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Madrid probe turns to Tangiers cell
The investigation of last week's bombings in Madrid is focusing on a member of an Islamic cell in Tangier, Morocco, who is believed to have had contact with the lead suspect in the attacks and with at least one senior member of the al Qaeda network, senior Moroccan officials said Friday. The officials said the militant at the center of the investigation, Abdelaziz Benyaich, a naturalized French citizen from Morocco who is in prison in Spain, met in April 2003 in Tangier with Jamal Zougam, a Moroccan who has been arrested in connection with the train bombings in Madrid on March 11 that killed 202 people and wounded almost 1,500. The investigators also said Benyaich met on several occasions with Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian al Qaeda leader who is a prime suspect in several recent bombings directed at U.S. occupation targets in Iraq.
| Surprise meter didn't budge a skilliwhizmeter... |
Benyaich first came to the attention of Moroccan investigators after attacks in Casablanca last May 16, in which suicide bombers killed 33 people at five locations, including a restaurant, a hotel and Jewish-affiliated targets. While Benyaich was not involved in the Casablanca bombings, the officials said he had been working in northern Morocco with a group of Islamic militants that was planning attacks on a movie theater and synagogue in Fez and a casino and synagogue in Tangier. The network of contacts emanating from Tangier, spreading into immigrant communities in Europe and reaching al Qaeda's senior leadership is now at the center of the international inquiry into the Madrid bombings. Shortly after the Casablanca attacks, Benyaich was arrested in Spain on charges of membership in a terrorist organization. When he was detained, he had an airline ticket to Tehran, where he had traveled a number of times over the previous two years, officials said. He had left Morocco the day after the Casablanca attacks, fearing a clampdown on Islamic militants.
| Ain't it interesting that every surviving member of an al-Qaeda cell these days is trying to beat it to Tehran? Almost makes you think there might be a connection there ... |
The investigation of the Moroccan cells also showed that Benyaich met with an electronics expert in Morocco and that the two tested the use of cell phones as detonation triggers. That mechanism was used to prepare 13 bombs in the Madrid rail system, 10 of which exploded. Officials said Benyaich also met with Zougam in Tangier last April. Investigators are still unraveling the precise plotting of the Madrid bombings and have not yet found direct evidence of orders or financing from al Qaeda's senior leadership. Nor are they certain that Zougam participated in Benyaich's testing of cell phones in Tangier. Zougam is not cooperating with his interrogators, officials said. But investigators suspect that the roots of the Madrid attacks lie in the Tangier experiments and that Zougam moved forward after Benyaich and other expatriate Islamic militants he knew were arrested in Spain. Before the Casablanca attacks, Zougam associated with Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, known as Abu Dahdah, who is in prison in Spain accused of heading an al Qaeda cell that may have provided logistical support to Mohamed Atta, who is believed to have been the lead hijacker in the attacks in New York and at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. "I don't know yet how central Zougam is," said one Moroccan official. "But you cut off one head, another grows. It doesn't end. And it's notable that many of those involved are immigrants who left here a long time ago."
| But the new head that grows back is usually smaller than the one you cut off. That's important... |
Zougam, born in a Tangier slum, moved to Spain in 1983, when he was 10, the official said. Benyaich moved as a young man, to continue his studies. He married a Frenchwoman, enabling him to get a French passport. Benyaich came from a family of al Qaeda operatives. His brother Abudullah died at Tora Bora during the U.S.-led assault on the group's stronghold in Afghanistan. Another brother, Salaheddin, who lost an eye fighting in Bosnia, was also in Afghanistan but returned to Morocco after the fall of the Taliban, officials said. Salaheddin was sentenced to 18 years in prison last September for involvement with the Tangier plotters. But officials regard Benyaich as a critical figure who was involved in recruiting, financing and planning largely because his Western passport allowed him to travel with ease. "He was in Britain, Turkey, Spain, France and Iran," said an official here. "And he was more sophisticated than his brothers."
| More important, too. That's why he's not dead or maimed... |
Moroccan officials said they have evidence Benyaich met with Zarqawi a number of times in 2002. Zarqawi is head of al-Tawhid, a group that intelligence analysts said was once only allied with al Qaeda but that in the wake of Sept. 11 appears to be increasingly indistinguishable from bin Laden's group.
| We've noted that ourselves. Must be that chat he had with Saif al-Adel a year or so ago or all of that money he gets from Binny. Perhaps someone should tell all the folks currently trying to split hairs so thin you can see right through 'em ... |
Zarqawi is tied to the Casablanca attacks through another Moroccan operative, Malak Andalusi, who is now in custody here. With Benyaich, Zarqawi was orchestrating separate attacks in northern Morocco. And officials now believe, although they do not yet have proof, that he was involved in the Madrid bombings as well, through Benyaich and Zougam. In Madrid on Friday, Zougam was charged along with his half brother, Mohamed Chaoui, and another Moroccan, Mohamed Bekkali, with belonging to a terrorist organization, four acts of terrorism for each of the four trains bombed, 190 counts of murder, 1,400 counts of attempted murder and auto theft. The murder count was set at 190 because 12 of the dead from the blasts remain unidentified. Two Indians, Vinay Kohly and Suresh Kumar, were charged with assisting a terrorist organization and falsifying sales documents. The men were ordered held without bail and placed in isolation for another five days at Madrid's Soto del Real prison. The charges came at about 4 a.m., after a six-hour hearing that began Thursday night before National Court Judge Juan del Olmo. Under the Spanish system, the charges amount to preliminary accusations, allowing the suspects to remain in custody pending the filing of a formal indictment. In court, the Moroccans declared their innocence. Zougam's half brother, Chaoui, said that on the morning of the attack he woke up at 9:45 with his brother Jamal, who was sleeping beside him.
| That doesn't sound appetizing at all... |
He said he has no relationship with Jamal because they are very different and because Jamal is "very religious." The third detained Moroccan, Bekkali, repeatedly screamed his innocence. He explained that on March 11, a roommate woke him at 10:55 a.m. and told him there had been an attack at the Atocha train station. At 11:05, he said, he was working at his business. Zougam, the last to appear, answered questions from the magistrate without lifting his eyes from the floor, and finished by blubbering weeping before the judge, according to a court official. Asked about his ties with Yarkas, Zougam explained that he knew him from his neighborhood and his cell phone shop, but said he had lost contact with him when Yarkas went to prison.
Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-03-20 |
