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| Europe |
| Aknouche's been turned |
| 2005-02-16 |
| An Algerian Islamic radical arrested in France has proved a goldmine for investigators probing Osama bin Laden's militant network in Europe in the wake of the September 11 attacks, magistrates told AFP. French investigators now believe that after key testimonies from a handful of well placed members of bin Laden's al-Qaeda network the exiled Saudi extremist's secret organisation in Europe is unravelling fast. Since his arrest in Paris last Monday 27-year-old Yacine Aknouche has revealed his links with several al-Qaeda suspects including "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged "20th hijacker" arrested ahead of September 11, the lawyers said. And his address book has been revealed as a virtual Who's Who of hardline Islamic radicals and terror attack suspects, the astonished investigators claimed, making Aknouche a vital link in a series of interlinked investigations. "Such a testimony is extraordinary," an investigator told AFP. Officers of the French domestic intelligence agency, the DST, arrested Aknouche and two other suspects based in a Paris-region flat as part of an inquiry into a thwarted attack on Strasbourg in December 2000. An Islamic commando based in Frankfurt, western Germany, was said to have planned a spectacular bomb attack on the city centre while a Christmas market was being held in front of the cathedral in the eastern French city. But when officers began questioning the suspect they found he had information on many more figures in the violent Islamist underground. Sources told AFP that Aknouche recounted to officers how he had met both Reid and Moussaoui in 2000 at an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. Aknouche also claimed to have met Ahmed Ressam in Afghanistan, this time in 1998. According to the French weekly Le Journal du Dimanche, the type of explosives carried by Ressam matched the type found in Reid's shoe on the Miami flight and a batch held by a group who planned to attack the US embassy in Paris. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 What about Adam Gadahn? |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-02-16 8:31:27 AM |