LONDON   Mumbai, India in November 2008 was a scene of carnage. Hotels, restaurants, a train station were  all hit by a commando-style attack by militants, leaving 166 dead.

Fox News confirms US authorities have now exposed planning for a similar style of simultaneous attack by Al Qaeda. It would target sites in the UK, France, Germany and possibly Denmark frequented by foreigners, including Americans.

“Whatever maximizes visibility is what they’re after,” former US intelligence agent Bob Ayers told Fox News, “whatever instills the greatest fear in the greatest amount of people.”

The recent wave of drone attacks unleashed on the terrorist-rich Pakistan border area with Afghanistan is said to be an attempt by the US to disrupt the plot. 

President Obama is reported to have been monitoring the situation.

“We know Al Qaeda types are out there determined to attack targets in the West,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told “Fox and Friends,” “be they hard targets or soft.”

The principal figure in the plot is a German of Afghan descent, Ahmed Sidiqi who worshipped at the same mosque in Hamburg as Mohammed Atta and other 9/11 plotters.

He was picked up by Americans in July in Afghanistan after training with Al Qaeda and then interrogated

Holger Stark, a reporter for Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine, told us his intelligence sources claim Sidiqi offered “nothing specific (it was) not clear what his motive was.”

Still with other terror suspects also said to be plotting and moving, the US apparently thought it best to move…early.  

According to intell expert Ayers : “What we’ve been told is that the attack was not in the execution phase it is still somewhere back in the planning stage.”

Paris has been on high alert for the past few weeks.  While authorities there tell us it is not a response to this particular plot, others in the UK and Germany say they’re aware…and ready.