Two senior al Qaeda figures helped train the people now suspected of planning chemical and biological attacks in France and the United Kingdom, European intelligence and judicial sources tell CNN. One of those figures is Abu Mussab al Zarqawi, the man singled out by President Bush as a link between the terrorist group and Iraq. The other is Abu Khabab whose voice has been identified by intelligence sources as the man on a videotape showing al Qaeda operatives performing chemical weapons experiments on dogs. Khabab is a deputy to Zawahiri. He's another Egyptian, and he's in charge of the chemical weapons program...
The information comes after a recent wave of arrests in France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain that investigators say helped uncover several cells of Islamic terrorists who had the material to make chemical and biological weapons. And, investigators say, the terrorists were apparently ready to use them. Among the common links between some of the men who were arrested: They trained at a camp in the Caucasus region, particularly the Pankisi Gorge of Georgia and in nearby Chechnya, according to investigators. Officials are concerned the area has become a new base of operations for terrorist groups. "They are coming from the same region, most of them are Algerian, trained [in] the same place, in some camps in Afghanistan, and at the same time in Georgia in the Pankisi Gorge. They have the same trainers," said Gilles Leclair, who coordinates anti-terrorism efforts for the French Interior Ministry. "And it seems, if we can recognize what we found in the searches, that they wanted to start chemical attacks." In raids near Paris in December, the French police not only recovered a chemical suit, as previously reported, but also chemicals, including cyanide.
The formulas for chemical weapons found during the searches appeared to be different from the formulas in al Qaeda's Encyclopedia of Jihad and other training manuals for developing bombs and chemical and biological agents that were recovered from abandoned camps in Afghanistan. And sources say that difference is of particular concern to French security officials.
Officials are investigating similar links with another series of arrests last month in Spain. European intelligence officials say that according to interrogations of prisoners, Zarqawi was at the Pankisi Gorge providing training for the men, but they have not yet been able to say precisely when that took place.
I'll have to lay off mocking CNN for awhile. This is a good report. Assuming it's accurate, it ties the arrests in Britain, France, Spain and Italy together, pinpoints the training to Chechnya/Pankisi, and IDs the guys in charge as Zarqawi and Khabab.
Zarqawi runs his own mob — al-Tawhid — and tromps around Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Jordan, apparently as he pleases. Tawhid is also part of the Ansar al-Islam alliance. His buddy Moammar Ahmad Yussuf managed to get nabbed crossing the border from Syria to Turkey, after he blew the Foley assassins' cover.
I'm wondering — don't know yet — if Tawhid is affiliated with or an outgrowth of the Lebanese group of the same name.
Harakat al-Tawhid al-IslamiHuman Rights Watch says that
Harakat al-Tawhid al-Islami is the most important radical Sunni movement in the northern town of Tripoli. It was founded in 1982, and its leader is Shaykh Sa'id Sha'ban, a former member of al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group). He was able to assert his power over the city in 1983 against Syria's wishes. Sha'ban, who comes from a lower-middle-class family, has been successful in attracting the classes of the poor in Tripoli. Sha'ban had been a member of the pro-Saudi Muslim Brotherhood before setting up his movement in 1982. It was the outcome of unifying three fundamentalist groups: Soldiers of God (Jundullah), al-Muqawama al-Sha'biyya (Popular Resistance), founded by Khalil Ikawi, and the Movement for Arab Lebanon (Harakat Lubnan al-'Arabi), founded by Dr Ismat Murad. However, the first two groups split from the Islamic Unification Movement by the summer of 1984, denying Sha'ban an important power base. Al-Muqawama al-Sha'biyya formed al-Lijan al-Islamiyya (Islamic Committees), and the Movement for Arab Lebanon formed Lijan al-Masajid wa al-Ahya' (Committees for Mosques and Neighbourhoods).
Sha'ban believed the civil war could end only if shari'a (Islamic Law) were applied in Lebanon under an Islamic government. He was very antagonistic of the communists, who were subject to the deadly massacres of his movement in Tripoli. The movement controlled the city for a few years and imposed strict Islamic laws on the people. But when Syrian forces entered the city, the movement was defeated. In recent years, Sha'ban has become a close ally of Iran, and he has improved his ties with Syria.
Harakat al-Tawhid al-Islami (Islamic Unity Movement, IUM) is one of three Islamist groups which broke away at different times from the mainstream Islamic Unity Movement in Kurdistan (IUMK) and in September merged to form Jund al-Islam (Soldiers of God), was also held responsible by the KDP for the assassination on February 18 of Francois Hariri, governor of Arbil and member of the KDP's Central Committee. He was shot dead by unidentified assailants as he drove to work in the city. His bodyguard was also killed and his driver wounded. The KDP announced in late March that it had identified several IUM members as being responsible for the assassination, one of whom was apprehended.This seems a more likely candidate for Zarqawi's bunch, but it doesn't follow that the two aren't either the same or first cousins. (Data. I need more data...)