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Europe
Spain braced for verdicts in 3/11 train bombings
2007-10-31
The verdict on those accused of involvement in Europe's worst Islamist terrorist attack will be announced in a Spanish court today after a trial that has lasted four months and 17 days and heard testimony from more than 300 witnesses.

Ten bombs packed with dynamite and nails exploded on four trains heading into central Madrid, killing 191 people and injuring nearly 1,800.
If found guilty, 19 men, mostly of Moroccan origin, will be sentenced on charges of planning and carrying out the bombings on the morning of March 11 2004, as thousands of commuters made their way to work. Ten bombs packed with dynamite and nails exploded on four trains heading into central Madrid, killing 191 people and injuring nearly 1,800. It was the worst act of terrorism in Europe since the bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie in 1988, which claimed 270 lives. Nine Spaniards, including one woman, are also accused of providing the explosives used by the alleged terrorists.

The eight main defendants could serve 40 years, the longest possible in Spain regardless of the sentence actually passed. Other alleged conspirators face between four and 27 years. All of the accused have pleaded not guilty.
All will serve less than ten years after time all and Y'urp-peon hospitality.
Three weeks after the bombings, seven of the alleged ringleaders blew themselves up as Spanish police surrounded them in a flat where they were hiding out, taking with them vital evidence. Among the dead were Serhane Ben Abdelmajid, known as the Tunisian and the alleged mastermind of the plot, and Jamal Ahmidan, a hashish trafficker turned fundamentalist nicknamed the Chinaman.
Enjoy hell, boys.
At least four suspects, including two who may have been central to the attack, have disappeared. One is understood to have died in a suicide attack in Iraq.

The figure who drew most attention at the trial was Rabei Osman, said to be the link between the Madrid bombers and other Islamist terrorist groups. Mr Osman, also known as the Egyptian, was arrested in Milan in June 2004 after allegedly saying in wiretapped conversations that he planned the train bombings. Mr Osman claims he has been mistranslated, and condemned the attacks during the trial.
Just a little misdirection for the benefit of us infidels. Did he say it publicly in Arabic?
Suspects accused of planting the bombs include Jamal Zougam and Abdelmajid Bouchar. The latter is said to have fled the flat in Leganés just before the alleged ringleaders killed themselves.

Rogelio Alonso, a lecturer in politics and terrorism at the King Juan Carlos university, said he believed the trial had shown that "it is possible to fight this type of [Islamist] terrorism through the courts". He also said the investigation had uncovered a link between the Madrid suspects and the wider world of al-Qaida.
It's not likely that all terrorists can be tried this way. As far as we know, there's no great secrets, no intel links, no sources compromised by the trial, and the defendants are stone cold guilty. We could have tried the 9/11 mooks, assuming any had lived, and convicted them, but look at the problems we've had with other terror-related trials in this country.
However, Scott Atran, a US academic who has investigated the Hamburg cell connected to the 9/11 attacks as well as those behind the Bali bomb attacks of 2002, and who witnessed the trial, said: "There isn't the slightest bit of evidence of any relationship with al-Qaida. We've been looking at it closely for years and we've been briefed by everybody under the sun ... and nothing connects them."
Apparently this Scott Atran. He wrote this op-ed piece in 2003. Not sure what his role is in the 'investigation'.
Link


Africa: North
Libyan hard boyz eclipsed
2005-11-08
The British government’s decision in October 2005 to designate the al-Jama'a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah fi-Libya (Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, LIFG) as a terrorist organization must have come as welcome news to Colonel Qadhafi, given that at its peak the group represented the strongest challenge the Libyan regime has ever faced. Indeed, Qadhafi had long been complaining that the British were hosting Libyan nationals intent on overthrowing his regime. While the U.S. government placed the LIFG on its list of designated terrorist organizations back in 2004, it appears to have taken the London bombings to push the British to follow suit.

Following this designation the British authorities arrested five members of the LIFG and, despite the protestations of human rights organizations, also signed an agreement with the Qadhafi regime that would enable the men to be deported to Libya. The deal marks a major success for the Libyan regime in its victory over the Islamists and, if the men are returned, it is likely to be the final nail in the coffin of what, for all intents and purposes, is a dying organization.

The LIFG was set up in Afghanistan in 1990 by a group of jihadists who had travelled to fight the Soviets during the 1980s. After the Soviet withdrawal the Libyans, like many other Arab mujahideen, turned their attention to establishing an Islamic state in their own country. Some of the group’s members returned to Libya in the early 1990s and began preparing themselves to launch an armed struggle against the Qadhafi regime. They took a long-term view, drawing new recruits to their cause and collecting sufficient weaponry and ammunition to enable them to mount a real challenge to the authorities. However, their cover was blown in 1995 after a bungled operation to rescue one of their members, Khalid Bekkish from hospital where he was under armed guard, led the authorities to discover a farm in the Benghazi area that was acting as a base for the group. This armed cell was run by Saleh al-Shaheibi who had deserted the Libyan army and who upon being discovered blew himself up to avoid capture.

The regime’s response upon discovering the existence of the LIFG was to embark upon a large-scale liquidation campaign. The group was able to put up enough of a fight to enter into a series of clashes with the security services and to launch an assassination attempt against Qadhafi, but the regime ultimately succeeded in killing or arresting a large number of the group’s members or sympathizers. Indeed, according to figures released this summer by the Qadhafi International Foundation for Charitable Associations that is run by Qadhafi’s son Sayf al-Islam, the regime is still holding 182 members of the LIFG in prison. Others fled the country, and by the end of the 1990s, the LIFG had been more or less eliminated within Libya.

Following this crushing defeat, the LIFG existed primarily as a movement in exile. As such, their abilities have always been limited and their members scattered across a range of countries. Some who fled Libya returned to Afghanistan where the Taliban were happy to provide them with refuge and from where they hoped to regroup and focus their attention on taking the jihad to Libya. However, after the bombing of Afghanistan in November 2001 they were once again on the run. Many went to Iran and others fled further a-field to Europe or to Asia but this did not enable them to evade capture. Indeed, one of the biggest blows to the organization came in 2004 when two of its key members were handed over to the Libyan authorities. The group’s spiritual leader, Abu Munder al-Saidi was arrested in Hong Kong and its Emir, Abdullah Sadeq in Thailand. Both men were returned to Libya where they are reportedly under house arrest although their whereabouts have yet to be publicly confirmed by the regime.

Likewise, those who settled in Britain have also been limited in what they have been able to achieve. According to one Libyan Islamist, the organization’s members in the UK only number in the dozens. It appears that these individuals abandoned the armed struggle long ago and were reduced to focusing their efforts on producing anti-regime propaganda and assisting other members of the organization based abroad by providing money and fake documents to help them settle in Europe. Indeed, according to the wife of one of the men arrested in the UK, her husband was engaged in “passport fraud to help his friends come to Britain to escape Qadhafi”. The wife of another claimed her husband spent all his time on the Internet. Accordingly, the arrests of the five men in Birmingham, Cardiff and London in October look more like a symbolic defeat for the remnants of a fading organization.

The Arabic media named the arrested men as Bashir el Fakhi, Ziyad Hashem al-Ruqaii, Khalid Buslama al-Ilaqi, Nasir Buruaq and Ismail Kamoka, who spent a period in Belmarsh prison in relation to his alleged connections to Abu Qatada. It seems that they were on a list of 25 members of the LIFG provided by the Libyan authorities to the UK in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The importance of these particular figures within the organization is not known, although Ziyad Hashem, also known as Shakir al-Ghaznawi and Imad al-Libi, is thought to be a member of the group’s media committee. In fact, allegations appeared in the Spanish media in August 2005 linking Hashem, as well as the imprisoned Emir Abdullah Sadeq, with the Tunisian Islamist Serhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, the suspected ringleader in the Madrid attacks. The article, which cited a leaked Spanish police report, also claimed that Hashem was linked by marriage to the Moroccan Mustapha Maimouni, who is currently in detention in Morocco in connection with the Casablanca bombings. These allegations, however, do not appear to be substantiated.

The arrests have fuelled further speculation in the international media that the LIFG’s members were linked to international terrorism through al-Qaeda. This is a picture the Libyan regime is keen to promote. Indeed, the Libyan ambassador to the UK, Mohamed Belqasim Zwai, reportedly told the press this month that “we believe that all the LIFG members should be handed over to the Libyan authorities and not just a number of them because their presence will sooner or later pose a danger to Britain's security due to their connections with the al-Qaeda organization”.

While the LIFG, like many other jihadist groups, may share the same aspirations and ideology as al-Qaeda, it has for the most part maintained a fairly consistent nationalistic approach. Although a number of Libyan individuals, such as Abu al-Faraj al-Libi who was arrested in Pakistan in 2005, appear to have thrown in their lot with bin Laden, the LIFG has focused its attention primarily on the situation inside Libya and its key objective continues to be removing Qadhafi from power.

The group has in fact been careful over the years to distance itself from bin Laden. Indeed, while they were in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, the LIFG’s members preferred to ally themselves with Mullah Omar and the Taliban who were giving them protection rather than with bin Laden and Zawahiri, whom they accused of trying to create a state within a state in Afghanistan. They also chose not to join al-Qaeda when they, like many other jihadists, moved to Sudan to take refuge in the early 1990s before being ejected a few years later at the request of the Libyan regime. While in Khartoum the group’s members fiercely retained their independence and, according to one Libyan Afghan veteran, Noman Benotman—currently one of the few sources of information on the group—their focus remained on fighting the “near enemy,” i.e., on overthrowing Qadhafi.

Following the Afghanistan experience, the LIFG maintained a localized and nationalist perspective in the context of the wider global jihad. In the early 1990s, the LIFG decided to join the struggle in Algeria by fighting alongside the GIA with whom they had built up close contacts in Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to Noman Benotman, one of the reasons for going to fight in Algeria was to prevent the erosion of their members’ fighting skills after the war in Afghanistan. The other more important reason, however, was because the LIFG viewed Algeria as a “space behind” Libya that would act as a stepping stone for them to go on to fight in their own country.

With this in mind, in 1993 a number of LIFG members went to Algeria to survey the scene and to consult with the GIA. The following year, in collaboration with the GIA leadership, they sent a group of approximately 15 fighters into Algeria. Yet, this was to have disastrous consequences. After Djamal Zeitouni took over the GIA’s Emirship in September 1994 and the group’s tactics became increasingly brutal with Zeitouni advocating the indiscriminate killing of civilians, the Libyans began to object to the GIA’s stance. In a series of letters to the LIFG leadership that were written in secret ink and smuggled out of Algeria, the Libyan faction opposed to Zeitouni complained that certain elements of the GIA had deviated and that they had “no religion or manners”. It seems that in response, the Libyans sided with a faction opposed to Zeitouni and as a result, a number of them were killed by the GIA, including one of the LIFG’s main military figures, Abu Sakhar al-Libi. Others managed to escape and fled Algeria leaving the LIFG to regret the whole venture that had left some of their best fighters dead and had not enabled them to take the jihad back to Libya.

In fact, the LIFG was never able to rebuild any real strength inside Libya. Although Libyan radicals attempted to give a propaganda boost to their capabilities inside the country in 2005 by posting a series of warnings on Islamist websites claiming that Libya would be hit, this appears to be little more than fear mongering. Moreover reports that there are a few pockets of militants still fighting in the mountainous area around Derna are unconfirmed and it seems that those fighting may simply be small cells of individuals rather than any organized group. In any case, their strength is minimal.

It seems therefore that the LIFG’s decision to concentrate on national goals and to distance itself from al-Qaeda did little to help them in its struggle against the Qadhafi regime and was not sufficient either to prevent it from coming up against the wrath of Western governments in the war against terrorism.
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Europe
Syrian arrested again for Madrid massacre
2005-03-19
Spanish police have arrested a Syrian for the second time for his alleged links to the Madrid bombings. Mohannad Almallah Dabas was detained in his home in Madrid for his alleged links to the massacre on 11 March last year. Dabas was arrested in March last year in the wake of the attacks, but later released. He and his brother Moutaz Almallah were accused of recruiting young men and turning them into Islamic extremists and sending them abroad. They were also said to have sheltered Islamic extremists in Spain. Dabas was linked to Basel Ghalyoun, who is being held in custody accused of the same terrorist activity.

The three men were said to have held meetings to indoctrinate young recruits to the cause of jihad or Holy war. They were said to be part of the group led by Serhane Ben Abdelmajid Farket, alias 'The Tunisian', who was the supposed mastermind of the bombings. Farket later committed suicide with six other Islamic extremists when they blew themselves up in an apartment in Leganes near Madrid on 3 April last year. A police officer was also killed.

The Almallah brothers were also allegedly in contact with Rabei Osman Al Sayed, alias Mohamed The Egyptian, an ex-soldier and bomb expert who was said to have helped put together the explosives used in Spain's worst terrorist atrocity. Al Sayed is currently in custody after being arrested in Milan last year. The brothers used strict security measures to stop their detection by police, police sources said. Police also linked the brothers to Abu Dahdah, in custody accused of heading the Spanish cell linked to the 9/11 atrocity.
Good catch. Now keep him in the net this time (use the gaff if you have to) and get him singing!
Link


Europe
More on the possible NYC al-Qaeda plot
2005-03-03
The Spanish cell of al-Qaida responsible for the Madrid train bombing was also planning to attack New York's Grand Central station, its mayor, Michael Bloomberg said yesterday.

Security has now been increased at all of New York's main transport hubs.

Documents found on a computer disk in a Madrid flat while the attack last March was being investigated suggested that those responsible had carried out extensive preparations for an attack on New York, according to Madrid court sources quoted by El Mundo newspaper.

Prosecutors passed the information to US intelligence agencies in December.

Eduardo Fungairiño, the chief prosecutor at the high court, refused to comment, but the New York mayor claimed that the FBI had informed the police department about the existence of computer data and that the city had responded by tightening security.

"We've taken the appropriate steps ... to beef up security at all of the major transportation hubs - train stations and airports and bus stations, places where you say if a terrorist wanted to attack, they would," Mr Bloomberg said.

The data included a sketch of Grand Central station, which lies in the centre of Manhattan, and technical information about the building. Because of its technical nature, the police did not recognise its full significance until December.

Al-Qaida used Spain as a base for preparing the September 11 attacks.

The apartment where the disk was found belonged to Moutaz Almallah, who police believe was a key member of al-Qaida's Spanish cell. Almallah fled the country in January 2002 after a police swoop. He is thought to be hiding in London.

In 1998 he was photographed at Madrid's main airport with the Syrian cleric known as Abu Dahdah who, according to press reports, may have been a recruiter or the head of al-Qaida's European network.

He was also a friend of Serhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, leader of the cell which carried out the Madrid attack, who blew up himself and six of his fellow conspirators when the police surrounded their apartment.

Two of those being held over the train bombing, Basel Ghalyoun and Fouad el-Morabit, stayed in another apartment owned by Almallah before the attack.

Almallah's brother Mouhannad, who was living in the apartment at the time, was interrogated then released.

After the Madrid attack the US department of homeland security put Grand Central station on a state of alert, together with a number of other places, because of a separate warning.

A month previously the FBI had published a report on al-Qaida's plans to attack the US railway network.
Link


Europe
Witness identifies Madrid terror suspect
2004-12-15
The Spanish court system continues to connect the dots...
The Madrid bombing suspect known as "Mohammed the Egyptian" was identified in an identification parade as one of the people who frequented the farm house where the bombs used in Spain's worst terrorist attacks were made. The line-up procedure - the results of which were called "very important" by court sources - took place before Rabei Osman El Sayed, the alleged mastermind behind the attacks, began testifying before Judge Juan del Olmo.

El Sayed "may have occupied a pre-eminent position within a top nucleus of the suspects" in the 11 March train bombings in the Spanish capital that killed 191 people, Del Olmo said in a court document released last week. The magistrate said investigations had uncovered "a level of interpersonal relationship" among El Sayed (Mohammed the Egyptian) and Serhane Ben Abdelmajid, Fouad El Morabit, Basel Ghalyoun and Khaled Zeimi Pardo.

Abdelmajid, also known as "The Tunisian," was one of the suspected terrorists who killed themselves in the Madrid suburb of Leganes as police were closing in on them on 3 April. Zeimi Pardo is at large has been arrested, but the other two suspects are in custody.

"During the time he was in Spain, Rabei Osman, a suspected member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a part of the Al Qaeda network, took over the leadership of a group of followers of extremist Islamic ideology, supporters of the Jihad and of Osama bin Laden," the judge added. El Sayed was flown to Spain last week from Milan, where he was arrested last June. The Interior Ministry said El Sayed would be tried in Spain, but then returned to Italy, where a trial on other terrorism charges is pending. Spain's request for El Sayed was based on Italian police phone taps in which he is allegedly heard to say that he planned and organised the Madrid attacks, which also wounded some 1,500 people.
The Milan phone taps, still providing intel and evidence.
According to one of the transcribed conversations included in the brief, El Sayed said: "The attack in Madrid was my project and those who died martyrs are my dearest friends".
With a friend like this, who needs enemies?
Found also on a computer seized from El Sayed were pictures of mobile-phone-activated bombs similar to those used on 11 March.
Link


Europe
Spanish Police Arrest Four Suspected of Links to Terror
2004-12-14
Police investigating radical Islamic cells in Spain arrested three Algerians and a Moroccan on Tuesday. The four men were detained in the northern cities of Victoria and Teruel and in Madrid, said a national police spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The Moroccan, Khalid Zeimi Pardo, 27, is suspected of ties to Moroccan fugitive Amer el Azizi, who is wanted in connection with the Madrid terror bombings and the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States, the spokesman said. Zeimi Pardo also had contact with the alleged mastermind of the Madrid attacks, a Tunisian named Serhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet and others charged with terrorism in Spain, police say. He was also detained in April but freed after five days due to insufficient evidence.
Looks like they found some.
Authorities believe Azizi was a middleman between Spanish cells of mainly North African immigrants and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network. Seventeen people, mostly Moroccans, are jailed in Spain on provisional charges over the Madrid train bombings, which are blamed on Islamist militants with possible links to al-Qaida. The bombings killed 191 people and injured more than 1,800. The arrests of the three Algerians, identified as Abdelkader Lebik, Abdallah Ibn Moutalib Kaddouri and Brahim Amman, are part of a police investigation into an Islamic cell that allegedly plotted to blow up the court overseeing Spain's anti-terror investigations, the spokesman said. Thirty-three people, Moroccans and Algerians, have been provisionally charged and jailed since late October in the alleged plot to slam a truck carrying 1,100 pounds of explosives into Madrid's National Court.
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Europe
Two "key" suspects for Madrid massacre arrested
2004-12-09
MADRID- A Syrian and an Egyptian suspected of having links with the group that carried out the deadly Madrid train bomb attacks in March have been arrested in Spain, the interior ministry announced. The ministry named the pair as 29-year-old Syrian Adman Waki and Ahmed Ibrahim Kassem, a 28-year-old Egyptian. News reports had earlier mistakenly identified Kassem as being Algerian.
Easy mistake to make, they're both North Africans, right?
According to a report by the Spanish daily El Pais, investigators regard Waki as a key suspect and say he may have used one of the mobile phones also used by Serhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, a Tunisian suspected of having had a key-role in the Madrid bombings.
This is getting as bad as the Cole bombing. Is there anyone in Spain who isn't a "key" suspect?
Fakhet, known as "The Tunisian", and six other members of the group blew themselves up during a police raid in the suburbs of Madrid in April following the attacks, in which 191 people died and 1,900 were wounded in the worst ever terrorist strike on Spain. Waki has been under police surveillance for several months by Spanish secret service agents, according to El Pais. He has allegedly made several trips abroad, notably within Europe, during which he apparently raised funds for an Islamic terrorist network. Working as a mason he was based in Irun, in the north-eastern Basque region of the country, where the arrests were made. Kassem, detained alongside Waki, also lives in the Basque region, El Pais said, without giving further details.
But the Basques were not involved in any way, the Socialists said so.
In a further development this week regarding the 11 March blasts another key suspect, Rabei Ousmane Sayed Ahmed, was Wednesday remanded in custody and sent to a jail on the outskirts of Madrid after Italian officials handed him over Tuesday night. Spain wants to try Ahmed, nicknamed Mohammed the Egyptian, whom Italian authorities arrested on June 8 in Milan, on charges of multiple homicide and possession of explosives. In the first trial relating to the attacks, a Spanish national aged 16 was convicted last month for his involvement in the bombings. Nineteen suspects are now being detained in Spain over the atrocity.
All of them "key".
Link


Europe
Spain IDs Alleged Ringleader in Bombing
2004-10-16
One of the alleged ringleaders of the March 11 train bombings in Madrid was identified Friday as one of seven suspects who blew themselves up during a police raid on their apartment. Forensic tests confirmed that Allekema Lamari, an Algerian who Spanish authorities described as "the emir of the train bombings," was among the dead, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Police searching for suspects in the train bombings raided the apartment in the Madrid district of Leganes on April 3. All seven people inside blew themselves up, killing one police officer and wounding 15 other policemen. Lamari's was the last of the bodies to be identified. Spanish authorities identified the body using saliva samples taken from Lamari's parents Mohammed and Teldja Lamari, the statement added.

The ministry described Lamiri as one of the ringleaders. In 1997, he was arrested by Spanish authorities and convicted of belonging to an Algerian extremist group. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison, but was released in 2002 when his sentence was reduced. He became a prime suspect of the March 11 bombings when his fingerprints were found on a book of Quranic verses found at the Leganes apartment during the investigations led by the National Court. DNA tests on clothes in car that had been used by the alleged bombers also led police to suspect Lamari. The other suspected terrorists killed in the April suicide blast were identified as: Tunisian Serhane Ben Abdelmajid, Moroccans Jamal Ahmidan, Asri Rifaat, Abdennabi Kounjaa, and Rachid Akcha and Oulad Akcha, brothers who were also from Morocco. Officials say several of the seven were ringleaders of the attack.
How many ringleaders do you need for a single attack?
Another suspect, an Egyptian called Rabei Osman Ahmed who is currently in Italian custody awaiting extradition to Spain, is also suspected of helping mastermind the Madrid train bombings.
Link


Europe
Suspect in Madrid Train Bombing Was Bankrolled by Saudi Cleric
2004-09-30
A Saudi cleric funneled money to an Egyptian described as one of the masterminds of the Madrid train bombings in March, Spanish and Italian newspapers reported Thursday.
Boy, I'm shocked
The Egyptian suspect Rabei Osman Ahmed, arrested in Milan, Italy, in June on a request from Spanish authorities, identified Sheikh Salman al-Awdah, a former university professor in Saudi Arabia, as his financier while he was living in Spain between 2001 and 2003, Spain's El Mundo and Italy's Corriere della Sera said in a joint report.

In a wiretapped conversation before his arrest, Osman Ahmed reportedly said: "The Madrid attack is my project." Spanish authorities have never specified what Osman Ahmed's precise role in the Madrid train bombings was believed to be. But they say he was close to a Tunisian named Serhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet - the alleged ideologue of the bombing cell. Fakhet was among seven suspects who blew themselves up April 3 as police moved in to arrest them.

The newspaper reports Thursday also quoted wiretapped conversations by Osman Ahmed in May while his Milan apartment was bugged by Italian anti-terrorism police. He once described al-Awdah as "everything, everything," the report said. "I worked for him in Spain. I did really well in that period, in which I earned 2,000 euros ($2,400) a month. There were days I earned 1,000 euros ($1,200)," the papers quoted Osman Ahmed as saying in a May 26 conversation with a young man he allegedly was recruiting for suicide attacks in Iraq or Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, al-Awdah spoke on Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya television and insisted he did not encourage or call for violence by Muslims. Attempts to reach al-Awdah in Saudi Arabia were unsuccessful. Spanish police declined to comment on the newspaper reports, and Italian authorities were not available.
The reports did not specify whether the money al-Awdah sent to the Egyptian was for financing the Madrid train bombings or simply to cover Osman Ahmed's living expenses.
Which include high explosives, it's in the book.
The reports describe al-Awdah as a friend of Osama bin Laden, who also is Saudi-born. Al-Awdah was jailed during the Gulf War for inciting people against the presence of U.S. forces in the region. He spent five years in jail. Bin Laden praised him and another cleric in videotapes made a few years ago, thanking them for their support and for "enlightening" Muslim youths. But in June, al-Awdah was among six clerics signing a statement condemning attacks on Westerners in Saudi Arabia.
Oh sure, he's against killing them in Saudi, overseas is perfectly OK.
In July, an Italian court approved Spain's request for Osman Ahmed's extradition. But his lawyer appealed this month, saying the Egyptian already was under investigation in Italy and another court has to rule on whether the wiretaps can be used as evidence. No date has been set for a decision.
Link


Europe
Expert: Spain Ignored Mosque Tied to Bombs
2004-07-15
The Spanish government deliberately ignored a mosque known for fundamentalist preachings and frequented by suspects in the Madrid train bombings because the facility was financed by Saudi Arabia, an academic expert testified Wednesday. Spanish authorities knew for years the city's largest mosque, the Islamic Cultural Center, adhered to the Wahabi fundamentalist movement sponsored by Saudi Arabia, Islam expert Jesus Nunez told a commission investigating the March 11 bombings. Authorities did nothing to monitor the mosque because Saudi Arabia provides Spain with oil, Nunez said.
I think the off-used phrase "No Blood For Oil" fits nicely here, don't you?
"Until now the West in general — and Spain as part of it — closed its eyes to what Wahabism means as a rigorous doctrine that violates human rights," said Nunez, who runs a Madrid think tank called the Institute of Studies on Conflicts and Humanitarian Action. Spanish investigators have said key suspects in the bombings that killed 190 people prayed at the mosque. The suspects included Serhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, an accused ringleader who blew up himself and six other suspects April 3 as police prepared to arrest them.
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Europe
Eurocops jug 17 Osamanauts
2004-06-09
In a coordinated strike across Europe, police arrested 17 suspected Islamic militants, including an alleged mastermind of the Madrid train bombings who authorities say was planning further attacks, officials said Tuesday. Fifteen people, mostly Palestinian, Jordanian, Moroccan and Egyptian nationals, were arrested in raids on about 10 locations in the Belgian cities of Brussels and Antwerp, said Daniel Bernard, Belgian federal prosecutor. Italian police picked up two suspects, including a 33-year-old Egyptian described as the ringleader who allegedly helped plan the March 11 attacks in Madrid that killed 191 people. The suspect, identified as Rabei Osman Ahmed – also known as "Mohammed the Egyptian" – was arrested Monday night near his apartment in the northern outskirts of Milan in an operation that involved dozens of police. The operation "confirms the welding that took place between holy war groups of various geographical origins," said Carlo De Stefano of the Milan police. These groups "are united not only by a single project of attack on the West and on the symbols representing it, but also by the actual sharing of resources and operational experiences."
Wonder if those two Spanish bikini boombelt protesters from last year have noticed this?
Also arrested in Milan was Osman Ahmed’s landlord and roommate, identified as 21-year old Palestinian Yahia Payumi. They are both accused of association for international terrorism, a charge introduced in Italy after the Sept. 11 attacks Italy’s Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu described Osman Ahmed as a person of "notable ideological and operational stature." He was "probably among the principal authors of the Madrid massacre and was preparing other attacks," Pisanu said.
Now he's warming up the choir.
Pisanu did not elaborate. However, prosecutors in Milan and Brussels said a planned attack was being directed from Italy and was to be carried out by the Belgian cell. They gave no indication of possible targets, though they ruled out their countries. In Spain, Osman Ahmed has been a suspect for the Madrid bombings since April 4. He had been identified by people living near a decrepit rural cottage where the bombs used in the attack were assembled, Spanish court officials said. Fingerprints of several key suspects were found in the cottage. He was in Spain in 2003, but left months before the March 11 attacks, which were planted on four commuter trains and also injured more than 2,000 people. Police said he had close ties with the accused ringleader of the attacks, a Tunisian named Serhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, according to Spanish radio station Cadena Ser. The Spanish government says Fakhet was among seven suspects who blew themselves up April 3 as police tried to storm their apartment outside Madrid.

The Italian news agency AGI reported that Osman Ahmed told his roommate, in conversations that were tape recorded, that he was a mastermind of the Madrid train bombings. Spanish police confirmed that Italian colleagues had provided them with transcripts of the conversations. No weapons or explosives were found during the raids, officials said, but documents praising holy war were seized, along with books and videotapes. The suspected terrorists’ link to al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden’s network, was not clear. Pisanu said the arrests in Italy "blocked a dangerous terrorist group gravitating around al-Qaeda." Officials in Brussels said that while there was insufficient evidence that the link existed, the possibility could not be ruled out. According to analysts, the operation in Italy confirms the country serves as logistical support for terror operations that are carried out elsewhere. An intelligence document said this year that Italy had become a departure point for suicide attackers against U.S.-led forces in Iraq. Arrests in recent years indicated suspected terrorists passing through Italy on their way to other countries were provided with money, fake documents and other support.
Follows the al Q pattern of decentralized control, tightly-knit small groups, and using resources from cells in multiple countries.
Link


Europe
Bosnian Suspect Held in Madrid Bombings
2004-04-17
A Bosnian man wanted for questioning in the Madrid bombings voluntarily returned to Spain from what he called a vacation in Sweden and was arrested, the Interior Ministry said Saturday. Sanel Sjekirica, 23, was arrested Friday night after he arrived at Madrid's Barajas airport on a flight from Stockholm. Sjekirica, who studies computer science in the northern Spanish city of Oviedo, told The Associated Press earlier this week in Sweden that he learned through media reports that he was a suspect. He denied any role in the attack that killed 191 people, but said he once shared an apartment with Serhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, the Tunisian real estate agent that Spanish authorities have identified as the ringleader of the plot.
"Yes. We were lovers, but nothing more than that..."
The government says Fakhet was among seven terror suspects who blew themselves up in an apartment south of Madrid on April 3 as special forces prepared to storm it and arrest them. Eighteen people have been charged in the attacks — six with mass murder and the rest with belonging to or collaborating with a terrorist organization. Fourteen are Moroccan. The others are two Indians, one Syrian and one Spaniard. The charges do not amount to a formal indictment and do not necessarily mean they will stand trial. On Friday the Interior Ministry announced the arrests of three more suspects — a Saudi citizen, an Egyptian and a Moroccan — for their possible links with other suspects.
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