Attacks on U.S. Missions Foiled, Indian Police Say

NEW DELHI — Indian police said Wednesday that they had foiled a plot to blow up two American diplomatic missions in India.

They announced the arrests of four men, including a Bangladeshi who claimed that he had trained in Afghanistan and had met Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the deadly August bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.

The suspected ringleader in the Indian plot, Bangladeshi Sayed abu Nasir, was arrested Jan. 7 at the Delhi railway station carrying four pounds of explosives and five detonators, police said. Nasir told police that he had intended to attack the U.S. diplomatic missions in Calcutta and Madras.

“They thought they could penetrate the grounds,” said Karnail Singh, deputy commissioner of police.

Nasir told police that he was working for a group called the International Islamic Relief Organization and that he had received assistance from Pakistani intelligence, officials said.

The organization, based in Mombasa, Kenya, was banned by Kenyan authorities after the Nairobi and Tanzania bombings, which killed 224 people.

Nasir also told police that he had trained in guerrilla camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Many of the camps are dedicated to training guerrillas fighting against the Indian army in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. It was here, Nadir told police, that he met Bin Laden, officials said.

Nasir allegedly told police that he considered the U.S. Consulate in Calcutta vulnerable because it is in a residential neighborhood and the Madras consulate because it is near a highway overpass.

Both consulates have fewer than half a dozen U.S. citizens working there.

Security at U.S. diplomatic missions was tightened after the August bombings in East Africa.

A team of U.S. counter-terrorism experts arrived in New Delhi on Tuesday to investigate.