[LatelineNews: 2001-11-29] MILAN, Italy - Authorities raided several Islamic centers overnight in northern Italy and arrested two people accused of recruiting fighters for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, police said Thursday.
Police said a third man already detained in Milan, Abdelhalim Hafed Remadna of Algeria, had spoken directly with top bin Laden operatives in Afghanistan by satellite phone about sending new recruits to al-Qaida camps, AP reported.
Remadna and Yassine Chekkouri of Morocco, arrested early Thursday, both worked at Milan's Islamic Cultural Center and mosque, which U.S. officials say served as the base of bin Laden's operations in Europe.
Police raided the center along with another Milan mosque and several Islamic centers in northern Italy, said Bruno Megale, a deputy chief of Italy's anti-terrorism police.
In recent months, police have arrested a dozen people in and around Milan as part of the investigation, but Remadna and Chekkouri were the first directly affiliated with the center to have been detained.
In Remadna's office at the center, police seized a false Yemeni passport, a false Italian driver's license and faxes of a map showing how to cross into Afghanistan from Iran, Megale told a news conference.
The faxes, as well as wiretaps of telephone conversations between Remadna and bin Laden operatives in Afghanistan, showed that new recruits were advised in recent months to enter Afghanistan from Iran because it was easier than crossing from Pakistan, he said.
The wiretaps also revealed codes bin Laden's operatives used to indicate they needed new fighters, saying they were opening a new ``gymnasium'' and needed new gym instructors, Megale said.
Police initially said Remadna and the two other men arrested, as well as an Egyptian who remained at large, were suspected of criminal association aimed at possessing explosives and dangerous chemicals and producing false documents.
But at the news conference, Megale said the key charges were criminal association, producing false documents, arranging clandestine immigration and recruiting combatants to fight in Afghanistan. He was vague when pressed for details on the chemical charge.
Megale said an Italian chemist who converted to Islam had been questioned as part of the investigation and had his home searched but had not been charged.
Remadna was arrested Nov. 14 while boarding a train with allegedly false Italian residency documents, and police said he had intended to leave the country. He had been a secretary at the Milan center, a converted garage that the U.S. government recently described as ``the main al-Qaida station house in Europe.''
Chekkouri was a librarian at the center and was arrested during the overnight raid. The other detainee, Nabil Benattia of Tunisia, was arrested Wednesday, Megele said. The Egyptian suspected of being a key bin Laden operative, Abdelkadir Es Sayed, 39, remained at large, police said.
The Islamic center's president, Abdel Hamid Shaari, said it ``intends to defend its honor and its legal status. After all, it wasn't the center that was searched, but only the offices and workplaces of certain people who work at the center.''
The arrests were part of a probe that led to the April arrest of Essid Sami Ben Khemais, a Tunisian who police in Europe now believe was sent from Afghanistan to supervise bin Laden's terrorist operations in Europe.
Spanish investigators say Ben Khemais may have met in Spain earlier this year with Mohamed Atta, one of the hijackers who attacked the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, and with members of an Algerian group in Spanish custody.
The guy who met with Atta might be of interest too.
November 30, 2001
TAPES of telephone calls show how a gang of Italian-based Islamic fanatics linked to Osama bin Laden and a London Muslim cleric were ready to launch an attack in France using poisonous gas.
Two alleged members of the gang, arrested in Milan yesterday, were found with dangerous chemicals and false documents to be used by al-Qaeda terrorists. Police also recovered what they believe is al-Qaeda’s codebook.
The group’s alleged leader was still on the run last night. Abdelkadir Es-Sayed, 39, an Egyptian, is accused of taking part in a bombing in Luxor in 1997 which killed 58 foreign tourists. For three months the Italian secret service (Digos) listened in to the gang’s calls including frequent contacts with Abu Qatada, who lives in Acton, West London, and has been described as Bin Laden’s European ambassador.
The alleged link with the 41-year-old cleric came a week after a Spanish judge said that Qatada was the “spiritual adviser” to a terrorist cell in Madrid. Mr Qatada denies all links with terrorism and says that as a Koranic scholar he receives calls from across Europe. The calls were made from the suburban Milan apartment where five members of this group lived, according to Le Nouvel Observateur, a French news magazine.
Some alleged members of the gang, who were of North African origin, were arrested last spring after the gang were recorded talking about using “a suffocating gas” somewhere in France. They spoke in code and never revealed precise plans for the attack.
Extracts from the transcripts offer a glimpse of life in an alleged terrorist cell of the GSPC, an Algerian-based group said by security services to operate as a European arm of al-Qaeda.
French security police say that 1,000 trained agents from the network are still at large in Western Europe despite the dismantling of a dozen cells in France, Germany, Spain, Britain and elsewhere.
Last December German police defused an alleged GSPC plot to attack the European Parliament in Strasbourg with sarin poisonous gas.
The leader, given the codename Saber while training in Afghanistan, is alleged to be Essid Sami Ben Khemais. The Milan group are heard discussing bomb-making, preparing false papers, fretting about their security and watching al-Qaeda videos.
Saber gives a running commentary on his chemical plans to strike “the enemies of God”. He needs a team of 12. Gas is more effective than plastic explosives, which are now outmoded, he says. “It’s a liquid. As soon as it’s opened, people suffocate. . . It’s difficult to transport but you can do it in tomato cans. . .”
The target was identified as “la Dame” — a possible reference to Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, according to the magazine. Saber says he needs a formula for the poison gas that had been developed by a Libyan chemistry professor.
“He has devised a way of mixing the vapours of the substance with an explosive. Seems it’s easy but I don’t know how to do it. . .” The activists refer to bin Laden variously as “the director”, the “Sheikh Ali Abdullah” and “the unknown one”.
At one point another al-Qaeda member living in Munich, who calls himself Mohammed, says the time has come to strike in France but authorisation must first come from bin Laden. “Unfortunately if you want to be a martyr you need to ask for authorisation from Sheikh Ali Abdullah.”
What emerges from the calls is the belief that Britain is regarded as a haven for al Qaeda agents. European intelligence agencies believe that the British authorities are poor at monitoring mobile phone conversations.
Key to coded messages
The transcripts show the alleged terrorists using code-words in phone conversations. Police say that the terms, in Arabic, are standard code used by Muslim terrorists in Europe.
Turkey, or chicken: bomb
To be tired: to be under police surveillance
The town hall: prison
Get married: to escape or flee
Trousers: false identity papers
Open a shop, or restaurant: commit a terrorist attack
Couscous: nails (used in a bomb)
Poison: identity control
A book: false passport