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Africa North

Moroccan terror suspect caught in Melilla

2013-09-10

[MAGHAREBIA] Melilla police captured a "suspected jihadist terrorist" wanted by Morocco, the Spanish interior ministry announced last week. Mohammed El Bali was picked up at his residence on the Spanish enclave on Tuesday (September 3rd). The subject of an international arrest warrant issued by Morocco, he is accused of being the ringleader of the two Nador terror cells dismantled in May. Bali was residing in Belgium at the time the cells were dismantled, but had recently moved to Melilla, Spanish Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz stated. The "Al Mouahidoun" and "Attawhid" cell members had been "indoctrinated with takfir ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed... ist ideology" and had "forged links with like-minded people abroad, in Melilla and in Belgium", the Moroccan interior ministry said after their May 5th arrests. "This arrest shows the danger of the proliferation of salafi jihadist theories among young Moroccans living in Europe," Azzeddine Matoub, a journalist covering terrorist crimes, told Magharebia. "This is not the first time that Moroccans residing abroad have links with terrorist cells in Morocco, or with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)," he added. The arrest indicates a change in the landscape for terrorism, according to Ahmed el-Miloudi, an analyst of Islamist movements. "European countries are increasingly becoming strongholds of terrorist networks specialising in the indoctrination of young fighters for AQIM," said el-Miloudi said. Bali's two terrorist cells "specialised in the recruitment of radical elements, dissemination of jihadist ideology, financing of terrorist plans and the creation of training camps", he added. Moving between Morocco, Belgium and Melilla, Bali was also a member of another krazed killer cell: Sharia4Belgium. Belgian security services considered the Assabile Islamic Centre to be a haven of salafi thought in the country, and Bali was in constant contact. The arrest also put Melilla in the limelight as a stronghold of suspected terrorists. In a statement to the Spanish press, central government representative Abdelmalik El Barkani said the risk was actually "lower compared to other areas". The judge of the National Court of Madrid, Spain's highest criminal court, Ismael Moreno, ordered the detention of Bali. According to Spanish news agency EFE, Bali refused to be extradited to Morocco. Moreno ordered him to remain in jail until Morocco makes a formal extradition petition.

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Europe

Spain arrests three Algerians over Al-Qaeda finance

2008-07-02

MADRID - Spanish police on Monday arrested three Algerian-born men suspected of belonging to a network financing Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist groups, the Interior Ministry said. Two of the men were arrested near the southern town of Huelva while the other was picked up in Azkoitia in the northern Basque country. The men are accused of sending money since 2001 to terrorist organisations "directly" linked to Al Qaeda, the ministry said. The arrests are part of a three-year investigation by Madrid anti-terrorist judge Ismael Moreno

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Europe

Funding charges for Spain's al Qaeda chief

2008-04-29

The convicted leader of al Qaeda in Spain and two Syrian-born alleged accomplices have been charged in a new case on suspicion of financing terrorist cells. The suspects in the latest case are Syrian-born Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, 44, who was sentenced in 2005 for leadership of al Qaeda in Spain; and Syrian-born Muhamed Galeb Kalaje Zouaydi, 47, and Bassam Dalati Satut, 48, both sentenced in the same trial in 2005 for membership in a terrorist group, according to a judge's indictment order, viewed by CNN. Judge Ismael Moreno of the National Court indicted the three men on April 16, but the court made the document widely available only on Monday, after Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on the case. The indictment says that Dalati, who has been on provisional liberty, and Kalaje, who is serving a nine-year sentence in prison, removed €51,000 ($76,500) in December 2006 from a company Kalaje created, and delivered the funds to Yarkas, who is serving a 12-year sentence for al Qaeda leadership in Spain. Police searches in Dalati's home turned up evidence of "two bank checks, issued in December 2006, which have as the beneficiary - without any justifying cause -- Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, for the financing of terrorist cells," the indictment said. The three-page indictment added that Yarkas lacked the financial means to have a stake in any company. Yarkas and Kalaje are charged with membership in a terrorist organization in the latest case, and Dalati faces the lesser charge of collaboration with a terrorist group, the indictment said. All three were quietly arraigned in the latest case on April 24 before the judge, and a court spokeswoman confirmed that they denied the charges. Yarkas was the key defendant convicted in an al Qaeda trial in September 2005 in Madrid, when the National Court sentenced 18 of the 24 defendants for al Qaeda and terrorism links, acquitting the other six. It was one of the largest terrorism trials to date in Europe and prosecutors sought thousands of years in jail for Yarkas and two other prime defendants in that case, arguing that they were connected to the deaths of the victims of the September 11 attacks in the United States. But in the end, the National Court convicted only Yarkas of a 9/11 link in the 2005 trial, and on the lesser charge of conspiracy. The National Court sentenced Yarkas in 2005 to 27 years in prison --- 12 years for al Qaeda leadership in Spain and 15 years for conspiracy in the 9/11 attacks. But in June 2006, Spain's Supreme Court overturned the conviction of conspiracy in the 9/11 attacks, leaving Yarkas with just the 12-year sentence for al Qaeda leadership.

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Europe

Air crews called as witnesses in alleged Guantánamo flight probe

2008-02-05

MADRID - A High Court prosecutor is planning to subpoena Spanish flight crews, air traffic controllers and the civil and military authorities in charge of three airbases in an effort to determine whether or not illegal prisoner transport flights operated by the US military passed through Spain between early 2002 and the end of 2006. Public prosecutor Vicente González Mota has asked High Court Judge Ismael Moreno for permission to request testimony from the suspected witnesses to the so-called rendition flights, which apparently landed in Spain en route to the US prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The flights are considered illegal under Spanish law, although suspicions linger over whether the former Popular Party government that was in power until 2004 or the current Socialist administration knew about them. González Mota is centring his investigation primarily on two flights that according to Portuguese air traffic control records left the NATO bases at Morón de la Frontera, near Seville, and Rota, near Cádiz, bound for Cuba in January and October 2002. The planes allegedly had Islamist suspects caught in Afghanistan onboard who had been transferred from other aircraft. González Mota is looking for testimony from anyone who may have seen them.

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Europe

'Six Spain suspects were to be suicide bombers'

2008-01-25

Six members of a suspected militant cell from South Asia arrested in Barcelona were ready to blow themselves up on public transport, the Spanish prosecutor-general alleged Thursday. Strange, I thought these attacks were supposed to stop when Spain pulled it's troops out of President Bush's illegal occupation of Iraq. They make any other demands you're not telling us? Candido Conde-Pumpido told a press conference that two others were the suspected commando chiefs of the group, while the other two were explosives experts. They were intending to attack the Catalonian capital’s public transport system “very soon”, he added. The Spanish authorities have nevertheless admitted that the traces of explosives found during their arrests were not sufficient to mount a major attack. Police arrested a total of 14 suspects last Saturday — a dozen Pakistanis and two Indians. Four have since been released, but on Tuesday a judge at an anti-terrorist tribunal placed the remaining 10 in provisional detention.. The 10 suspects constituted an organised group of extremists, with “clear and precise allocation of roles”, said the judge, Ismael Moreno. The cell had chosen three of its members, all Pakistanis, to commit suicide bomb attacks on Barcelona public transport last weekend, Moreno said in his ruling.

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Europe

Suspects 'planned Spanish suicide attacks'

2008-01-24

The Spanish judge overseeing the arraignment of 10 terrorism suspects said Wednesday that they had "planned to carry out a series of suicide attacks" last weekend on public transportation in Barcelona. In a sequence of six-page rulings, one for each of the 10 suspects he ordered to be held in jail after their arraignments. Judge Ismael Moreno wrote that the suspects "had achieved human operational capacity and were very close to achieving full technical capacity with explosives, with the aim of using the those explosives for a jihadi terrorist attack, and it can be deduced that the members of the terrorist cell now broken up planned to carry out a series of suicide attacks last weekend, January 18 to 20, against public transport in the city of Barcelona." CNN has viewed a copy of one of the court orders. The ruling said three suspected suicide bombers had traveled from Pakistan to Barcelona since October, with the most recent one arriving as late as mid-January. The three had followed another Pakistani man -- the alleged explosives expert -- who had just arrived after a five-month stay in Pakistan. "This pattern is common in Islamic extremist groups, which to carry out an attack usually send in the suicide bombers shortly before it will occur," the judge wrote. "The arrivals of these three occurred about two months after the presumed bomb maker had returned (to Barcelona)." Further, Moreno wrote that an informant had told authorities about the suspected suicide bombers and the suspected explosives expert. He added that police found nitrocellulose and mechanical and electrical elements that could be used to make one or more bombs. Twelve men were arraigned Wednesday, but Moreno allowed two to go free. Those two -- Pakistani nationals who had been arrested with the others -- were released for lack of evidence, according to their court-appointed lawyer and a court source. The 10 who were kept in custody include eight Pakistani nationals and two Indian nationals who are Muslim. At least two of the 10 were prepared to be suicide bombers, prosecutor Vicente Gonzalez alleged during the arraignment, according to a government spokeswoman. The other eight were charged with fabrication and possession of explosives, she added. Spanish and other European intelligence agencies told Spanish police that the suspects were acquiring bomb-making materials. These included four timers to activate bombs, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said Saturday. "They had taken a step beyond radicalization and were trying to get the means to make explosives," Rubalcaba said. The Interior Minister said authorities searched five homes in Barcelona and seized the four timers along with computer information. The ministry on Saturday released photographs -- which it said police shot immediately after the searches -- showing what appeared to be timers, batteries, cables and ball bearings. Spain's largest-circulation daily, El Pais, reported that traces of an explosive sometimes used by Islamic terrorists were also found during the searches. Spanish news media reported that authorities became alarmed recently when a known Pakistani militant arrived in Barcelona.

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Europe

'Pak-based Qaeda ordered suicide attack in Spain'

2008-01-22

The group of alleged Islamist extremists arrested in Barcelona at the weekend were planning suicide attacks on Spanish soil allegedly under orders from Al Qaeda in Pakistan, AFP quoted press reports as saying. But the Spanish pulled out of Iraq. Why would al-Qaeda be mad at them? Citing sources close to the investigation, the daily El Periodico de Catalunya said “the terrorist action averted on Saturday ... was decided several months ago by the central Al Qaeda network in Pakistan. “Those who gave the order are to be found in Pakistan. They were preparing suicide attacks. Those that came here were ready to commit suicide,” it said. Among the 12 Pakistanis and two Indians arrested during the night of Friday to Saturday, several had made recent trips to Pakistan, according to the paper’s source. The group received an order to carry out an attack in Barcelona from figures high up within the Al Qaeda hierarchy during a meeting at a training camp in Waziristan. Announcing the arrests on Saturday, Spain’s Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba declared that an imminent attack by “highly organised radical Islamists” had been foiled. “Here we are looking at a well-organised group who were going beyond ideological radicalism to acquiring materials to make explosives and therefore eventually to carry out violent attacks,” he said. “During our searches, we found various materials which could be explosives or be used to make explosives,” he told a press conference in Madrid. Four timing devices as well as computer equipment were recovered. The intelligence suggested “the possibility that a terrorist action was being prepared on Spanish soil, in Barcelona to be precise,” Rubalcaba said. Police then “detected an organised group suspected of gathering materials used to make explosives,” and decided immediately to swoop, he said. He added that it was “probable” that some of the 14 were innocent. The terror suspects will appear in a Spanish court this week, a judicial source said on Monday amid press reports that they were planning an Al Qaeda ordered suicide attack. Under Spanish law a terror suspect can be held without being charged for up to five days. Earlier, Spanish police had asked the National Court for more time to question 14 suspected Islamic militants detained on suspicion of planning a terror attack in Barcelona, AP quoted a court spokeswoman as saying on Monday. A court spokeswoman said police had asked for an extension of 48 hours and that the detainees were not likely to be brought before investigative magistrate Ismael Moreno until Wednesday. The extension is permitted under Spain’s anti-terrorism laws.

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Europe

Spanish court probes Chinese 'genocide' in Tibet

2006-06-06

MADRID — Spain's national court opened an investigation into the supposed genocide perpetrated by the Chinese government in Tibet. Thubten Wangchen, the director of the Tibet House Foundation in Barcelona, was questioned as a witness in the case. Wangchen simply confirmed accusations made by the complainant, the Support Tibet Committee (CAT), which accuses seven Chinese leaders of the death or disappearance of more than a million Tibetans since the beginning of the Chinese army occupation in 1951. Judge Ismael Moreno will preside over trial of the case in the national court, which for purposes of the investigation has dispatched commissions to the United Kingdom and Canada to question other victims and witnesses. After taking the stand, the Tibetan exile, a nationalized Spaniard presenting his own individual accusation, told reporters that this was "an historic day" because "for the first time" a Tibetan gets to tell a judge what happened in Tibet. In his testimony to the magistrate, he said that the object of the trial is not so much that the accused members of the Chinese government be handed over to Spain, but that "what happened in Tibet be discussed at an international level," so that "the Chinese government admits its errors and begins to respect human rights".

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Europe

11 Pakistanis Charged for Funding Terror Network

2005-04-14

A Spanish judge has indicted 11 Pakistanis on charges of planning attacks in Barcelona and helping finance Al-Qaeda by sending money to individuals suspected in terror attacks in Kenya, Tanzania and Pakistan. The 11, arrested late last year, were charged by National Court Judge Ismael Moreno with plotting terrorist acts and collaborating with a terrorist group. In his indictment, released late Tuesday, the judge said the 11 "formed a group in Barcelona whose aim was to provide aid for the worldwide 'jihad' from Spanish soil ... with the objective of contributing financially to concrete terrorist actions or to those who carried them out." The indictment said Mohammad Afzaal, who was detained in September 2004, could be the group's leader. Moreno said Afzaal allegedly traveled to Dubai last year to meet an unidentified Al-Qaeda leader. At the alleged meeting, he was told "to maintain a terrorist cell operative in Spain and in Norway or Denmark with the aim of financing Al-Qaeda and preparing terrorist attacks," Moreno wrote in the indictment. Moreno said that in one operation on April 9, 2004, Afzaal sent 2,450 euros to Egyptian Rabei Osman Ahmed. Ahmed was extradited to Spain from Italy in December and is considered a key figure in the Madrid commuter train attacks of March 11, 2004 in which 191 people were killed. Another of the Pakistanis, Shahzad Ali Gujar is accused of sending money between May and August of last year to a suspect in the US Embassy bombings of 1998 in Kenya and Tanzania. He also allegedly sent money to another suspect wanted in connection with an assassination attempt on Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and the killing of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl, according to the indictment. Gujar is also believed to have transferred money to a computer expert allegedly involved in a planned an attack on London's Heathrow Airport. The indictment said that Gujar also met with two March 11 suspects, Otman El-Gnaout and Saed El-Harrak, between March 8-12, 2004, according to the indictment. The magistrate said that in the arrest raids, police found computer videos of the March 11 attacks and others from around the world. They also found video footage of prominent buildings in Barcelona such as the 1992 Olympic Village, the city's twin office towers and the Maremagnum commercial complex located near the port. The judge said that Afzaal, although living in Barcelona, had made a reservation to stay at an expensive hotel located in one of the towers in March 2002. He did not stay at the hotel. The indictment, however, says that days after the March 11 attacks last year he booked into another hotel located in Barcelona's World Trade Center complex. Up to their arrests, the Pakistanis allegedly dealt in drugs and forged documents, the judge said. Indicted along with Afzaal and Ali Gujar were Nasser Ahmad Khan, Masood Akhtar, Shafqat Ali, Mahmood Anwar, Adnan Aslam, Farhat Iqbal, Irfan Khan, Qamar-Uz-Zaman and Mohammad Choudhry Aslam. Dozens of suspect radicals have been arrested in Spain since the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington and more following the March 11 train bombings last year. Judicial authorities believe the militants began using Spain as a recruiting and financial support base in the mid-1990s.

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Europe

Second Islamic radical 'with links to Al-Qaeda' arrested

2004-11-10

Spanish police said they arrested two Pakistanis suspect overnight in Barcelona for alleged membership in an Islamic terrorist group police said they had broken up in a September raid in the northeastern city. Spanish judge Ismael Moreno ordered the operation, which arrested the first 10 Pakistani suspects on September 15. They have been placed in preventive detention pending charging for suspected membership in a terrorist group and drug trafficking. The identity of the latest suspects was not disclosed, nor their alleged role in the group. They were both arrested late Tuesday. The first 10 had several kilogrammes of high-quality heroin and forged documents in their possession when detained, according to police, who also said they are not suspected of involvement in the March 11 train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people in the country's worst-ever terrorist attack. The 10 also held videos, one of which, filmed in 2002, showed images of several well-known buildings in Barcelona, including the World Trade Centre and the Maremagnum leisure centre. Judicial sources said the video images were not those normal tourists would take and that some footage shows imams calling for jihad ('holy war'). The two new suspects were arrested during police raids on five locations in Barcelona's Raval district, where much of the city's Pakistani community lives, police said. The daily El Pais, citing police sources, reported last month that the group was helping finance the Al-Qaeda terror network through money transfers to Pakistan. It said the Barcelona group in 2004 reportedly transferred money in the name of three people close to Kuwaiti suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is detained in the United States and considered one of the brains behind the September 11 terror attacks in the United States.

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Europe

Spain Arrests Suspected Islamic Militants

2004-09-15

Police in Barcelona arrested a number of suspected Islamic militants Wednesday in a series of pre-dawn raids, a police spokesman said. The Spanish news agencies Efe and Europa Press quoted judicial and police sources as saying at least 10 people were arrested and most were of Pakistani origin. The police spokesman declined to say how many people were arrested, but said the raids continued Wednesday morning. The spokesman said the detainees were suspected of belonging to a militant Islamic network, but would not say if any of those picked up were linked to the March 11 train bombings in Madrid. Those attacks killed 191 people and were blamed on Islamic militants linked to al-Qaida. Spanish National Radio said the operation was ordered by Judge Ismael Moreno of Spain's National Court, which handles terrorism cases. The radio report said police found no weapons or explosives in Wednesday's raids on homes in Barcelona. But authorities did seize documents, which are being examined.

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Europe

5 more held over Madrid bombings

2004-03-25

Five more people have been arrested in Spain in connection with the March 11 Madrid train bombings, taking the total numbers detained to 18. Police sources told the Spanish-language network CNN+ that three were arrested Wednesday night and another two arrested Thursday. Sources at the National Court told CNN+ that the three arrested Wednesday were seized on the orders of Judge Ismael Moreno, who was the judge on duty at the time. The files on the latest arrests will go to Judge Juan del Olmo, who carries the dossier on the Madrid attacks. Of the 18 people arrested so far in the train probe, 11 have been charged with offenses related to the attacks. Two others have been detained then released without charge. A German television station said the three suspects arrested Wednesday had lived in Germany and were "directly involved" in planning the Madrid bombings. Interior Ministry spokesman Richard Ibanez said those arrested included Moroccans and at least one Syrian national. Anyone care to place a bet that the ’Syrian national(s)’ are in fact paleos? I noted at the time the MO looked like paleo handiwork.

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