Posted on 04/14/2002 4:56:11 AM PDT by knighthawk
BARCELONA: Spanish authorities arrested an Algerian suspected of organising funding in Spain for Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, officials said on Sunday.
Ahmed Brahim was arrested at his home in a Barcelona suburb and transferred to civil guard headquarters in Madrid in an operation coordinated with police from several other countries including the United States and France.
"(Brahim) was involved in financial activities for the network such as buying and selling boats and computer equipment," a civil guard spokesman said.
Spanish authorities have arrested nine suspected members of al-Qaeda since November as part of an ongoing investigation into the September 11 attacks in the United States. Eight have been accused of direct involvement in preparing and carrying out the attacks.
During his trip to Spain in July, didn't Atta spend a lot of time at a coastal resort near Barcelona?
My, my, my. We know why they needed computer equipment, but what do you suppose they wanted with boats? That opens up a lot of possibilities...
Spain is probably infested with these guys, since it has a large undocumented immigrant population. They are mostly laborers from Morocco, but actually, anybody can blend in with them fairly easily.
I was on a train near Valencia last summer when someone who was probably Sudanese got on and took a seat in front of me. He was joined at successive stops by about three other people, one at a time. They appeared to be Arabs, but did not look like farmworkers. (They had the usual overwhelming Arab BO, however.) At first they were very loud and obnoxious, so that all of the Spaniards seated near them got up and sought seats elsewhere. The Sudanese was flailing his arms around, and when his hand grazed me, I too got up to leave.
When I passed them, I realized that a couple of them were speaking to each other - in English. They assumed that I was a Spaniard and didn't speak English because I was reading a Spanish paper, I imagine.
I went further away and sat down; they dropped their voices then, and from what I could hear, it sounded to me as if all of them were speaking English. Heavily accented, but English nonetheless. My only impression was that they were talking about documents, although I assumed this was because Spain was in the midst of one of its many programs for providing documentation to undocumented immigrants.
Since Sept. 11, I have often recalled this scene and wondered about it.
I must say, though, that I don't think I'd just shrug this off if I saw something like it again. With the benefit of hindsight, I think I'd try to find some sort of law enforcement "tips" hotline and call or send an e-mail.
Today's Washington Post has an article on the Passover bombing in Netanya (a coastal resort), A Short Journey From Friend to Foe: Cities Linked by Attack Shared Hopes for Peace . It contains this interesting paragraph:
Investigators do not know for certain how Odeh made his way to Netanya that day, according to Lt. Col. Avi Biran, the city's police chief. He could have walked from Tulkarm to Taibe, then taken a taxi west, as did Mahmoud Ahmad Marmash, the man who bombed the Sharon Mall. Or someone could have driven him down an unguarded road from any number of West Bank towns and villages. There was nothing to stop him, no way to elude his fatal embrace. "If somebody wants to get in, there's no border, no fences," Biran said.
No mention of a sea route, but the bomber Odeh had disappeared from his home town of Tulkarm several months before the bombing. Who's to say he was located in a place that require movement over land?
OTOH, I would think our electronic intel would be tracking at least some of this if such things are happening.
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