Al-Qaida remains potentially deadly

Adam Tanner discovers that terror network still has members scattered through Europe.

AS the first anniversary of September 11 approaches, Europe is seeing disturbing omens of new terror.

A batch of homemade bombs in an apartment. A gun in a hand bag before a crowded flight. Several recent incidents have illustrated that al-Qaida and its sympathisers remain a potentially deadly force a year after the September 11 attacks.

Even after one of the greatest police efforts ever mounted, officials believe al-Qaida still has members scattered across Europe, some ready and able to commit violence.

In some cases, authorities suspect individuals of links to Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born extremist who heads the al-Qaida network and is accused by Washington of masterminding the September 11 attacks. Yet they lack hard evidence for arrests.

For example, Mohammad Belfas knew Mohamed Atta, September 11 ringleader, and prayed in the Hamburg mosque where radical preaching fed hatred shown by the World Trade Center attackers.

US and German authorities also believe Indonesian Belfas had ties to bin Laden. Yet, without concrete evidence against him, Belfas remains a free man in the port city of Hamburg.

“Practically everyone knew Atta. He was a well-known person in the Muslim, Islamic society here,” Belfas said in a rare short interview. “But I only heard the words al-Qaida after September 11. I had never heard of it before.”

“I don't know why my name is on the list,” he said, referring to a list of September 11 suspects circulated by police that says he is believed to have links to bin Laden. European authorities have closely watched those suspected of links to al-Qaida since September 11. Yet other al-Qaida members or their allies may have escaped detection, as Atta and his cohorts appear to have done before September 11, 2001.

In Germany on Friday, police arrested a 25-year-old German-born Turk and his American fiancee suspected of building five bombs to target American sites in Heidelberg.

The man apparently admired bin Laden and kept his photo in his apartment, but the interior minister said initial evidence suggested he acted alone. A week earlier, Swedish police arrested a Swedish Muslim of Tunisian origin suspected of planning to hijack a Ryanair plane for London while boarding with a gun in hand luggage.

“There may be individuals who think here is an anniversary which is a world stage in terms of publicity and for their own reasons they might attack,” David Veness, who leads the British police’s anti-terrorism branch, told reporters on Friday.

Even if these cases do not have direct al-Qaida links, European security officials say the group remains a danger.

Manfred Klink, who led a huge investigation into the German roots of the World Trade Centre and Pentagon attacks, said he estimated that more than 100 al-Qaida members lived across Europe in Germany, Italy, Spain and other countries: “The al-Qaida network and its leadership structure has been damaged by the war in Afghanistan, but they can still carry out dangerous attacks. Just a few people can carry out a significant blow.”

Nineteen hijackers carried out the September 11 attacks.

Since September 11, European investigators have focused on Germany because Atta and two other lead hijackers in the attacks that killed 3,000 people had lived in Hamburg. But ties to those attacks extend across many countries. Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, is the only person on trial in the USA for his alleged involvement in the September 11 plot. He was arrested in Minneapolis on immigration charges in August 2001.

Moussaoui has denied involvement in the attacks, although he has admitted to being a member of al-Qaida.

The only other person to be face charges of participating in the World Trade Centre plot is Moroccan Mounir El Motassadeq, a former student in Hamburg charged two weeks ago.

Mohammed Haydar Zammar, 41, a German-Syrian citizen in Hamburg whom investigators believe served as a link in bringing Atta and others to receive paramilitary training in Afghanistan, is in Syrian custody.

Another Hamburg resident closely watched is Syrian-born Mamoun Darkazanli, whom officials believe may have served as a financial conduit to al-Qaida. He worshipped at the same mosque as Atta and knew another hijacker, Marwan Al Shehhi.

“These people all had close contact, but the problem is establishing to what extent these contacts related to terrorism and to what extent they had a religious or social nature,” said Klink.