|
Al-Qaeda Swiss network
The trail began in the desert mayhem of Saudi Arabia and led to a suspected Islamic network operating in the Alpine tranquillity of Switzerland. After Al Qaeda bombers attacked three expatriate housing compounds in Riyadh last year, killing 34 foreigners, Saudi investigators recovered a suspect's cell phone. They made a startling discovery: The phone's memory contained 36 Swiss numbers. And one of them belonged to an alleged Yemeni extremist based in the pristine village of Aegerten, an area known more for clockmakers than for terrorists.The resulting investigation by Swiss police has led to 10 arrests in the past year. According to a preliminary indictment filed on July 30, the inquiry has unmasked a logistics and finance network in Switzerland with ties to top Al Qaeda figures and terrorist cells across Europe, West Asia, Africa and Asia. The indictment includes charges of supplying fraudulent documents, smuggling itinerant West Asian extremists into Switzerland and using criminal rackets to raise and move ''important sums of money'' to cells in Europe and the Gulf region. Switzerland entered the picture in 2002, when investigators found that Al Qaeda's operational boss, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and his associates were using Swiss cellular phones. Intercepts revealed that Mohammed, who has since been captured, was in touch with a Swiss convert in a plot that led to the bombing of a Tunisian synagogue in 2002. The Swiss convert remains free, though several Yemenis who attended the Biel Islamic centre like him have been indicted last month. Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-09-20 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=43710 |