The Afghan camps run by al Qaeda were crucial in the formation of new alliances between groups that shared similar ideologies, as representatives from different terrorist organizations trained alongside one another. A revealing account of life in the Afghan camps and the role of the Algerians in them has been provided by Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian terrorist who was arrested in December 1999 while trying to cross the Canadian border into Washington state with explosives hidden in his car's spare tire well.28 Ressam, who trained in Afghanistan from March 1998 to early 1999, described how militants in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, the gateway to Afghanistan, were gathered by nationality. Groups of six to fourteen militants from the same country would form a cell, and the cell would be assigned to the same Afghan training camp. Ressam and his Algerian cell, for example, were assigned by al Qaeda's gatekeeper Abu Zubaydah to the Khaldan camp, where they received extensive training in subjects that included the positioning of explosives at strategic points, military operations in urban settings, and countersurveillance techniques. According to Ressam, every cell trained during the week and met every Friday to discuss various issues, such as the best ways to establish contacts in Algeria, how to create new cells in Europe, how to raise money for jihad, and possible future operations.29
But despite their division by nationality, volunteers from different countries interacted regularly. Ressam revealed that members of the same cell, though in the same camp, did not always live together and that fighters from different countries would often share a tent. Moreover, when every morning the volunteers were sent to the daily training sessions in different specialties, members of the same cell would not necessarily be assigned to the same "class." Ressam painted a picture of constant interaction with members of other groups. He spoke of meeting and fraternizing with members of Hamas, the GIA, the GSPC, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, and other groups."
It was in these camps that the Algerians built solid relations with other groups. The undisputed architect of this new strategy was Abu Doha, a senior member of the GSPC and a prominent figure in the London Islamist scene. Abu Doha, who is also known as Doctor Haidar or "the Doctor," was the brains behind the extensive structure through which hundreds of volunteers were recruited to train in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and to fight alongside al Qaeda-linked Islamic forces in Chechnya.31 By the end of the 1990s, Abu Doha devised the Algerian network's "delocalization" and the redefinition of its targets, so that it focused less on the Algerian government and more on al Qaeda's goals. In fact, according to US authorities, Abu Doha met bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998 "to discuss cooperation and coordination between al Qaeda and a group of Algerian terrorists whose activities Abu Doha coordinated and oversaw."32
And it was in Afghanistan that Abu Doha conceived a plot that would have proven the Algerians' commitment to bin Laden's cause. In the spring of 1998, while an emir in an al Qaeda training camp, Abu Doha formed a cell of Algerians and began exploring the possibility of attacking US interests both at home and overseas. One of the men that made up Abu Doha's cell was the "millennium bomber," Ahmed Ressam. Ressam told US authorities that members of the cell had agreed to travel to Canada to carry out attacks inside the United States. Abu Doha oversaw the whole operation and also agreed to help Ressam return to Algeria after he had carried out the attack.33 His time spent in Afghanistan had clearly led Abu Doha to embrace bin Laden's anti-American agenda, and Ressam's attack inside the United States was intended to signal the Algerian network's full support of al Qaeda's plans.
Crucial coalitions were being formed as well in the suburbs and rundown mosques of London, where various terrorist groups had set up their headquarters. One of Abu Doha's most important strategic allianceswith the Tunisians-was established there. Though spared the violence that has racked neighboring Algeria, Tunisia also contains militant Islamist groups that want to overthrow the secular government. Tunisian authorities have always harshly repressed Islamist forces, often using tactics that meet with Western disapproval. Several prominent members of various Tunisian Islamist groups had found refuge in Italy, Switzerland, France, and, of course, England, building a network similar to the Algerians' (though not as extensive). Around 1998 Abu Doha and the emir of the Tunisians, Seifallah Ben Hassine, started to cooperate closely.34 Sharing a similar ideology, they began combining their recruiting and fund-raising efforts. These two leaders had similar experiences: both had been emirs in training camps in Afghanistan and both were living in London. The alliance between their networks marked the success of bin Laden's pan-Islamic vision and portended things to come.
NOTES
1. Helen Gobson, "The Algerian Factor," Time, January 27, 2003.
2. Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam, trans. Anthony F. Roberts (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), pp. 254 ff.
3. Tribunal of Naples, Indictment of Yacine Gasry and others, January 24, 2004.
4. US Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism, 1994 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1995).
5. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (New York: Norton, 2004), p. 344.
6. US Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism, 1995.
7. Ian Burrel, John Lichfield, and Robert Verkaik, "Manchester Police Killing: Islamists-Warning Signs of Algerian Terror Cells as Early as 1994," Independent, January 16, 2003.
8. Ibid.
9. Sheikh Abu Hamza al Masri, The Khawaarij and Jihad.
10. Ibid.
11. Central Court of Madrid, Proceeding 35/2001, September 17, 2003; Tribunal of Milan, Indictment of Merai and others, March 31, 2003.
12. "Report: FBI Finds Link between 9/11, Madrid Bombers," Reuters, November 11, 2004.
13. Sheikh Abu Hamza al Masri, The Khawaarij and Jihad.
14. Kepel, Jihad, pp. 254 if.
15. Sheikh Abu Hamza al Masri, The Khawaarij and Jihad.
16. Ibid.
17. Tribunal of Naples, Indictment of Yacine Gasry and others. The GSPC has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United Nations, the United States, and the European Union.
18. Tribunal of Naples, Indictment of Yacine Gasry and others.
19. Ibid.
20. US Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism, 2003, http:// www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2003/.
21. Tribunal of Naples, Indictment of Yacine Gasry and others.
22. Ibid.
23. "Bin Laden Held to Be behind an Armed Algerian Islamic Movement, AFP, February 15, 1999.
24. Nesser Petter, "Jihad in Europe. Exploring the Sources of Motivations for Salafi-Jihadi Terrorism in Europe Post-Millennium," Norwegian Defense Research Establishment (FFI), January 15, 2004, pp. 53-54.
25. Tribunal of Naples, Indictment of Yacine Gasry and others.
26. US Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism, 2003.
27. Tribunal of Milan, Indictment of Essid Sami Ben Khemais and others, April 2, 2001.
28. 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 178-79.
29. FBI dossier on Ressam, July 24, 2001.
30. Ibid.
31. USA v. Abu Doha, 01 MJ 1242, Southern District of New York, July 2, 2001.
32. USA v. Abu Doha, 01-CR-00832, Southern District of New York, August 21, 2001.
33. USA v. Abu Doha, 01 MJ 1242.
34. Tribunal of Milan, Indictment of Essid Sami Ben Khemais and others, April 2, 2001.
CHAPTER 5
THE STRASBOURG PLOT
You are all Jews. I don't need the court. Allah is my defender. Our only judge is Allah. We'll get out of prison soon and go to heaven.
-Lamine Maroni, Frankfurt courthouse (April 2002)
THE CELL
In the summer of 2000, activity among Islamic fundamentalists in Europe was unusually intense. Hundreds of North African recruits who had trained in al Qaeda's camps in Afghanistan streamed into Europe, ready to put their newly acquired skills to good use. At the same time, the ties between th
e Tunisians and the Algerians had grown significantly closer; Ben Hassine had even sent several Tunisian militants to fight in Algeria in the ranks of the GSPC (Groupe Salafiste pour la Predication et le Combat, or Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat).' But intelligence gathered by various European law enforcement agencies indicated that Abu Doha's network also had plans for the Continent.
Their evidence indicated that a cell connected to the Algerian network was active in the German city of Frankfurt, the country's financial capital.' Over the past thirty years Frankfurt has become home to a large number of ethnic groups; in several of its neighborhoods, Germans are a minority. Its large Muslim community, location in the heart of Europe, and superlative communication system make it an ideal place for terrorist operations. The BKA (Bundeskriminalamt), Germany's internal intelligence agency, had received information from its French counterparts that the leader of the Algerian network's cell in Frankfurt was a certain "Meliani."3 This information was corroborated in December by Italian authorities. While searching a Milan apartment used by two known terrorists, DIGOS (Divisioni Investigazioni Generali e Operazioni Speciali) had found a Post-it note on which was handwritten "Meliani al Ansari al Germi" (Meliani the supporter from Germany) and a German cell phone number.'
With the help of the leads coming from France, Great Britain, and Italy, German federal investigators identified five militants who made up the Frankfurt cell and began monitoring their activities.' On the night of December 20, 2000, a team of specialists from the German police clandestinely entered an apartment used by the cell. German authorities had learned that the group had received some weapons sent from Belgium in a bag and they decided to place a tracking device in it. To their surprise, the agents found not one but two bags filled with weapons in the apart- ment.b Not knowing if the apartment's occupants would be out long enough for them to procure a second tracking device from their central offices, they decided to take a chance and simply choose one bag to trace, hoping that it would take them to the rest of the cell.
On the afternoon before Christmas, an ominous phone call was intercepted by Scotland Yard. One of the members of the Frankfurt cell, Hicham El Haddad, told Abu Doha in London that an attack was planned for the days around New Year's Eve and that he intended to personally carry it out. Haddad also informed "the Doctor" that the group needed more German marks-the expenses for the attack had been higher than expected, as the cell found it necessary to rent two rooms.' The Germans' worries grew when one of the two bags was moved on Christmas Day. The apartment was under round-the-clock surveillance; so even though the bag contained no tracking device, the man carrying it was followed to another Frankfurt apartment.' Fearing that the group was no longer a sleeper cell, the Germans acted. A few hours after the bag was moved, armed policemen stormed the two apartments and arrested four of the five members of the cell. "Meliani," the group's leader, managed to avoid arrest, as he had left Frankfurt a few days earlier.
The search of one of the flats confirmed that the cell was ready to carry out an attack. Police found several chemical substances and electronic components commonly used in making bombs, nails, a pressure cooker, detailed instructions for fabricating and using explosives, and various toxic substances. Moreover, the men had already begun mixing them. The members of the cell, who were subsequently all charged with being members of a terrorist organization and planning an attack with explosives, also were in possession of two machine guns, seven pistols, three rifles, silencers, and large quantities of ammunition.'
The four men arrested in Frankfurt offer a kind of cross-section of the Islamic militants operating in Europe. Two of them had very similar backgrounds: both were young Algerian immigrants who came to Europe looking for political asylum and ended up becoming involved in crime and terrorism, though they apparently had no ties with radical groups in their homeland. Hicham El Haddad, whose phone conversation with Abu Doha had tipped off investigators, had tried to claim political asylum in the United Kingdom, but his application was denied because he had entered the country illegally in 1992. Nevertheless, he never left Britain. While living in the Greater London area, he committed petty crimes and was arrested for theft under the name Salim Boukhari. Laraine Maroni had also been denied asylum in the United Kingdom. Fingerprint analysis revealed that Maroni, like El Haddad, had been convicted of theft in the United Kingdom under a false name.10 While living in England, both men fell under the spell of extremists and found a new direction in radical Islam. Between 1998 and 2000, El Haddad and Maroni, like hundreds of other young Muslims, were recruited by Abu Doha and traveled to Afghanistan, where they received their training in al Qaeda's camps."
While learning their deadly skills in the Afghanistan, Maroni and El Haddad met another like-minded Algerian, Fouhad Sabour. Sabour was a different kind of radical and, to European law enforcement officials, a more troubling one. The radicalization of his immigrant peers followed their alienation from and rejection by a society where they had sought asylum; but Sabour was born in the quaint town of Romans-sur-Isere, a typical charming French village at the foot of the Alps. Sabour, who holds dual French and Algerian citizenship,12 exemplifies the growing threat posed by homegrown radicals who decide to turn to radical Islam and follow the path of jihad.
Sabour was well known to French counterterrorism officials before his arrest in Frankfurt. In September 1999, he had been sentenced in absentia to three years in prison by the Fourteenth Criminal Section of the Paris Court of Grand Instance for being a member of a terrorist organization. Sabour had been active in the Islamist underworld since 1995, when he helped distribute Al Ansar, the newsletter published by GIA (Groupes Islamiques Armes, or the Armed Islamic Group) inside France. On June 4, 1996, he was arrested for his involvement in the bombings of the Paris metro carried out by the GIA in the summer of 1995. Freed in December of the same year, he ignored the conditions set by the judge for his release and traveled to Bosnia and Afghanistan. 'II
After receiving their training in Afghanistan, Maroni, El Haddad, and Sabour were sent by the leadership of the Algerian network back to Europe. Despite Sabour's known convictions and Maroni's and El Haddad's illegal status, the three had no trouble entering the United Kingdom in the summer of 2000. The men spent the fall raising the money needed for the operation they had been tasked to carry out. As they contacted al Qaeda leaders in London in order to get funding, the men also sold drugs to raise petty cash. Maroni, who had moved to Sheffield in August 2000, sold hashish to supplement the benefits given to him by the British government because he was an asylum seeker. He spent three months in Sheffield in lodgings provided by a British charitable organization without attracting the attention of British authorities, keeping in contact with Sabour and El Haddad as well as other extremists in Europe.14
In October, Sabour moved to Frankfurt. According to a report published by the London newspaper the Guardian, just a month later Maroni told his roommates in Sheffield that he was going to London to see "a doctor." Maroni never came back; instead he went to Frankfurt under a false British passport. It is possible that Maroni was making a joke that his roommates could not possibly understand and that the "doctor" in London was none other than Abu Doha, who was respectfully known in Islamist circles as "the Doctor." El Haddad, also using false British documents, traveled with Maroni. In Germany, the two reunited with Sabour, their companion from the Afghan camps, and joined the other members of the cell who had converged in Frankfurt. 1I
Waiting for them there was another Algerian man they had met in Afghanistan, Aeurobui Beandali. Beandali represents a different kind of militant roaming the streets of Europe, the imported threat. Because Sabour was born in France and had French citizenship, authorities lacked any legal tool to prevent him from operating inside Europe. Maroni and El Haddad showed no signs of links to terrorism. But Beandali disclosed his ties to a terrorist organization when he entered Europe, and lax security and immigration laws allowed him to stay for almost ten years. Beandali applied
for political asylum in Germany in 1992, openly admitting to having been a member of the Algerian Islamic Salvation Front (Front Islamique du Salut, or FIS) since 1990 and having procured ammunitions and explosive materials for the organization. His application was rejected because of his affiliation, and German immigration authorities notified him of the expulsion order. But Beandali, like thousands of other illegal immigrants, simply ignored the order and continued to live in Germany. During that time, Beandali was repeatedly arrested for several different common crimes (mostly theft).16 Despite his convictions, German authorities never bothered to enforce his pending deportation order and Beandali continued to commit crimes. More important, Beandali maintained his ties to Algerian militants and his involvement in radical activities. Like the other cell members, he traveled to Afghanistan and then returned to Europe, passing easily through immigration." Beandali is living proof that the failure of most European countries to enforce immigration laws has dangerous consequences for the security of the Continent.
By the beginning of December, the Frankfurt cell was complete and ready to prepare the attack. One of the first tasks it attended to was acquiring the explosives. In one of the apartments the police found large quantities of potassium permanganate, an oxidant that can be used in making bombs. But it is also used to treat severe eczema, especially in children, and is sold to private citizens in Germany in tiny amounts (five to ten grams) when a valid prescription is presented. Although larger amounts are sold only to hospitals, the men had managed to accumulate more than thirty kilograms of the substance''-gained, as the German investigators later discovered, through an elaborate and very successful scam. Dressed in business suits bought for this purpose, the men visited forty-eight different pharmacies near large German airports.19 They would tell the pharmacists that they were about to board their flights for third world countries, where they worked in pediatric hospitals. After gaining their listeners' sympathy, they would ask for help, saying that they needed potassium permanganate for the children but lacked the time to get a prescription. The pharmacists, convinced they were doing a good deed, usually sold the substance to the men, never dreaming that they were actually helping terrorists to build bombs. Nor did the scam end with this story: the investigators found that usually the cell members used false credit cards to pay.20
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