Posted on 02/15/2005 7:31:07 PM PST by Calpernia
Algerian radical spills beans on bin Laden "terror network"
An Algerian Islamic radical arrested in France has proved a goldmine for investigators probing Osama bin Laden's militant network in Europe in the wake of the September 11 attacks, magistrates told AFP.
French investigators now believe that after key testimonies from a handful of well placed members of bin Laden's al-Qaeda network the exiled Saudi extremist's secret organisation in Europe is unravelling fast.
Since his arrest in Paris last Monday 27-year-old Yacine Aknouche has revealed his links with several al-Qaeda suspects including "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged "20th hijacker" arrested ahead of September 11, the lawyers said.
And his address book has been revealed as a virtual Who's Who of hardline Islamic radicals and terror attack suspects, the astonished investigators claimed, making Aknouche a vital link in a series of interlinked investigations.
"Such a testimony is extraordinary," an investigator told AFP.
Officers of the French domestic intelligence agency, the DST, arrested Aknouche and two other suspects based in a Paris-region flat as part of an inquiry into a thwarted attack on Strasbourg in December 2000.
An Islamic commando based in Frankfurt, western Germany, was said to have planned a spectacular bomb attack on the city centre while a Christmas market was being held in front of the cathedral in the eastern French city.
But when officers began questioning the suspect they found he had information on many more figures in the violent Islamist underground.
Sources told AFP that Aknouche recounted to officers how he had met both Reid and Moussaoui in 2000 at an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan.
Reid, a 28-year-old Briton who converted to bin Laden's hardline brand of Islam while serving a jail term for petty crime, was arrested in December after apparently trying to destroy a Paris to Miami flight with explosives hidden in his shoe.
Moussaoui, a 33-year-old Frenchman, is the first suspect to have been charged with involvement in the attacks on September 11 last year in which four airliners were hijacked and crashed into New York, Washington and the state of Pennsylvania, killing more than 3,000 people.
He was arrested before the attack on an immigration charge when he was already in the United States taking flying lessons. US officials claim that if he had been free he would have been one of the hijackers.
Aknouche also claimed to have met Ahmed Ressam in Afghanistan, this time in 1998.
Ressam was arrested on the US-Canadian border in December 1999 with 50 kilos (120 pounds) of explosives in his car. He is awaiting trial for plotting to carry out an attack timed to coincide with the millennium celebrations.
According to the French weekly Le Journal du Dimanche, the type of explosives carried by Ressam matched the type found in Reid's shoe on the Miami flight and a batch held by a group who planned to attack the US embassy in Paris.
I'm a brunette. See my profile page. LOL! I've been blonde before, though. Does that count?
Well, now we know why you have done silly stuff! It sticks :)
LOL!
If you have to put underwear on his head ---- get the info, you cheese-eating surrender monkeys. Be useful for a change.
That's what you want us to believe.
Maybe you've been a troll from DU all along just waiting to spring this old article on us. We're on to your game.
>>> Maybe you've been a troll from DU all along just waiting to spring this old article on us. We're on to your game.
Who told you??!! Do you have my keyboard tapped?
Now where did those black helicopters come from ??????
Put the 'screws' to him.
>>> All from the same tested batch of explosives, where is the
rest of the batch?
I would imagine that is why they moved in on the Lackawanna Six before they were ready too.
The 'Watermelon' that moved from Canada to the US may have been the rest of those explosives.
>>> The date means little, to me, as this is new information that I did not have before.
The article is fine to be posted. The problem is where I posted it. Since it is a few years old it is suppose to be posted under the General forum and not Front Page News. It is VERY misleading to those that skim headlines.
On KGO Radio news at 9pm.
DMV Dept in Auburn, found today a pipe bomb.
Court House in Auburn, found yesterday a pipe bomb.
Said to be a different type of pipe bomb, no details given.
Reported suspect, is the Earth Liberation Front.
/sike
but can we believe the French?
=====
They probably called Slick Willie and got the information...
I think this story smells.
He was arrested on Monday, and on Tuesday they publicly announce to the world that he is leaking like a sieve? And they even give some of the names he has released?
If he was really talking, they would (or should) keep the whole matter dark until they have rounded up all the sleeper cells.
No, either they are announcing this so the sleepers can escape, or they are announcing it for PR purposes because the information is valueless.
Thanks for the ping!
perhaps his capture is part of a plan...
Hariri Murder Was Syrian Warning To France, Say Commentators
The Tocqueville Connection | 15 Feb 2005 | The Tocqueville Connection
Posted on 02/15/2005 5:00:28 AM PST by Cornpone
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1343511/posts
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