Terrorists Seen Turning to Campuses for Skills

LA Times ^ | April 13 2006 | Sebastian Rotella

[jmc1969]

The cellphone's trail led from bloodstained Fallouja to the engineering school here, a modern campus where researchers in white coats stroll past labs and the breeze rustles through trees in courtyards dotted with pine cones.

Two years ago French investigators, aided by U.S. intelligence, detected calls from Iraq to a central figure in a suspected extremist cell in Montpellier. French intelligence officials say the calls came from a militant leader in Fallouja involved in the grisly killing of four American military contractors by a mob on March 31, 2004, an incident that became an icon of the savage conflict in Iraq.

The suspected cell included a group of Moroccan students accused of studying electronics, computer technology and telecommunications in the service of a North African terrorist group allied with Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. The group is sending fighters to Iraq, developing alliances across North Africa and plotting attacks in Europe, investigators say.

The "responses suggest jihadists are able to draw on a wide range of highly skilled experts and that a significant number of Muslim scientists are prepared to help".

Extremist activity has grown at the University of Montpellier, where the approximately 1,100 Moroccan students are the biggest contingent of foreigners.

Officials say the case of the students, several of whom are under arrest, also illustrates a wider effort by terrorist networks to use universities and the Internet to replace former training camps in Afghanistan.

With Chraibi, a computer engineering major, allegedly in a lead role, the students plunged into the clandestine world of the Algeria-based Salafist Group for Call and Combat. At the urging of Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden, investigators say, the network has broadened across North Africa and concentrated on sending fighters to Iraq and plotting strikes on Europe.

[joesnuffy]

College science and technology labs have always been the place of military and civilian research.....

'Clinton only nose' how many chi coms are working on US campuses doing research right now?...

[SFC Chromey]

forget the 1000 person auditorium, think sports stadiums.

[dfwgator]

Usually they do searches before you enter the stadiums, so that somewhat mitigates the threat. But there's little to stop them from just going into a building during a normal day.

[Marine_Uncle]

I must ask myself the following question. If in essence a new Iraqi government is formed soon, and shows all indications it will be of national unity type design. I am not dealing with the if factor, obvious that is a subject within itself.
But if things move along as we hope in Iraq. I wonder if all these groups are going to continue targeting Iraq by sending goons in do do bad stuff.
Interesting in that Afghanistan continues to appear less desirable to go to, based on what we know is going down.
This world wide war on terror is just that. There is no major HQ that one can eliminate. New ones simply spring up.
And sadly to many forgetting all the attacks on US interests both foreign and stateside leading to what GWB felt obligated to do, will point the finger at him as starting this stuff not realizing it would have come to past regardless of what the US did. They are after our throat.