Times, UK

The hunt

Raids crush terrorist cells and foil plot to kill Bush

BY DANIEL MCGRORY AND DOMINIC KENNEDY

TERRORIST cells supporting Osama bin Laden in Europe have been crushed in dawn raids from the Costa del Sol to Leicester.

Terrorist plots that were foiled by raids in recent months included a plan to kill President Bush at the G8 summit in Genoa using aircraft, and an attempt to destroy the US Embassy in Paris.

A suspected master bomb-maker in the European wing of Osama bin Laden’s worldwide army of radical Muslims has been arrested in Britain after fleeing France. Kamel Daoudi, 23, was one of three suspects detained in Leicester by Scotland Yard anti-terrorist officers, armed Leicestershire police and MI5.

A key figure in bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network, M Daoudi was to have assembled a device to be loaded on to a helicopter and flown into the Paris embassy, French police sources say. M Daoudi is said to have been part of an Algeria-based cell that security authorities in Europe have been keeping under surveillance.

Since the American atrocities, 35 men and women from this cell, believed to belong to a group called Tafkir wal Hijra (Anathema and Exile) have been arrested from Rotterdam to Yemen. The group is thought to do the bidding of bin Laden. Security sources said that up to 14 of them had lived or visited Britain in recent months. The European connection is being unravelled after a two-year inquiry by police from Britain, Germany, France, Italy, The Netherlands and Belgium.

British police are also searching for up to 100 suspects and potential witnesses linked by the FBI to the World Trade Centre attacks. David Veness, Assistant Commissioner in charge of Scotland Yard’s CID units, said they had received more than 100 letters of request for investigations from the FBI.

Last night the Home Secretary said that British security services had not put the terrorists who attacked America under surveillance when they were in the UK.

Asked on BBC2’s Newsnight whether the men were watched while they were in the UK, Mr Blunkett said: “As far as I am aware, they were not. That doesn’t mean to say that there hadn’t been some intelligence about them.”

The most outrageous plot by bin Laden in Europe was to assassinate President Bush and world leaders at the G8 summit meeting in Italy in July, which was also attended by Tony Blair. It is now clear that anti-aircraft batteries set up in Genoa were not an overreaction to the threat posed by anarchist protesters, as critics had claimed at the time.

President Mubarak of Egypt said, in a communiqué on June 13, that bin Laden had given warning that he wanted to assassinate President Bush and heads of state at G8. “It was a question of an aeroplane stuffed with explosives,” Mr Mubarak said.

The threat to the US Embassy in Paris was equally dramatic. It seems that a helicopter was to be crashed into the building. The plot was uncovered after a former British resident, Djamel Begal, was arrested with a false passport in Dubai in July.

M Begal, 35, a French citizen of Algerian origin, was said to be on his way back to Europe from Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he had undergone a year of religious and military training. He allegedly spent several months at a camp run by Abu Zubayda, described as a member of bin Laden’s inner circle and a suspect in a foiled terror plot in Jordan. He admitted being the link between three terror cells in Europe belonging to Tafkir wal Hijra. M Begal’s confessions have led European intelligence agencies to bin Laden cells plotting co-ordinated attacks on the US Embassy in Paris and the American consulate in Marseilles.

On the day before the World Trade Centre and Pentagon attacks, the French announced they were beginning an investigation into a terror plot. After the American slaughter, some of the alleged conspirators who had been monitored by the secret services were swiftly rounded up. Police in Belgium arrested Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian. In The Netherlands, Jermoe Courtellier was detained. Belgian police also discovered 220lb of sulphur and 13 gallons of acetone in a raid. Fake passports and plans of the Paris embassy were seized.

In France, spies are said to have seen alleged plotters visiting helipads and taking flying lessons, but the suspects realised from leaks to the media that M Begal’s home was about to be raided. The day before the swoop, M Daoudi managed to flee. He has French and Algerian passports, but used the former to get into Britain. He was on the run until British police discovered him in Leicester.

As he was arrested, both hands could be seen covered in plastic bags, apparently so that they could be tested for traces of explosives. M Daoudi and two other men are being held at a police station in Leicester, under the Terrorism Act, for questioning by detectives and MI5.

By the time the French police pounced in Paris last Friday, the conspirators had destroyed mobile telephone chips, documents and computer disks. Police are said to have found details of air corridors for Paris and helicopter piloting manuals in searches of their flats.

Seven suspects of French and Algerian origin have been detained in connection with planned attacks on US interests, it was announced yesterday. One of them is M Begal’s brother-in-law, Johan Bonte.

Spain’s national police, working with the FBI, CIA and Spanish military intelligence, spent 24 hours raiding six Algerians alleged to be members of bin Laden’s network. Fake identity documents and computer material that could be used to forge air tickets were seized.

The militants were members of an Algerian Islamic cell called the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, one of the 27 terrorist entities whose assets have been frozen. The six — Mohammed Boualem Khnouni, Mohammed Belaziz, Yasin Seddiki, Hakim Zerzour, Hocine Khouni and Madjid Sahouane — allegedly used credit card fraud to finance their activities.

They had a connection with Essid Sami ben Khemais, known as “Sabre”, who has been arrested in Italy, where he allegedly directed militants in Milan and Varese. They were also “directly related” to the two men detained in Belgium and The Netherlands, the Spanish Government said.

Scotland Yard detectives were granted another 48-hour extension by Bow Street Magistrates to question two men arrested last week in connection with the US attacks.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001