CNN : Recruits reveal al Qaeda's sprawling web

Recruits reveal al Qaeda's sprawling web

* Interviews with accused al Qaeda members reveal how it is adapting
* Accounts show it's suffering from U.S. attacks; possible funding problems
* Now running smaller operations along Pakistan border, still planning major attacks

By CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson and Paul Cruickshank | July 31, 2009

Editor's note: This story is based on interrogation reports that form part of the prosecution case in the forthcoming trial of six Belgian citizens charged with participation in a terrorist group. Versions of those documents were obtained by CNN from the defense attorney of one of those suspects. The statement by Bryant Vinas was compiled from an interview he gave Belgian prosecutors in March 2009 in New York, and was confirmed by U.S. prosecutors as authentic. The statement by Walid Othmani was given to French investigators, and was authenticated by Belgian prosecutors.

(CNN) -- When Bryant Neal Vinas spoke at length with Belgian prosecutors last March, he provided a fascinating and sometimes frightening insight into al Qaeda's training -- and its agenda.

Vinas is a young American who was arrested in Pakistan late in 2008 after allegedly training with al Qaeda in the Afghan/Pakistan border area.

He was repatriated to the United States and in January pled guilty to charges of conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals, providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, and receiving military-type training from a foreign terrorist organization.

In notes made by FBI agents of interviews with Vinas, he admits he went to Pakistan to join al Qaeda and kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan. But the terror group appeared to have other ideas for him. He volunteered to become a suicide bomber but was dissuaded at every turn. On Thanksgiving weekend last year, shortly after his arrest, much of the New York mass transit system was put on high alert, including Penn Station. According to the Belgian prosecutor's document, Vinas had told al Qaeda's command everything he knew about the system.

Vinas's account of his time in al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan is a playbook of how the terror group survived after 9/11 and continues to operate in the remote hills of Pakistan.

Al Qaeda has shown remarkable adaptability and remains as committed as ever to launching attacks in the West, according to the descriptions of several alleged Western recruits, including Vinas, who spent time together in al Qaeda camps in the region between September 2007 and December 2008.

In their interrogations, the recruits revealed al Qaeda's continued determination to attack mass transport systems in the West and training programs for new forms of attack, including breaking into residences to carry out targeted assassinations.

The documents provide an inside view of al Qaeda's organizational structures, training programs, and the protective measures the terrorist organization has taken against increasingly effective U.S. missile strikes.

And they arguably shed more light on the state of al Qaeda than any previously released into the public domain.

Intelligence officials say intensified U.S. Predator drone strikes have degraded al Qaeda's capabilities since the end of last year, but the accounts suggest that because of the decentralization of its organization and close ties with the Pakistani Taliban, the terrorist network will be difficult to dislodge from Pakistan's tribal areas.

Despite not being able to operate training camps on anything like the scale they did in Afghanistan, the accounts suggest that al Qaeda has been able to sustain many of its training operations by confining them to small dwellings in the remote mountains of Waziristan. Inside these dwellings bomb-making training appears to have been emphasized, some of it very sophisticated.

An American joins al Qaeda

On September 10, 2007, almost exactly six years after al Qaeda attacked New York, Vinas, a 24-year-old Queens-born American citizen boarded a flight from the city en route to Lahore, in eastern Pakistan, determined to fight jihad in neighboring Afghanistan.

Brought up a Catholic by his Latin American immigrant parents, who divorced when he was young, Vinas tried to join the U.S. army in 2002 but dropped out after just a few weeks.

In 2004 -- for reasons which are still unclear -- he converted to Islam and started frequenting a mosque in Long Island near where he lived with his father. Over the next three years he became radicalized, U.S. officials have stated, in no small part because of his exposure to pro-al Qaeda Web sites.

A former U.S. government official told CNN that youths influenced by the ideas of the British pro-al Qaeda extremist group Al Muhajiroun were known to have hung out in the vicinity of the mosque at the same time as Vinas.

The former official told CNN that they were a splinter group of the Al Muhajiroun followers who used to hang out in the New York/Long Island area in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Al Muhajiroun's American members, the former official stated, included Syed Hashmi, a Brooklyn college graduate who traveled to Pakistan in 2003 and now awaits trial on charges of providing material support to the terrorist network. He has pled not guilty.

Another who belonged to Al Muhajiroun was Mohammed Junaid Babar, a trainee Queens taxi driver, who met two of the July 7, 2005 London bombers in Pakistan and who in 2004 pled guilty to providing material support to terrorists in Pakistan. Al Muhajiroun was formally disbanded in October 2004 but still operates, CNN has discovered, under a variety of guises.

Anjem Choudhary, the former deputy leader of Al Muhajiroun, told CNN Monday that New York was one of the organization's main hubs before 2004. He says dozens of followers from the New York area still regularly tune into online sermons put together by the group's founder Omar Bakri Mohammed in Tripoli, Lebanon, where he has been living since being banned from the UK after the 2005 London bombings.

Choudhary stated that he and Bakri were still loosely affiliated with The Islamic Thinkers Society, a New York based organization, which says the peaceful restoration of the Islamic Caliphate is one of its objectives.

A March 5, 2009 posting on the homepage of its Web site states that Bakri Mohammed is "a man who has inspired thousands across the world to rise for Islam." The Islamic Thinkers Society exists legally in the United States and says it is committed solely to the political and intellectual struggle for Islam.

When Vinas arrived in Lahore he had little idea about how he was going to gain access to the fighting in Afghanistan, according to his own account. But a few days after he arrived he sought help from a New York friend whom he knew moved in militant circles.

One introduction led to another and eventually Vinas met a Jihadist commander about to return to Afghanistan. Identified in legal documents as S.S., their commander agreed to let him join his group. CNN has learned from a source briefed on the case that the initials S.S. stand for a man who goes by the name of Shah Saab, and is believed to be somewhere in Pakistan's tribal areas.

At the end of September Vinas was whisked in the commander's car into Pakistan's tribal areas and then across the border into Afghanistan to join up with a small band of fighters targeting an American base. The raid however was called off at the last minute because of American aircraft circling above.

His quick introduction to the fighting appears to have been unusual. Vinas stated it was standard for fighters to undergo military training before being selected for such missions.

It is possible he persuaded his handlers that his brief stint as a U.S. army recruit justified him being fast-tracked; or perhaps the jihadist group just needed more fighters.

On his return to Mohmand, a district in Pakistan's tribal areas, Vinas was asked by one of the fighters if he wanted to become a suicide bomber. Vinas, according to his own account, accepted and was sent to Peshawar, Pakistan, for more instruction.

But his handlers there judged that he had not received enough religious instruction to launch such an attack. Perhaps it was dawning on them just how valuable an American recruit might one day be.

Vinas stated that at this point he traveled back to a village in Waziristan where he spent time with a number of al Qaeda members, including a number of Saudis and Yemenis.

In March 2008 he successfully persuaded one of them, a Yemeni he identified as Soufran, to recommend him for formal membership in the terrorist group. Only Soufran's initials appeared in the legal document but CNN obtained his name from a source briefed on the case. His current whereabouts are unknown.

According to Vinas, al Qaeda recruits were asked to fill out forms with personal information and hand over their passports when they joined the organization, but were not required to sign a contract or take part in a ceremony to become a member of al Qaeda.

The Belgian-French group

Around this time, Vinas says in his interrogation, he came across several Belgian and French militants who had traveled to Pakistan's tribal areas at the beginning of the year, also intent on fighting in Afghanistan.

The group's members -- four Belgians and two French citizens, all of North African descent -- were recruited, Belgian police say, by Malika el Aroud and Moez Garsallaoui, a married couple who had long enjoyed a notorious reputation among European counter-terrorism services.

El Aroud's previous husband, Abdessattar Dahmane, had assassinated Ahmed Shah Massoud, the head of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, in a suicide bombing attack ordered by Osama bin Laden two days before 9/11.

When CNN interviewed the couple in 2006, El Aroud showed how she administered a pro-al Qaeda Web forum called Minbar SOS, which included pro-al Qaeda postings and propaganda videos.

Belgian investigators say the Web site played an important role in the radicalization of members of the French-Belgian group.

One of them was a 25-year-old Frenchman, Walid Othmani. He was arrested on his return to France from Pakistan. Belgian prosecutors told CNN Othmani has been charged in France with participation in a criminal conspiracy with the aim of preparing a terrorist act.

"I don't think I would have left to fight Jihad without viewing these videos [on Minbar] ... it made me aware that the European media were hiding things about the situation in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan," Othmani told French interrogators, according to Belgian legal documents obtained by CNN.

According to Belgian counter-terrorism officials, Garsallaoui, a Tunisian citizen, recruited some of those who traveled to Pakistan in person in Brussels, but relied on the Internet to recruit others.

The six recruits met Garsallaoui in Istanbul in December 2007. With Garsallaoui setting off first, they followed him towards Pakistan, paying off a series of people-smugglers between Turkey, Iran and Pakistan, to gain entry to al Qaeda's heartlands in the mountains of Waziristan.

Vinas says he met with at least three members of this group in Waziristan: its leader Moez Garsallaoui, Hamza el Alami, and Hicham Bouhali Zrioul, a Belgian-Moroccan who once worked as a taxi driver in Brussels. All three are believed by Belgian intelligence officials to be at large in the mountainous area along the Pakistan/Afghan border.

Three other members -- Hicham Beyayo, Ali El Ghanouti and Said Harrizi -- were arrested when they returned to Belgium and have been charged with participation in a terrorist group. They don't dispute they went to fight Jihad; they do deny participating in a terrorist group.

Al Qaeda's new training facilities

Between March and July 2008 Vinas stated that he attended three al Qaeda training courses, which focused on weapons, explosives, and rocket-based or propelled weaponry.

During these classes, attended by 10-20 recruits, Vinas was taught how to handle a large variety of weapons and explosives, some of them of military grade sophistication, according to his account.

Vinas stated he became familiar with seeing, smelling and touching different explosives such as TNT, as well as plastic explosives such as RDX, and Semtex, C3 and C4 -- the explosive U.S. authorities have stated was used in al Qaeda's attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Vinas also learned how to make vests for suicide bombers.

Vinas stated that he was also instructed how to prepare and place fuses, how to test batteries, how to use voltmeters and how to build circuitry for a bomb. According to his account, al Qaeda also offered a wide variety of other courses including electronics, sniper, and poisons training.

Instruction in the actual construction of bombs, he stated, was offered to al Qaeda recruits who had become more advanced in their training.

Vinas' training during this period was very similar to the training described by members of the French-Belgian group. Othmani, the French recruit, stated that the group were given explosives training and taught how to fire rocket launchers and RPGs.

Like Vinas, the group had been required to sign forms before their training. Othmani stated that his group was required to pledge absolute obedience to their handlers and indicate whether they wanted to become suicide bombers.

Othmani provided interesting new details about the training facilities being used by al Qaeda in the tribal areas.

His group trained in a small mountain shack, a far cry from the large camps al Qaeda had run in Taliban-era Afghanistan, when it had been able to operate with little danger of being targeted by military strikes.

However the wide number of training courses described by both Vinas and Othmani suggest that al Qaeda has been able to adapt well to the new security environment. By operating a larger number of smaller facilities, al Qaeda would also appear to have increased its resilience to attack.

While the classrooms are safer from drone attacks than the pre-9/11 sessions on the mountainsides the content seems to have changed to match new targeting plans.

Suicide vest and IED construction show how the curriculum is being modified for today's combat with U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Making and handling explosives, as well as fuse construction, show the sessions may also be geared for killing in Europe and the United States.

These are the very skills the July 7, 2005 London bombers Shehzad Tanweer and Mohammed Siddique came to Pakistan to learn. Al Qaeda, it would seem, may still want to pull off spectacular attacks in Europe or the United States.

Vinas says he took a course in propelled weaponry with Zrioul, the former Brussels taxi driver, whom he first met in March 2008, and formed a friendship with.

Vinas stated that when they completed their training, al Qaeda instructors did a written evaluation of their performance. Vinas had been judged qualified to participate in missile attacks against U.S. and NATO bases in Afghanistan, according to his account.

That suggests al Qaeda has maintained its capacity for administration and paperwork even in a harsher security environment.

When their training finished in the summer of 2008, Vinas and Zrioul lived in the same house in the mountains of Waziristan. Zrioul managed to acquire a computer which he rigged up to watch Jihadist videos.

According to Othmani, al Qaeda fighters numbered between 300-500 in Pakistan's Tribal Areas -- spread out in groups of 10. Such decentralization was a function of the growing deadliness of U.S. military strikes using Predator drones.

Hicham Beyayo, one of the Belgian Jihadist volunteers, said his group moved around a lot because such strikes were known to be "very effective," his lawyer, Christophe Marchand told CNN.

The loss of an increasing number of operatives, stated Othmani, prompted an order from al Qaeda's top command for fighters to remain inside as much as possible. In order to keep in touch jihadists operated a courier service across the region according to the Frenchman's testimony.

The decentralization of al Qaeda's structures appear to have created some costs for recruits.

Two members of the Belgian-French group describe feeling increasingly cut off, bored, and fed up with the primitive living conditions in their mountain shacks.

They often did not seem to know what their next orders would be or where their handlers would take them. They also described being deeply frustrated at being repeatedly given false promises that they would be able to fight in Afghanistan.

Othmani also described the group's frustration at having to pay for their own weapons and training -- at a cost of €1,300 (about $1,800) -- which if true might lend credence to reports that al Qaeda has come under financial strain. Vinas, for his part, made no mention of having to make payments to his handlers.

New attack plans

During a mountain walk with Zrioul one day, Vinas says he was told about a new course being taught by al Qaeda called "international operations" set up by the organization's head of international operations whom Vinas later identified as Abu Hafith.

Hafith, he stated, was responsible for recruitment and direction of terrorist cells, and attacks outside Pakistan and Afghanistan. Hafith was identified by his initials in the legal document but CNN obtained his name from a source briefed on the case. He is believed to be still at large in the Pakistan-Afghan border area.

Vinas was told that the training course Hafith set up focused on kidnapping and assassination, including instruction on the use of silencers and how to break into and enter a property.

The revelations raise the possibility that al Qaeda was developing a program of targeted assassinations. Though al Qaeda has carried out some assassinations in the past, most of its attacks in the West have not targeted any particular individuals but crowded areas, such as mass transport.

Vinas stated that Zrioul also discussed with him an attack on the Brussels metro, telling him it was a soft target because it was poorly protected. He said Zrioul also raised the possibility of launching an attack on a European football stadium.

A senior Belgian intelligence official told CNN that Belgian security services only learned about these conversations in March 2009 after Vinas met with Belgian prosecutors in New York. Although concerned, Belgium's intelligence service concluded that no concrete plot had likely existed, said the official.

Such conversations illustrate the terror network's continued desire to inflict mass casualties. Vinas stated that he himself gave detailed briefings to al Qaeda chiefs in Waziristan in September 2008 about how the Long Island Commuter Rail service worked, according to a federal indictment earlier this month.

Vinas' life as an al Qaeda fighter saw him rotate between fighting behind enemy lines in Afghanistan, training in remote mountain dwellings in the tribal areas, and spending downtime in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, movements which indicate that al Qaeda has recently found it possible to operate in a large swath of territory across Pakistan's North-west.

Vinas not only had a toe amputated in Peshawar, but also went there to look for a wife. None of this would have happened without al Qaeda's blessing. Although he was ultimately arrested in Peshawar, al Qaeda would not have signed off on his visits unless they'd felt confident he'd be safe there.

Meetings with top al Qaeda leaders

During his travels Vinas met some of al Qaeda's top leaders, leaders he was able to identify to U.S. authorities after his capture. According to U.S. investigators, quoted by the Los Angeles Times, Vinas says he met with Abu Yayha al Libi, one of al Qaeda's principal spokesmen and Rashid Rauf, the British al Qaeda operative suspected of coordinating a plot against transatlantic aviation in August 2006. Rauf, who was arrested that August in Pakistan, escaped from custody in December 2007 but is believed to have been killed in a Predator strike in North Waziristan in November 2008.

Vinas says he also met with an individual by the name of Abdullah Saeed, whom he says replaced Abu Leith al Libbi as al Qaeda's military chief in Afghanistan and Pakistan in January 2008. A former jihadist told CNN that Saeed is almost certainly Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid, an Egyptian also known as Sheikh Saeed. In June Al-Yazid released an audio recording complaining of a lack of funds for the fighting in Afghanistan.

Raids into Afghanistan

Vinas stated that he met with Saeed in the late summer of 2008 in Waziristan, and al Qaeda's military chief personally instructed him to join a group of fighters targeting American bases from the tribal areas of Pakistan. This January, Vinas pleaded guilty to having targeted an American base in September 2008.

That attack however appears to have been a failure. Creeping up towards the American forward operating base Vinas and other al Qaeda fighters' first attempt to fire on the base was botched by radio problems. The second rocket attack fell short of the base, according to Vinas' account.

Attacks by his associates however may have been more deadly. In June 2008 Moez Garsallaoui, the French-Belgian group leader, wrote an email to his wife in Belgium, intercepted by U.S. counter-terrorism agencies, in which he claimed to have killed several Americans in Afghanistan, according to Belgian legal documents.

And Walid Othmani said that in July 2008 Garsallaoui told him he had killed Americans by firing rockets at an American combat outpost from Pakistan, according to the documents. As he was not specific about the date, CNN has not been able to substantiate the claim.

Both Vinas and Othmani described close ties between al Qaeda and Taliban elements in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

The relationship between the two groups was so close, Vinas stated, that members of al Qaeda were also sometimes simultaneously members of the Taliban.

Garsallaoui appears to be one such recruit. In a message he posted on Minbar SOS on May 11, 2009, discovered by CNN, he described undertaking raids with "brother Taliban" from the tribal areas of Pakistan against targets in Afghanistan. "Nothing has given me greater pleasure than encountering [American] soldiers during long days on the battlefield," he said.

A continued threat to the West.

Between late July and early December of 2008 four members of the Belgian-French group -- Beyayo, El Ghanouti, Harrizi and Othmani -- returned to Europe.

On December 11 Belgian counter-terrorism police launched one of the largest operations in the country's history, arresting six people including Garsallaoui's wife Malika el Aroud and charging them with participation in a terrorist group.

According to Belgian counter-terrorism sources, the trigger for the Brussels arrests was an intercepted e-mail sent by one of the alleged recruits, Beyayo, in early December shortly after he returned to Belgium.

The e-mail allegedly suggested Beyayo had been given the green light to launch an attack in Belgium.

However no explosives were recovered by Belgian police, and some terrorism analysts are skeptical that an attack was imminent.

Beyayo's lawyer, Christophe Marchand, told CNN in February that the e-mail was merely "tough talk" to impress an ex-girlfriend. Belgian authorities continue to insist that the alleged cell was a potential national security threat.

Vinas, for his part, was arrested by Pakistani police in Peshawar in November 2008 and transferred into American custody.

Of those still thought to be at large, Garsallaoui issued this threat to Belgium authorities on his wife's Web site on May 11, 2009: "If you thought that you could pressure me to slow down through the arrest of my wife, you were wrong. It won't stop me fulfilling my objectives... the place of my wife in my heart and the heart of all the mujahedeen is greater than ever... Surprises are sure to be in store for you in the days ahead. Those who laugh last, laugh more."

Such threats will have caused concern because of Garsallaoui's wide connections in European militant circles. Two of his Brussels associates, Bassam Ayachi, 62, and Raphael Gendron 33, are in custody in Italy, charged with being leaders of a logistical support team for al Qaeda. They have denied the charges.

The duo, who were detained in the port city of Bari in November for trying to illegally smuggle Middle Easterners into the country, had allegedly talked to each other in their detention center about what sounded like a scheme to attack Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, a conversation bugged by Italian police. French officials have said they were never aware of a concrete plot to attack the airport.

According to a senior Belgian intelligence official, Garsallaoui, his wife El Aroud, and several others who traveled to Pakistan were all connected through the Centre Islamique Belge, an organization Belgian authorities say espouses hardline Salafist and pro-al Qaeda views.

In past interviews the organization's founder Bassam Ayachi has said it concentrates on pastoral care for Muslims in Brussels and did not promote pro-al Qaeda views.

Members of the Brussels-based group are believed to have received terrorist training in other countries besides Pakistan.

In late May, several days before U.S. President Barack Obama traveled to Cairo to give a major speech, several Belgian citizens were arrested in Egypt and accused of being members of a terrorist cell affiliated with al Qaeda.

A senior Belgian counter-terrorism official told CNN that two Belgians now in Egyptian custody were known associates of Garsallaoui at the Centre Islamique Belge and are believed to have received military training with an ultra-extremist Palestinian group in Gaza.

"Anybody who gets such training is obviously a potential danger if they return to Europe," said the official.

The insider accounts of al Qaeda operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan make clear the terrorist organization's continued determination to attack the West.

While the potential pool of recruits may have shrunk significantly because of a backlash against al Qaeda in Muslim communities around the world -- due to its targeting of civilians and the fact that so many of its victims have been Muslim -- the insider accounts suggest that there are still a significant number of hardcore extremists in the West and in Muslim countries -- who are willing to join bin Laden's terrorist outfit.

The insider descriptions provided by Vinas and Othmani indicate that these violent extremists are as motivated as any of their predecessors.

Their accounts also indicate that the al Qaeda network has demonstrated a remarkable ability to adapt its operations to a much harsher security environment.

But Vinas and Othmani's accounts also suggest that al Qaeda may be having leadership problems.

While able to find fresh recruits to replace those killed and arrested it seems to have more difficulty replacing senior military trainers and other key operational figures.

A former U.S. government official, specializing in counter-terrorism, commented that the insider accounts suggest the same people are leading training as a decade ago.

The only difference, there are fewer of them. Perhaps those killed or captured along the Afghan/Pakistan border are not being replaced.

Recent reports that al Qaeda is moving some operatives out of the tribal areas of Pakistan towards safer placements in Pakistani cities, or to Jihadist fronts in other countries such as Yemen and Somalia, may indicate that the pressure from U.S. missile strikes is starting to show.

But the decentralization of al Qaeda's training and their ever closer ties with local Pakistani Taliban, mean it remains extremely difficult to eliminate from the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Above all the accounts from Vinas and others show that al Qaeda's training structures have but one goal, another 9/11.

Boston Globe : Antiterror sweep nets 14 in Belgium

Antiterror sweep nets 14 in Belgium

By Sebastian Rotella | Los Angeles Times | December 12, 2008

MADRID - In a major antiterrorism sweep carried out as European leaders arrived in Brussels for a summit, Belgian police yesterday arrested 14 suspects allegedly linked to Al Qaeda, including one who police said might have been close to launching a suicide attack.

The arrests were made by 242 officers who executed 16 searches in Brussels and Liege, Belgium, while French police arrested two more suspects tied to the group, antiterrorism officials said.

The raids came after a yearlong investigation in which police tracked militants, mainly Belgians and French of North African origin, who traveled to Al Qaeda hideouts in Pakistan and Afghanistan, fought against Western troops and then returned to Europe, investigators said.

Authorities said they grew alarmed during the past week when surveillance showed that a key suspect returned from South Asia last year and began making what police suspected were preparations for a suicide attack.

Investigators feared an attack might target the 27 leaders of the European Union who began a two-day summit in Brussels yesterday.

"We don't know where this suicide attack was envisioned," chief federal prosecutor Johan Delmulle said at a news conference.

"It could concern an operation in Pakistan [or] Afghanistan, but it could not be totally ruled out that Belgium or Europe [was] a target."

The investigation featured one of the largest recent deployments of antiterrorism investigators and wiretaps in Belgium.

The allegations resemble a pattern detected in Britain and other European countries: Militants travel to the Afghan-Pakistani border zone and return to target their homelands, often directed from afar by Al Qaeda masterminds.

© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.

Al Jazeera : Belgium charges 'terror' suspects

Belgium charges 'terror' suspects

Police carried out the raids hours before the start of a European Union summit [AFP]

December 12, 2008

The Belgian authorities have charged six people for suspected membership of al-Qaeda, including a woman whose husband was involved in the assassination of an Afghan commander opposed to the Taliban.

Lieve Pellens, a spokeswoman from the federal prosecutor's office, said the six constituted the hard core of a "terrorist" group and included one person who was allegedly plotting a suicide attack.

The suspects had been arrested in police raids on Thursday, hours before the start of a European Union summit of 27 government leaders in the Belgian capital.

Eight other suspects had been picked up, but a judge decided that there was insufficient evidence to hold them.

Belgian nationals

All suspects under arrest are Belgian, and include Moroccan-born Malika El Aroud, whose first husband died in a 2001 suicide attack in Afghanistan that killed Ahmed Shah Massoud, who had been fighting against the Taliban.

Most of the other suspects are in their 20s or early 30s and only one of those was known from other police investigations, Pellens said.

El Aroud was detained in a raid in December last year, but was released because of insufficient evidence.

Pellens said that despite a year-long investigation, it remained unclear whether any attack was imminent.

Nearly 250 police officers raided 16 locations in Brussels and one in the eastern city of Liege early on Thursday, confiscating computers, data storage equipment and a pistol.

Police said they considered that they had to move at that point because it was too risky to have the suspects at large when the EU summit opened.

Pellens said it was unlikely, though, that the suspects would have picked such a high-security target.

She said a possible attack might have been planned in Iraq, Pakistan or a European location.

Johan Delmulle, a federal prosecutor, said one of the suspects had recently "said goodbye to his loved ones because he could go to paradise with a clear conscience".

Investigators waited a year before moving in, opting to detain the entire alleged cell rather than a single part.

The investigation centred on people linked to Nizar Trabelsi, a 37-year-old Tunisian sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2003 for planning to drive a car bomb into the cafeteria of a Belgian air base where about 100 American military personnel were stationed.

Security services in several European nations suspect Trabelsi, who trained with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, had links with groups in Britain, France and elsewhere in Europe.

UPI : Belgians arrest widow of Massoud assassin

Belgians arrest widow of Massoud assassin

December 11, 2008

BRUSSELS, Dec. 11 (UPI) -- The widow of one of the men who assassinated Afghan leader Ahmed Shah Massoud was one of 14 people arrested Thursday in Belgium, officials said.

Investigators described Malika el-Aroud as "an al-Qaida living legend," CNN reported.

Massoud, known as "the lion of the Panshir," was a leader in the fight against the Soviet Union and later against the Taliban. He was killed two days before the terrorist attacks of 2001 by two men posting as journalists.

Belgian investigators said they believed Malika el-Aroud was planning to travel to Afghanistan to support the Taliban insurgency.

Aroud had been open about her support of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.

"Most Muslims love Osama. It was he who helped the oppressed. It was he who stood up against the biggest enemy in the world, the United States. We love him for that," she told CNN then in a 2006 interview."It's the pinnacle in Islam to be the widow of a martyr. For a woman it's extraordinary."

Meanwhile, raids at 16 addresses in Brussels and and one in Liege came a few hours before the start of a European Union summit in Brussels, the BBC reported.

Johan Delmulle, the federal prosecutor, said one of the targets had been given permission for a suicide operation, although he said investigators were unsure whether the attack was planned for Europe, Afghanistan or Pakistan.

"He had said goodbye to his loved ones, because he wanted to enter paradise with a clear conscience," Delmulle added.

© 2008 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

FOX : Al Qaeda Arrests in Belgium: Victory for the Good Guys

Al Qaeda Arrests in Belgium: Victory for the Good Guys

By Walid Phares | Terror Analyst/FOX News Contributor | December 11, 2008

Agence France Presse and the Associated Press are reporting that Belgian authorities have arrested 14 suspected Al Qaeda terrorists including a jihadi who was allegedly planning a suicide attack. Sixteen raids were executed by 242 police officers in Brussels and in the eastern city of Liege. Security and judicial sources described the arrests as the “most important anti-terrorism operation in Belgium.” Citing the Federal prosecutor’s office, AFP reported that the move was targeting “a Belgian Islamist group involved in training as well as fighting on the Pakistan-Afghan border in cooperation with important figures in Al Qaeda.”

Expanding on the arrests campaign, Le Parisien wrote that since 2007 four Belgians and individuals from other nationalities joined a middleman by the name “M.G” in Pakistan (to undertake jihadist activities). A few months ago, two of the men came back to Belgium and were put under surveillance. A third man joined them on December 4. The initial investigation began last year based on information related to a plot to liberate Tunisian Nizar Trabulsi, an Al Qaeda cadre who is currentlly serving 10 years for preparing an attack against a Belgian base.

Sources added that a woman by the name of Malika al Aroud “has played an important role in the investigation.” Al Aroud was married to the assassin of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the anti-Taliban commander in September 2001. Her second husband is a member of the arrested group.

The Nouvel Observateur wrote that the current investigation which was opened in December 2007 “may have prevented an attack in Brussels.” Based on reports in France Info, Le Figaro and other specialized sources, the most likely target of the Al Qaeda network could have been European institutions in Brussels. It should be noted that the arrests were made on the eve of an important European economic summit scheduled to take place in Brussels.

What should we learn from this preemptive strike in Belgium aimed at Al Qaeda’s European network? Based on the scope of the operation, its precision and its timing and my own knowledge gleaned from four years of meetings with European counterterrorism officials as well Belgian national security officials, the short answer is we can learn a lot from this December 11 strike against terror:

1) Belgian authorities have demonstrated significant success by waging an all out investigation against Al Qaeda for over a year without being infiltrated. This accomplishment alone is a victory at a time when jihadists are trying to penetrate Western security systems. Knowing the enemy, its ideology and its tactics are paramount elements for gradual victories. In this case the Belgian security forces and judicial authorities got it right. For example, Glen Audenaert, the director of the Federal Belgian Police, as well as his counterterrorism deputies have educated themselves on the nature of the beast they are dealing with inside this small European democracy. They were aware of the ideological nature of the group and thus were equipped to pursue it. This is a lesson for other democracies in general and the U.S. in particular: Know your enemy, learn about its ideology and make sure your institutions aren’t penetrated.

2) The arrests and just released reports about them reveals the link between European-based cells and overseas Al Qaeda battlefields. The detained Al Qaeda members have traveled back and forth to Pakistan. One of their members was killed as he assassinated a major anti-Taliban leader in 2001. His wife was also involved with the group and remarried a member of the network. — Female jihadists have been indoctrinated in Belgium for suicide operations in the Middle East, including a convert married to a jihadist and the list goes on. There is a highway between the “jihad lands” in the region and the “jihad bases” in the West, including in Belgium. They also exist between the UK, France, Germany and Spain. This should only call for increased international cooperation against a “world jihadi network.”

3) The issue isn’t local. This is yet another example that demonstrates that while many assert that the root causes for terrorism are found in suburban disenfranchisement, in this case Brussels, revelations from the dismantled network prove otherwise. The jihadists “cause” is not the socio-economic situation in Brussels. They most likely were aiming at the Place Luxembourg in order to crumble the political will of the European Parliament. Their aim was not to send a message on social security or healthcare. They were targeting Greens, socialists and liberals as well as conservatives; they had marked democracy as a whole, not one of democracy’s debates.

4) Last but not least, this episode should remind strategists that the campaign against jihadism is much bigger than the wars in Iraq or in Afghanistan. Like India, Belgium was opposed to the invasion of Iraq and isn’t a main partner in Afghanistan. Yet it was and remains a target for the combat Salafists. This is further evidence that the jihadi threat is truly global and that the response must also be global. Today the Belgians have scored a daring victory for the international community.

Dr. Walid Phares is a visiting scholar at the European Foundation for Democracy and the Director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He is the author of “The Confrontation: Winning the War against Future Jihad.”

The Sun : Al-Qaeda plot to blow up summit

Al-Qaeda plot to blow up summit

By GEORGE PASCOE-WATSON, Political Editor, and SIMON HUGHES, Chief Investigative Reporter | December 12, 2008

AN al-Qaeda suicide plot was foiled last night as Gordon Brown arrived for an international summit.

The PM jetted into Brussels as 14 terror suspects held in dramatic swoops across the Belgian capital were grilled.

Just hours earlier Mr Brown had kept his cool as the terror threat unfolded — casually attempting some fancy footwork with Strictly Come Dancing’s Lisa Snowdon.

The PM — who was kept up to speed with the arrests in Brussels — then headed to catch his plane.

Suicide bombers were said to have been poised to make the “ultimate sacrifice” as he joined 26 fellow EU leaders for talks on the credit crunch, climate change and the stalled Lisbon treaty.

But the plotters were unaware their terror cell was being monitored by security services.

Anti-terror cops swooped after learning the extremists had been given the “green light” to activate their plot.

Almost 250 officers were involved in 16 raids across Brussels and one in the eastern city of Liege.

Federal prosecutor John Delmulle revealed one terrorist had “said goodbye to his loved ones because he wanted to enter paradise with a clear conscience.”

He added: “There was no other choice than to intervene.”

Among those held was the Moroccan widow of a suicide bomber.

She and the other suspects were feared to be linked to convicted al-Qaeda terrorist Nizar Trabelsi — an ex-Tunisian soccer star.

Trabelsi, 37, is behind bars over a plot to car bomb a Belgian airbase where US soldiers are stationed.

He is known to have had past contacts with Brit shoe bomb terrorists Richard Reid and Saajid Badat. Police yesterday seized computers and a pistol.

Mr Brown’s 9.30am twirl with Capital FM beauty Lisa, 37, came as he opened the new Global Radio HQ in London’s Leicester Square.

One wag joked as beaming Mr Brown mistakenly adopted a WOMAN partner’s dance stance: “He was even worse than John Sergeant.”

g.pascoe-watson@the-sun.co.uk

Telegraph : Belgian police 'thwart imminent al-Qaeda attack'

Belgian police 'thwart imminent al-Qaeda attack'

Belgian police say they have thwarted an imminent al-Qaeda suicide bomb attack as Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other European Union leaders arrived for a summit in Brussels.

By Bruno Waterfield | December 12, 2008

The arrival of EU leaders and intelligence that a terror attack was on the way triggered a massive police operation, involving 242 officers, in overnight house raids in Brussels and Liege.

Police have arrested 14 suspects, three of whom, including the suspected suicide bomber, had just returned from Afghanistan, where it is thought they had received orders from al-Qaeda commanders.

Police have been closely watching the suspected suicide bomber, one of four Belgian citizens in the group.

He returned from Afghanistan on Dec 4 and three days later police received information he was planning to send a video message to close relations.

Johan Delmulle, Belgium's Federal Prosecutor, revealed that police had swooped because he had "received the green light to carry out an operation from which he was not expected to come back".

"He had said goodbye to his loved ones, because he wanted to enter paradise with a clear conscience," he said.

"This information, related to the fact that a European summit is proceeding at this time in Brussels obviously did not leave us any other choice than to intervene today."

Belgian police investigations have focused on an individual only identified as MG "located in Pakistan and in Afghanistan and important people in the al-Qaeda organisation".

Mr Delmulle described the raids as "the most important" anti-terrorism operation in Belgium following a one year investigation of a Belgian Islamist group involved in training as well as fighting on the Pakistan-Afghan border.

He said that police investigators believed the suspects had been working with and under the control of "important figures" in al-Qaeda.

"We don't know where the suicide attack was to take place," he said.

"It could have been an operation in Pakistan or Afghanistan, but it can't be ruled out that Belgium or Europe could have been the target."

EU leaders were informed of the raids via national embassies as Belgian police officers went into action.

Heads of state and government are currently arriving in Brussels for a two-day summit to discuss the economic crisis and climate change.

The British Embassy in Belgium said there was "no increased alert" following the operation.

CNN : Belgian police arrest 'al Qaeda legend'

Belgian police arrest 'al Qaeda legend'

* Three suspects have alleged al Qaeda links, Belgian report says
* One had been given the green light to carry out a terrorist act
* Police detained 14 people with links to a Belgian branch of al Qaeda

December 12, 2008

(CNN) -- Belgian police Thursday arrested a woman they called an "al Qaeda living legend" as part of an operation to thwart a terror attack being planned to coincide with an EU summit in Brussels, a Belgian police source told CNN.

Police seized 14 people, one of whom was planning to carry out a suicide attack in Belgium, the source said. They had contacts at the "highest levels of al Qaeda," the source said.

The police source said officers "had only 24 hours to act."

The leaders of the European Union's 27 member states are meeting in Brussels Thursday and Friday. It is not clear that the heads of state and government themselves were the target of the planned attack.

The federal prosecutor's office in Belgium identified one of the suspects as Malika El-Aroud, the widow of one of the men who assassinated a key opponent of the Taliban in Afghanistan two days before September 11, 2001.

El-Aroud's late husband was one of two men who killed Ahmed Shah Massoud, a leader of the Northern Alliance, in a suicide mission ordered by Osama Bin Laden.

Belgian police aimed to prevent El-Aroud, whom the police source called an "al-Qaeda living legend," from moving to Afghanistan to play a role in the fight against the coalition forces there, the source said.

She is thought to be a recruiter for the anti-Western network, rather than a fighter, the source said.

El-Aroud described the "love" she and her late husband felt for Osama bin Laden in a 2006 interview with CNN.

"Most Muslims love Osama. It was he who helped the oppressed. It was he who stood up against the biggest enemy in the world, the United States. We love him for that," she told CNN then.

Gazing into CNN's cameras she said, "It's the pinnacle in Islam to be the widow of a martyr. For a woman it's extraordinary."

"Most of those arrested" Thursday had Belgian passports, the police source said. All 14 are of Moroccan descent.

Three of the suspects had traveled to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region to participate in fighting or training camps, and were in contact with an unnamed suspect who had direct links to important al Qaeda figures, police said.

Two of those three returned to Belgium several months ago and started surveillance operations, and the third returned to Belgium a week ago, police said. Intelligence showed that third person was ready to carry out a suicide attack, police said.

Information showed the suspect who was to carry out the attack had received the green light to execute the operation, police said. Investigators noted the suspect had said goodbye to his family "because he wanted to go to paradise with a clear conscience," police said.

Authorities also found a video meant for the suspect's family, which police said was probably a farewell tape. They did not find any explosives, the police said in a statement.

The 14 suspects were arrested after police carried out 16 search warrants in Brussels and one in the western Belgian city of Liege. During those searches, police seized computer equipment and documents and the 14 people, including the three who traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan and 11 others suspected of having given them logistical and material support.

Police said their investigation has been under way intensively since the end of 2007.

--CNN's Andrew Carey and Paula Newton contributed to this report.

FOX : 14 Alleged Al Qaeda-Linked Extremists Detained in Belgium

14 Alleged Al Qaeda-Linked Extremists Detained in Belgium

December 11, 2008

BRUSSELS, Belgium — Police detained 14 suspected Al Qaeda-linked extremists on Thursday in raids in Brussels and eastern Belgium, including one militant who allegedly was plotting a suicide attack.

The terror sweep came only hours before a European Union summit brought together the heads of 27 countries in Brussels, though the site of the purported attack was unclear. Nearly 250 police officers raided 16 locations in the capital and one in the eastern city of Liege overnight, confiscating computers, data storage equipment and a pistol.

"There was no other choice than to intervene today," federal prosecutor Johan Delmulle told reporters. He said one suspect had recorded what looked like a martyrdom video, including a farewell message.

"It is clear that we have to take the terror threat seriously," Prime Minister Yves Leterme said as he entered the EU summit building.

Helicopters flew overhead and police guarded dozens of motorcades traveling to the summit cordon.

Delmulle said it was unclear where the attack had been planned to take place. The suspects had traveled to both Pakistan and Afghanistan, and it was possible the suicide bombing might have been drawn up there.

Thursday's raids were linked to a similar pre-Christmas sweep last year and Delmulle said the investigation showed at the time "a group of people were in Brussels with the task of committing an attack."

Investigators waited a year before moving in — opting to ferret out the entire cell rather a single part.

"It is now clear to all that we were dealing with a real risk," the justice and interior ministers said in a statement. "It is more than likely that an attack in Brussels has been prevented."

The investigation centered on people linked to Nizar Trabelsi, a 37-year-old Tunisian sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2003 for planning to a drive a car bomb into the cafeteria of a Belgian air base where about 100 American military personnel are stationed.

Security services in several European nations suspect Trabelsi, who trained with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, had links with extremists in Britain, France and elsewhere in Europe.

At the time of last year's arrests, authorities tightened security, warning of a heightened threat of attacks despite the arrests. Police stepped up patrols at Brussels airport, subway stations and the downtown Christmas market, which traditionally draws large crowds of holiday shoppers.

Leterme told reporters that the investigation justified the extreme security measures that were taken over the past year.

Authorities did not give a rundown of all the people under detention.

But Claude Moniquet, the president of the Brussels-based think tank European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center, and national media said they included Moroccan-born Malika El Aroud, a 48-year-old Belgian who writes online in French under the name of Oum Obeyda.

"She is extremely active as a Jihadist who motivates" terrorists, Moniquet said in an interview. "She was writing online as recently as three weeks ago. She is very dangerous."

He did not elaborate on how he knew she had been detained.

El Aroud, who moved to Belgium from Morocco when she was very young, began writing online after her first husband died in the suicide attack in Afghanistan that killed anti-Taliban warlord Ahmed Shah Massoud.

NYT : Terror Arrests Ahead of E.U. Summit

Terror Arrests Ahead of E.U. Summit

By STEVEN ERLANGER | December 11, 2008

PARIS — The Belgian police arrested 14 people suspected of having terrorist links in raids early Thursday, including a woman who writes jihadist screeds on the Internet and three men the Belgian authorities said had just returned from training camps along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

One had “said goodbye to his loved ones,” according to the Belgian federal prosecutor, Johan Delmulle, leading to fears of an imminent suicide attack.

Though the possible target was not clear, the arrests came on a day when European Union leaders began a two-day summit meeting in Brussels. “We don’t know where the suicide attack was to take place,” Mr. Delmulle said in Brussels. “It could have been an operation in Pakistan or Afghanistan, but it can’t be ruled out that Belgium or Europe could have been the target.”

An investigation into the suspects had been under way for a year. But given the summit meeting, which effectively marks the end of the French presidency of the European Union, Mr. Delmulle said the Belgian authorities felt they had “no choice but to take action” or to sharply raise security around the meeting.

The police carried out 16 raids in Brussels and one in Liège. Those arrested include Malika El Aroud, 49, who accompanied her husband to Afghanistan in 2001, where he trained in a camp run by Al Qaeda and then, days before the 9/11 attacks, helped kill the anti-Taliban resistance leader, Ahmed Shah Massoud. Ms. El Aroud, whose husband was eventually killed, writes online as “Oum Obeyda.”

Lieve Pellens, spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor’s office, described Ms. El Aroud as “a very important and serious lady” and said the prosecutor would argue that she was a decision maker and fund-raiser. The case, Ms. Pellens said, is about terrorism but also about “grand theft and robbery” to finance the group.

Ms. El Aroud’s current husband, Moez Garsalloui, was also believed to have been arrested on Thursday, according to Claude Moniquet, president of the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center in Brussels. But there was no official confirmation of his arrest.

Mr. Garsalloui was released in July 2007 after serving three weeks for promoting violence, and then disappeared. Belgian officials said he fled to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Mr. Moniquet believes that he was one of three suspects prosecutors identified as having recently returned from training camps along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Another such person was tracked to South Asia but has not yet returned, Belgian officials said.

A statement from the federal prosecutor’s office said that several suspects seemed to have ties to Al Qaeda, and that there were “direct contacts between the group around the suspect ‘M. G.’ ” — the initials of Mr. Garsalloui — “and important people of the organization Al Qaeda.”

Ms. Pellens said she believed that the cases against the 14 were strong, based on the long period of investigation, surveillance and wire-tapping carried out by a team of 80 police officers.

The investigation stemmed from a case a year ago, when the Belgians arrested about a dozen people after the United States provided information that an attack in Brussels was imminent, Ms. Pellens said. Mr. Moniquet said that the pressure from Washington was so strong that the arrests were made before good cases could be made against the suspects, and all were released the following day. The target was believed to have been an American installation.

Both cases center on those close to Nizar Trabelsi, a former soccer player and member of Al Qaeda, the federal prosecutor’s office said. He has been jailed in Belgium since 2001 for involvement in a plot to blow up a NATO installation there, and was also accused of being involved in a Qaeda plot to blow up the American Embassy in Paris.

To justify the arrests a year ago, Belgian authorities said the suspects then were involved in an effort to help Mr. Trabelsi break out of jail, even though evidence for such a plot was at least six months old at the time, Belgian officials said Thursday. The group arrested on Thursday also has ties to Mr. Trabelsi and his wife, Belgian officials said. Mr. Trabelsi is fighting an extradition request from Washington.

Mr. Moniquet, noting that some of those arrested on Thursday were returning from Afghanistan, said he assumed that the target was in Europe. And, he said, with President-elect Barack Obama pledging to put more troops in Afghanistan and pressing European countries to step up their presence there, “it’s a good moment for those in Afghanistan to make an attack.” Mr. Moniquet added, “Strategically speaking, it makes sense for them to hit Europe.”

Basil Katz contributed reporting.

TIME : Belgian Police Break Up Plot Linked to al-Qaeda

Belgian Police Break Up Plot Linked to al-Qaeda

By Bruce Crumley | December 11, 2008

A planned terror strike in Europe that Belgian police claim to have foiled on Thursday was linked to al-Qaeda, authorities say. Some of the 14 suspects arrested had recently traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan, officials said, and had planned to launch a suicide strike — although the target remains unknown. "When you have people returning from Afghanistan, as most of these people had, they're sufficiently hard-core that the question isn't whether they'll be undertaking plotting activity but when, and in what form," said a European counterterrorism official with knowledge of the case. "What's important for us to learn is, if the Taliban or their al-Qaeda allies decide to strike us today, who are they going to do it with: their old European networks, [or] via Pakistani groups, jihadist organizations in North Africa or maybe other operatives? The situation evolves constantly, and we've got to keep up with it."

Thursday's raids were carried out in Brussels and the eastern city of Liege, where police confiscated computers, hard drives and at least one gun. Though Belgian authorities say they have no firm idea of exactly how, when or where an attack was to have been carried out, they decided to move on the group after learning that one member had recorded a farewell video to his family. "We don't know who the suicide bomber was targeting, but we know he was ready to go," says Lieve Pellens, spokeswoman for the Belgian Public Prosecutor. "He had said his goodbyes."

The arrest of the network — which had been monitored by 80 police and antiterrorism officers working full-time since the start of the year, according to Pellens — came just hours before leaders of the European Union were set to open a two-day summit in the Belgian capital. That meeting doesn't appear to have been a target of a plot whose details authorities say remain hazy. Still, Belgian officials said the decision to seize the group had become urgent to prevent the designated suicide bomber from possibly launching an attack before police could discover the target and stop him.

Still, some experts wonder whether the arrests were premature, given the lack of information on the plot. "Could more evidence have been obtained? Might a full plot with targets and the weapons of attack have materialized if more time had been taken to just sit, watch and listen?" asked the European counterterrorism official. "Was everyone [in this network] under watch back from Afghanistan and [are they all] now under arrest? If not, that's a problem."

That question reflects the resurgence of Pakistan and Afghanistan as prime destinations for aspiring Europe-based jihadists in search of training. Following the ouster of the Taliban and the scattering of al-Qaeda from Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq became the theater of choice for the volunteer jihadist, like 38-year-old Belgian convert Muriel Degauque, who blew herself up in an attack on U.S. troops north of Baghdad in November 2005.

"Now we're seeing growing numbers of European extremists turning up in the Afghan-Pakistan region again — often aided by networks created specially to help them get there," confides a French intelligence official. "This isn't a return to the pre–Sept. 11 situation, but it's certainly the closest to it we've seen since the fall of the Taliban."

Some of those arrested in Belgium connect with earlier episodes of al-Qaeda violence. First among them is Malika El Aroud, a 48-year-old Belgian national whose Tunisian husband Abdessater Dahmane was one of two men recruited from Belgian extremist networks to assassinate Afghanistan's key anti-Taliban commander, Ahmed Shah Massoud, two days before 9/11. Since then, blogging under the pseudonym Oum Obeyda, El Aroud has been a fiery advocate for the jihadist cause, urging Muslim men and women to take up the fight.

Having become a conspicuous figure to which like-minded radicals tend to flock has made El Aroud of particular interest to investigators. In December she was among several people arrested, but eventually released, on suspicion that they were planning to break a convicted jihadist out of prison. If her visibility turns out to have aided Belgian cops in breaking up a jihadist plot, El Aroud's vocal radicalism may prompt future plotters to avoid her like the plague.

"She is extreme in her beliefs and her expression of them, which makes a lot of things she says and those who rush to echo them on radical websites somewhat transparent," says the European official, who declined to say whether such web communications were part of what led to Thursday's arrests. "This group she's been arrested with were real in their intent. The big question now is, Will we learn everything about it and its direction that we could have?"

— With reporting by Leo Cendrowicz / Brussels

Guardian : 14 al-Qaida suspects held as Europe's leaders gather in Brussels

14 al-Qaida suspects held as Europe's leaders gather in Brussels

Probable terrorist attack prevented, say ministers
'Martyrdom' video found but target unknown

Duncan Campbell and Richard Norton-Taylor | December 12, 2008

Belgian police detained 14 people alleged to have links to al-Qaida in Brussels yesterday as the EU summit got under way. One of those held had made a "martyrdom video", including a farewell message, according to Belgian authorities.

The arrests took place during a series of raids in Brussels and included suspects who had been under surveillance for more than a year and had previously travelled to Afghanistan and Pakistan. The police action came just hours before the heads of 27 countries assembled in Brussels for the summit, although there was no evidence that the meeting itself had been specifically targeted.

During the course of Wednesday night and yesterday morning, about 250 police officers raided 16 locations in the capital and one in Liège. Among items seized, according to police, were computers, data storage equipment and a pistol.

"There was no other choice than to intervene today," federal prosecutor Johan Delmulle told reporters. He said a "martyrdom" video had been found in which the suspect allegedly "said goodbye to his loved ones so as to be able to enter paradise with a clear conscience".

Delmulle said it was unclear where the attack had been planned to take place. He said it was possible that a suicide bombing plan might have been drawn up during visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan. It was not clear if any planned attack was aimed at Europe or elsewhere, he added.

Belgian politicians supported the police action. "It is now clear to all that we were dealing with a real risk," the justice and interior ministers said in a statement. "It is more than likely that an attack in Brussels has been prevented."

Yves Leterme, the prime minister, commended the police action. "It is clear that we have to take the terror threat seriously," he said before the first session of the summit.

No details of the nationalities of those held by police were given but it is understood that they included four Belgians.

The investigation is focusing on individuals linked to Nizar Trabelsi, a 37-year-old Tunisian former footballer sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2003 in Belgium for planning to a drive a car bomb into the cafeteria of the Kleine Brogel airbase, where about 100 American military personnel were stationed.

Almost exactly a year ago, Belgian police arrested 14 people alleged to be extremists planning to free Trabelsi. At the time, the government also claimed that it had information suggesting the "preparation of an attack". Trabelsi is also said to have had links with extremist groups in Britain and France.

British counter-terrorism officials said last night that they were working with Belgian and other European security services to try to establish whether the EU summit was the target. They said they were keeping an "open mind". There was no suggestion the target was a British one.

The summit went ahead yesterday under heavy security, with police helicopters flying overhead.

Claude Moniquet, the president of a Brussels-based thinktank, the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Centre, said that those detained included Moroccan-born Malika el-Aroud, a 48-year-old Belgian who writes online in French under the name of Oum Obeyda.

In an interview with the New York Times last May, she said: "It's not my role to set off bombs, that's ridiculous. I have a weapon. It's to write. That's my jihad. You can do many things with words. Writing is also a bomb."

Press TV : Suspects with al-Qaeda links arrested

Suspects with al-Qaeda links arrested

December 12, 2008

Belgian officials say that the police have arrested 14 people suspected of terrorist links, allegedly close to committing an act of terror.

The arrests made on Thursday took place as officials said the suspects were allegedly going to commit an al-Qaeda-style terrorist act.

A Belgian government statement said that the target remained unknown but added, "it is more than likely that an attack in Brussels has been prevented."

Following 16 overnight raids by police in Brussels and Liege, the suspects were taken into custody. This was just hours before EU leaders were to begin a two-day summit meeting in Brussels to debate an economic stimulus plan and environmental proposals, UPI reported.

One of the suspects had already 'said goodbye to his loved ones' in a farewell video, federal prosecutor Johan Delmulle told reporters. Another suspect, Malika el-Aroud, is the widow of one of the men who assassinated a key opponent of the Taliban in Afghanistan two days before Sept. 11, 2001, CNN reported.

Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme meanwhile told reporters as he arrived at the EU summit, "The very effective reaction of law-enforcement authorities shows that these security measures are really necessary."

SM/HAR