli army division along the border.

Hirsch said Hezbollah had established dozens of frontline outposts along the border with Israel.

"We destroyed most of them," the commander said in a telephone interview.

Witnesses in the border region said several Hezbollah outposts were heavily damaged or destroyed by the Israeli shelling and air raids. Those positions are largely observation posts manned by guerrillas carrying light arms. They are different from the hidden, mobile launch sites where Hezbollah fires Katyusha rockets.

Hirsch said the Israeli military was ready for a Hezbollah attack, having prepared a contingency plan. "We were waiting for them for weeks," he said.

The UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon brokered a ceasefire that took effect Sunday evening, Milos Strugar, a spokesman for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, told The Associated Press.

Tensions along the border rose after a senior official in the violent Palestinian group Islamic Jihad was killed in a car bomb in the southern Lebanese town of Sidon last week. Israel has denied involvement.

President Emile Lahoud blamed Israel for Sunday's fighting and urged the world to intercede "to put an end to Israel's aggressive actions."

But Israel put the onus on Beirut to maintain the peace, saying the Lebanese government was responsible for maintaining order.

Israel has urged the Lebanese government to disarm militias and send regular troops to the south, but the government has refused.

Hirsch said he's seen a strong presence of Iranian Revolutionary Guards in southern Lebanon. "Hezbollah is a wing of the Iranian effort to create a front line against the West," he said, noting that the Iranians train and supply Hezbollah fighters.

The Israeli commander said that in the event of renewed Katyusha attacks, Israel would again retaliate harshly, and perhaps step up its response.

In Lebanese towns and villages near the border with Israel, people swept up broken glass and reopened their shops and schools Monday. Village squares filled with market stalls and customers as police surveyed the destruction.

In the southeastern Lebanese village of Sohmor, people prepared to bury one of the slain Hezbollah guerrillas, Youssef Mohammed Alaeddine, 36. The other militant killed was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.

Olmert wants Bush to remain steadfast in refusing to talk to the Hamas-dominated Palestinian Authority. He wants U.S. support for Israel's wall that is fencing in large slices of the West Bank and all of Jerusalem, forever denying the Palestinians a viable state. He wants U.S. recognition of Israeli-drawn lines as the final borders of Israel. And he wants America to remove the "existential threat" of Iran.

In the six months before he proceeds unilaterally with this Sharon-Olmert plan, he will be happy to talk with Mahmoud Abbas, the isolated Palestinian president he has called "powerless."

What is the Bush plan to advance our interests in the Middle East? There is none. For five years, the Bush policy has been to sign off on whatever Sharon put in front of him. And now that Bush is weak, he is not going to pick a fight he cannot win and, in candor, he does not want.

For Bush has signed on to the Sharon agenda. And if he had a policy that clashed with the Sharon-Olmert Plan, political realities would prevent his pursuing it.

Consider: Suppose Bush declared that Ehud Olmert's proposed withdrawals from the West Bank were insufficient, that an official Palestinian presence in East Jerusalem was imperative, and that the United States needed to aid the Palestinians whom Israel is starving out and to talk in back channels to Hamas, even as we talked to Libya's Col. Gadhafi to convince him to give up terrorism and his weapons of mass destruction.

Bush's and America's stock might rise worldwide. But here in the United States, it would be another story altogether.

We would hear the cry of "Munich!" from neoconservatives, echoed by evangelical Christians and the religious Right. "Bibi" Netanyahu would be a fixture on Fox News, which would be asking hourly if Bush had taken leave of his senses.

Then, as his father did on the loan guarantees for Israel that he briefly held up in 1991, Bush would capitulate.

Thus Israel will pursue the Sharon-Olmert Plan to completion. There will be withdrawals from isolated settlements and outposts, but no negotiations with a Palestinian Authority to agree on permanent borders and two states.

The West Bank wall will soon encompass all of the suburbs of Jerusalem for miles around. Palestine will be divided into three parts: Gaza and two enclaves on the West Bank. There will be no Palestinian official presence in Jerusalem. No viable nation.

Meanwhile, America will be called upon for new sums of money to subsidize the Sharon-Olmert Plan, even as we are prodded to do our duty and emasculate Iran.

As Olmert is the pilot setting the course, and Bush has signed on as crew to his "bold ideas," our destination is easy to foresee.

The United States alone will recognize Israel's new borders, and her annexations of the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem as Israel's exclusive capital. Israel will ask for and the United States will accede to Israel's request that we commit ourselves militarily to defend Israel's new frontiers. No Arab government will recognize the new borders. America's Arab friends will be further estranged.

Every demagogue bidding for power in the Islamic world will, like Iran's Ahmadinejad, play the Palestinian card.

The suffering of the Palestinian people under the U.S.-Israeli sanctions regime will further radicalize them into hating us as they do Israel. The struggle between Hamas and Fatah over diminishing aid and resources will intensify, degenerating into civil war. Iran will move into the vacuum. Eventually, with aid cut off and no hope of negotiations, Hamas will revert to terror and the third intifada will begin.

Western Europe, its Muslim populations growing in numbers and militancy, will neither recognize Israel's borders nor endorse U.S. policy. Europe is not going to side with 5 million Israelis, whom they believe to be in the wrong, against 300 million Arabs, who will be 500 million at mid-century.

Rightly, Americans say we will not let Israel be destroyed. But why must we acquiesce in Israel's annexations of Arab land? Why must we remain silent to her deprivations of the Palestinians?

These questions will puzzle the historians who investigate the astonishing and swift end to U.S. hegemony in the 21st century.

The sources said that Haneya's daughter, who was traveling with families and relatives of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, was to visit her fiancé imprisoned in an Israeli jail in the southern Israeli town of Beer Sheva.

Haneya's office contacted officials in the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Gaza and in Jerusalem to interfere and release Haneya's daughter.

The Israeli security forces said that the girl was stopped at Erez because she carried a fake identity card.
Every Monday, and in coordination with the ICRC, the Israeli army allows families to visit their imprisoned family members in Israeli jails.