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| Britain | |||
| The trail of phone calls and money that lead to Saudi Arabia | |||
| 2005-08-02 | |||
POLICE are tracking the worldwide money trail behind the London bombers. They are also investigating the hundreds of telephone calls that the bombers made before the attacks. Intelligence agencies are studying a series of disturbing communications from Britain to well-known al-Qaeda terrorists sheltering in Saudi Arabia to see if it leads to another terror cell sheltering in Britain. The messages from Saudi Arabia include transfers of cash to Britain. At least one of the failed July 21 bombers spent time in Saudi Arabia.
It was the flight of Osman Hussain, also known as Hamdi Isaac, the suspected failed bomber, to join his brother in Rome that has led to revelations in Italy about his familyâs alleged al-Qaeda links. Anti-terror detectives in Rome disclosed yesterday how his brother, Remzi Hussain, was already under scrutiny in relation to al-Qaedaâs secret financial network. Carlo De Stefano, the head of Italyâs counter-terror operations, said that Remzi Hussain, who lives in Rome, has been under surveillance since the attacks in the US on September 11, 2001. He said that Remzi Hussainâs souvenir shop selling African artefacts on the Via Volturno near the cityâs railway station is being investigated for its links to al-Barakaat, a finance company that has been banned by the US and most Western countries. Al-Barakaat is the so-called al-Qaeda banking network that wires money around the globe. Investigators believe that it was such a system that was used to fund previous terror operations, including the attack last year on four trains in Madrid. Terror financiers can shift cash to terror cells in any part of the world by simple money transfers that are hard to trace. Last night police said that Remzi Hussain is under arrest for âfalsifying documentsâ. It was to his flat in Rome that his brother fled after escaping Britainâs biggest manhunt on July 29. When police searched the flat on the Via Aurelia at Tor Pignatarra, a Rome suburb, they found records of air tickets used in ârecent timesâ by Remzi Hussain to Dubai, Geneva, Zurich, Munich and Amsterdam. In public, senior Italian officials said that Osman Hussain, who is thought to have tried to kill himself and others by blowing up a Tube train at Shepherdâs Bush, was part of âa rag tagâ group and not linked to a major terror network.
At the weekend Giuseppe Pisanu, the Interior Minister, said that Hussain, his brothers and friends formed part of a âtightly knit networkâ that posed a threat to Italy. Alfredo Mantovano, Signor Pisanuâs deputy, said on Sunday that âthe support network that Hamdi Isaac found in Italy confirms the presence in our country of autonomous Islamic cells that may represent a concrete threatâ. Police have dismissed claims that other members of the July 21 bombing attempts recently visited Rome, though they have asked for Scotland Yardâs help in trying to trace phone calls made from England. Signor De Stefano told yesterday how intelligence services tracked Hussain across Europe by surveillance technology to eavesdrop on his mobile phone conversations. Police and intelligence agencies listened as he desperately tried to find a way out of the net that was closing around him. They picked up Hussain speaking in an obscure Ethiopian dialect used on the border of Somalia and Eritrea, which encouraged them to believe they had the right man. Hussain was tracked as he travelled by train through France to Italy but dumped his British SIM card and replaced it with an Italian one that was picked up by investigators in Rome. He has allegedly told Rome police that his name is Hamdi Isaac, that he was born in Ethiopia and came to Italy with five brothers. Two remain in Italy, and both are under arrest; one emigrated to Canada while he and one other went to Britain in 1992 claiming that they were refugees from Somalia.
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| Posted by:Steve |
| #6 Designate Sierra 1 |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-08-02 19:53 |
| #5 True dat OG, true dat. EP |
| Posted by: ElvisHasLeftTheBuilding 2005-08-02 18:27 |
| #4 And as usual, nobody will do a damn thing about it because we are too busy brown-nosing the arabs for their precious oil. |
| Posted by: Ominesh Gleasing2331 2005-08-02 18:05 |
| #3 All this phone chatter is pretty unprofessional I think. One would think the bad guys would have learned something by now about communications security. |
| Posted by: buwaya 2005-08-02 18:01 |
| #2 Picking up funding And a fatwa permitting the attack. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-08-02 15:50 |
| #1 He has allegedly told Rome police that his name is Hamdi Isaac, that he was born in Ethiopia and came to Italy with five brothers. Two remain in Italy, and both are under arrest; one emigrated to Canada while he and one other went to Britain in 1992 claiming that they were refugees from Somalia. This little piggy went to market This little piggy stayed home This little piggy has roast This little piggy had none And This little piggy ran all the way to the nearest subway terminal... |
| Posted by: BigEd 2005-08-02 15:36 |