Free Republic

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil's federal police have arrested a high-ranking al Qaeda operative in Sao Paulo and are keeping him under tight security, a local newspaper reported on Tuesday. The suspect is allegedly a chief of international communications for al Qaeda, according to the report in Folha de S.Paulo, Brazil's largest daily newspaper. The report did not give the suspect's name or say when he was taken into custody, nor did it provide a source for the information. The arrest was surrounded by secrecy with the federal police disguising it as part of an investigation into neo-Nazi groups in...

Revealed: the South American connection (Filed: 09/11/2003) A lawless frontier is helping to finance Arab extremists. Philip Sherwell reports from Ciudad del Este, Paraguay They work from dawn until dusk on the traffic-clogged Friendship Bridge that runs across the Parana River between the seedy Paraguayan city of Ciudad del Este and its neighbour, Foz do Iguacu in Brazil. By foot, bicycle and motorcycle or packed into cars, vans and buses, the people known as "ants" criss-cross the bridge several times a day with sacks and boxes laden with counterfeit cigarettes, pirated CDs and computer software and fake designer clothes. For...