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An Algerian who sought asylum in Sheffield has been jailed for plotting to bomb tourists at a French Christmas market. Lamine Maroni has been sentenced to 11 years in Germany. Three other men were also jailed for between 10 and 12 years each. They were found guilty by a Frankfurt court of conspiracy to murder scores of people outside Strasbourg Cathedral on New Year's Eve 2000. Prosecutors said they were part of a network of mostly North African extremists called the Non-aligned Mujahadeen, with ties to al-Qaida. Maroni had arrived in Sheffield as an asylum seeker in August 2000 and...

TOKYO (Reuters) - The euro suddenly spiked lower on Friday after an Italian minister said that Italy should quit the single currency and revert back to the lira. Welfare Minister Roberto Maroni told the Repubblica newspaper that Italy should hold a referendum to decide whether to return to its old currency. That sent the euro tumbling to $1.2220 from $1.2285 in a matter of minutes as the report added to concerns about the European Union's outlook -- politically and economically. By 0647 GMT, the euro had recovered to around $1.2260, little changed from late U.S. levels. The single currency slid...

 March 21, 2002 Red Brigades Say They 'Executed' Italy Official By REUTERS Filed at 3:35 p.m. ETROME (Reuters) - An offshoot of Italy's Red Brigades urban guerrilla movement published a 26-page Internet message on Thursday saying it had ``executed'' a top government adviser and reviving fears of a new era in political killings.Marco Biagi, 52, was shot dead on Tuesday night in the northern city of Bologna with the same pistol that the Red Brigades for the Construction of the Fighting Communist Party had used to kill another government aide in 1999.Police pored over video material collected from security...

Intelligence agencies have had some success in tracking suspected al-Qaeda operatives. But the organisation is changing to continue its fight against the West. The West has never encountered an enemy like al-Qaeda before. The problem for the world's intelligence agencies is that it is not a unified organisation with an identifiable structure, like the IRA, but an amalgam of groups around the world whose members embrace Osama bin Laden's ideology of global jihad, or holy war. These Jihadi warriors share the belief that they have an obligation to fight the oppressors of their Muslim brothers, from Palestinians in the Middle...

(15:20) Terror suspect tells German court: 'You're all Jews.' By Melissa Eddy, The Associated Press April, 16 2002 FRANKFURT, Germany - The trial of five Algerian men charged with plotting to blow up a French holiday market opened with a flourish today when a defendant disrupted the proceedings and was removed from court. While the other defendants shielded their faces from a TV camera allowed to tape the opening five minutes, 31-year-old defendant Lamine Maroni, speaking in Arabic, recited Koranic verses, swore and urged the others not to testify. He was warned not to continue, but went on in English...