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| Europe |
| Spanish al-Qaeda might have been planning European attack |
| 2006-01-11 |
| One of the al-Qaeda members arrested early today in Spain may have been planning an attack in Europe, Spanish Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso said. Spanish police arrested 20 people comprising two inter- related cells following raids in Madrid, Catalonia and the Basque region, Alonso told reporters in Madrid. The cells were primarily involved in recruiting and training suicide bombers for the Iraq insurgency and had links to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Algeria, Morocco, Turkey and Syria, he said. Those arrested included 15 Moroccans, a Turkish man, an Algerian and three Spaniards. The Algerian, leader of the Madrid-based cell, was trained in Afghanistan and sent recruits for Abu Musab al Zarqawi's network, Alonso said. ``The Madrid cell was carrying out the fuller range of activities,'' Alonso said. ``State security forces can't rule out that among their missions they may have been planning violent acts on European territory.'' Spanish authorities have arrested 52 people suspected of involvement in Islamist terrorism in the past two months. All those arrested remain in prison, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. The spokesman declined to be identified. ``There will be another attack somewhere, however many successes there are in terms of arrests of cells,'' said Michael Cox, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, in a telephone interview. ``That's the assumption of most European politicians and intelligence people.'' Those arrested today ``had a greater level of coordination than other groups the police have broken up in recent months,'' Alonso said. The Catalan cell, based near Barcelona in Vilanova i la Geltru, recruited the suicide bomber who killed 19 Italians and 9 Iraqis in the Nov. 12, 2003, attack in the Iraqi city of Nasariya,Alonso said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 One of the al-Qaeda members arrested early today in Spain may have been planning an attack in Europe, Spanish Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso said. Master of the Obvious™. |
| Posted by: Xbalanke 2006-01-11 18:27 |