Posted on 02/10/2002 6:21:48 AM PST by Wallaby
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Suspect confesses links to shoe-bomber By ELIZABETH BRYANT, United Press International United Press International February 10, 2002, Sunday 10:00 AM Eastern Time PARIS, Feb. 10
A man arrested in France last week for allegedly planning a terrorist attack on a French cathedral has reportedly confessed to having met two prominent terrorist suspects at the same Afghan training camp in 2000: Zacarias Moussaoui and shoe-bomber Richard Reid.
Moussaoui is currently in a U.S. prison on charges of participating in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks while Reid is being held for allegedly attempting to blow up an American airliner with explosives hidden in his shoes.
Yacine Aknouche, 27, also told French investigators he met suspected terrorist Ahmed Ressam during another stint in an Afghan training camp, in 1998.
Yacine Aknouche, 27, also told French investigators he met suspected terrorist Ahmed Ressam during another stint in an Afghan training camp, in 1998, Le Journal du Dimanche reported Sunday. Aknouche, an ethnic Algerian, was among several people arrested by French police last Monday in connection with a foiled plot to bomb in Dec. 2000 the Strasbourg cathedral, in eastern France.
Ressam was arrested on the U.S.-Canadian border in 1999, after authorities found more than 100 pounds of explosives stashed in the trunk of his car. He was convicted of plotting to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport during the millennium celebrations.
But according to Journal du Dimanche, Aknouche may be linked to a larger, shadowy terrorist network operating in Europe.
Among Aknouche's alleged connections are two associates of Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden -- Abu Zoubeyda and Abu Jaffar -- now imprisoned in Britain.
Le Journal offered few details about Aknouche's alleged confessions. The newspaper also reported that Belgian police have traced a call placed by Reid using a Belgian phone card last year. The card was found in the apartment of another terrorist suspect, Nizar Trabelsi. Trabelsi was arrested last year in connection with another foiled plot to bomb the U.S. embassy in Paris.
Reid traveled to Belgium in early December to get a new British passport, before boarding an American Airlines flight from Paris on Dec. 22, with explosives packed in his shoes.
Reid allegedly received his marching orders in e-mailed messages from Pakistan. But police reportedly believe he may have also received assistance from extremists in France and elsewhere in Europe.
French media have also reported the type of explosives found in Reid's shoes -- a highly volatile compound known as TATP -- is the same as those found in Ressam's trunk in 1999.
These two (would be) killers for the Jihad need to be taken off shore and interrogated more vigorously. We get nowhere playing patty cake with these fiends. Ramzi Yuseef has to be taken off shore too. We own many Pacific islands we could be doing this. Al Quaeda and Jihadists still know us to softies.
By not extracting useful information from these fiends we make it easier for Jihadists to attack us........ They are thinking we are idiots.
My 17 year old daughter actually suggested THIS one night while we watched the news:
You know how they keep the numbers of abandoned pets down in the ASPCA, right? Instead of building more cells to hold more prisoners, make note of the prisoners already there but refuse to talk.
When a new prisoner is coming in, simply take a guy who won't talk, tell him you need his cell for another prisoner...then shoot him, in full view of the other prisoners.
After emptying cells in this manner to house new prisoners a few times, the remaining prisoners will probably find it in their interests to be as cooperative as possible.
That from a 17 year-old kid.
It seems to me that the only benefit is if THEY start singing.
But maybe I'm missing the bigger picture?
They forfeit their rights to be treated as humans when they murder or attempt to murder innocents.
That shoe bomber ought to be, POOF! GONE!!! He would have murdered hundreds of people on that plane....but for the brave actions of ACTUAL HUMANS on the plane.
I am sure that some folks here on FR would like to go to the place he is jailed with a tray of yummy cookies for him....and, perhaps a box of candy with hearts and flowers for the "poor sad, much maligned" jihad TERRORIST!
As investigators analysed data from the "black box" flight recorders of the doomed American jet, Miss Greleau's employers paid her a warm tribute saying she would be "greatly missed". New York-based Miss Greleau, who worked for Menzies Aviation Group (MAG), was travelling to the Dominican Republic with a colleague when disaster struck. The single 40-year-old had been living in New York for more than a year after moving from her home in Finsbury Park, north London, MAG chief executive Peter Smith said. Her "depth of knowledge and commitment to the business will be greatly missed", he added. The Foreign Office said tonight that despite reports that she was British she held a French passport and as far it was concerned she was French. Meanwhile, the crash investigation was hampered by a fault in the flight data recorder, one of the two black boxes recovered yesterday. George Black, from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said the recorder is being sent to the manufacturer in Florida to fix a problem with its memory module. "The memory is there. We just can't get to it," Mr Black said.
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Investigators believe the data recorder could hold key information about the final moments of the doomed flight. They hope it may reveal why the co-pilot called for maximum power, as heard on the cockpit voice recorder, just 12 seconds before the crew talked about losing control of the aircraft. The discovery of the voice recorder from the wreckage has revealed that there were problems on the aircraft less than two minutes after take-off. A rattling noise could be heard 107 seconds into the flight, followed by frantic efforts by the pilots to control the plane. Seven seconds later, the captain indicated they were having a "wake encounter", indicating a vortex of turbulence that trails an aircraft, said Mr Black. He said a Japan Airlines 747 took off two minutes and 20 seconds in front of the American Airlines jet, which was normal procedure. After a second rattle was heard, the co-pilot called for maximum power followed by several comments suggesting loss of control. The recording ends less than two and a half minutes after the plane took off from John F Kennedy airport headed for Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Witnesses said they saw the plane wobble in the sky before breaking apart and showering debris on the neighbourhood along Rockaway Beach, obliterating four homes in the area. NTSB chairwoman Marion Blakey said the most likely cause of the crash was still thought to be an accident. She added: "We have no information that would argue for criminal activity or anything that indicates sabotage to date." But she stressed investigators were still working closely with the FBI and had not yet ruled anything out. Some 262 bodies have been recovered from where the jet crashed. Up to nine people are still missing on the ground. Earlier it emerged that US aviation officials had issued a safety notice a month ago for the type of engine that powered the Airbus A300. The Federal Aviation Administration called for more frequent inspections because it said an "unsafe condition" had been identified in the engine, but the order had not come into force by the time of the crash. As well as Miss Greleau, American Airlines said the dead included 168 US passport holders, 68 with Dominican Republic passports, five infants travelling on a parent's passport, one Taiwanese passport holder, one French, one Haitian and one Israeli. All nine crew, including Captain Edward States and his co-pilot, Sten Molins, were US passport holders. |
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