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ERRIADH, TUNISIA // In 586BC the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar laid waste to Jerusalem, inadvertently sowing seeds for a Jewish haven across the sea that has outlived his realm by 25 centuries and counting. Legend tells that refugees fled to the Tunisian island of Djerba, carrying a block from the ruined Temple of Solomon. Today it lies beneath the El Ghriba synagogue, the cornerstone of a thriving Jewish community. And after decades of Jewish exodus from Arab countries, that community is growing. For western holidaymakers, Djerba is a strip of lavish resorts along a sandy Mediterranean coast. For Tunisians, it also...

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A German man arrested in France last week on suspicion of links to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States is a top leader of the al Qaeda network, France's Interior Minister said Wednesday. Christian Ganczarski, 36, was arrested at Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport on June 2. "(Intelligence) services know that he is a top leader of al Qaeda, in contact with Osama bin Laden himself, and has been in Afghanistan and Bosnia," Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told parliament.

German investigators say they have evidence that Mohamed Atta, the suspected ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks, and two accomplices trained at Qaeda camps in Afghanistan from late 1999 to early 2000. They have also established a clear link between Al Qaeda and a recent attack on a Tunisian synagogue, a top official said. The timing of the Afghanistan training, outlined yesterday by a senior investigator, provides the strongest evidence so far that plans for the attacks on the United States were worked out there. Less than six months after leaving Afghanistan, Mr. Atta and the other two men...

MADRID: A Pakistani is among five men arrested in Spain on suspicion of involvement in the suicide attack on a synagogue on the Tunisian resort island of Djerba in which 21 people died, investigators said today. The other four being held were described as Spanish nationals. Reports immediately after their arrest in Valencia, in southwest of the country, on Friday had described them as of Tunisian origin, while the nationality of the other suspect, detained in the northern town of Logrono, had not been given. All five were due to be transferred to Madrid to appear before the Audiencia National,...

PARIS, Nov 9: French police say that the order for the suicide attack of last April 11 on a synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia, was given in Karachi. The attack resulted in the death of 21 persons, among them two French and 14 German tourists. The French anti-terrorist police who have been investigating the attack - with the support of Tunisian President Ben Ali - say they have been able to determine that the satellite telephone used by the kamikaze, Nizar Naouar, who drove an explosives-laden truck into the synagogue, was acquired in Paris by Walid Naouar, Nizar's brother, who has...

French police say they have arrested eight suspects in connection with a synagogue bombing in Tunisia that killed 19 people earlier this year. The suspects were detained near the French city of Lyon and were being questioned by agents from the French counterintelligence service. Most of the victims in the synagogue attack in Djerba, were German tourists. Germany believes that the bombing may have been carried out by members of the al-Qaida terrorist network.