U.S. editorial excerpts -5-

Selected editorial excerpts from the U.S. press:

BATTLEGROUND EUROPE (The Wall Street Journal, New York)

German security services yesterday arrested three Islamists suspected of planning car bomb attacks against pubs, clubs and airports frequented by Americans. The night before, Danish authorities thwarted a bomb plot by rounding up eight alleged terrorists with suspected links to al Qaeda.

However much European elites disdain the term ''war on terror,'' their Continent has become a major battleground for it. ''This shows that terrorist dangers, in our country as well, are not abstract but are real,'' Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday.

The three men nabbed in Germany trained at terror camps in Pakistan run by the Islamic Jihad Union, a group with links to al Qaeda. Police found 1,500 pounds of hydrogen peroxide in the suspects' possession, enough to cause major carnage.

While one of the suspects is Turkish, the other two are German converts to Islam. Terrorism experts have long warned that Islamists are trying to recruit Western converts who can more easily bypass security than men of Middle Eastern origin.

Security officials in Germany and Denmark deserve praise for the arrests. But that doesn't mean laws and law enforcement agencies everywhere in Europe are adequate to the task of thwarting terrorists.

Suspects can be kept in custody under preliminary charges for many months in Denmark; two of the Danish suspects arrested this week will be held at least for 27 days (the other six were released for now). In many EU countries, however, police have less leeway to detain terror suspects before trial. When German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble recently suggested preventive detentions, he was hammered by political opponents and the media.

The terror fight in Europe remains primarily a job for domestic security officials in each country. There is, however, a role for the EU, which needs to develop better cooperation between the national agencies as terrorists make full use of the freedom of movement in Europe. Law enforcement agents in one country have no access to crucial data such as fingerprints and DNA in other countries, says Gijs de Vries, who until March was the EU's anti-terror coordinator. The EU also needs better coordination to protect vital cross-border infrastructure, such as pipelines and telecom networks.

Whatever they prefer to call this long fight against Islamic terrorism, Europeans had better prepare for it. (Sept. 6)