| Preparations for the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States were finalised in the Spanish Mediterranean port of Tarragona, newspaper El Pais said on Sunday, quoting US intelligence sources. At a ‘terrorist summit’ in Tarragona between July 9 and 17, 2001, the alleged head of the suicide squads was reported to have briefed secret contacts on attack plans for on passing to the al-Qaeda leadership, the paper reported. El Pais said Ramzi Binalshibh, believed to be al-Qaeda’s second in command, had given information about the meeting to US intelligence agents after his arrest in Pakistan in 2002. The information had then been passed on to the Spanish secret services, El Pais said. It said the al-Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan had not been informed of the exact date set for the September 11 attacks until the end of August or the beginning of September, less than two weeks before they took place. At the Tarragona summit, which was attended by three other (alleged) extremists, the alleged head of the suicide squads, Egyptian Mohammed Atta, reportedly discussed with Ramzi Binalshibh ‘the main aspects of the attacks so that this information could be passed on to the al-Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan, the newspaper said. Atta had later told the leadership, via Binalshibh, of the exact date of the attacks. Four days before the suicide attacks, Binalshibh had returned to Spain, ‘picked up a false passport and fled to Kabul,’ El Pais said. The passport had been supplied by Khaled Madani, an Algerian remanded in custody in Spain last week for alleged collaboration with al-Qaeda, it said. |