Posted on 03/05/2003 6:38:50 AM PST by Destro
Wednesday, March 5, 2003
//Chechnya Emerges as Key Training Site for Terrorists//
PARIS--Before the Sept. 11 attacks, Islamic militants in Europe followed a well-worn route. They made pilgrimages to radical mosques in Britain, where clerics such as Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza al Masri were revered by holy warriors. British-based extremists screened recruits and organized their trips to the camps in Afghanistan, supplying plane tickets and fake papers if necessary.
Much of that has changed. Although al-Qaida allegedly retains small camps on the Afghan-Pakistani frontier, getting there is much harder.
Abu Qatada has been jailed as an alleged leader of the European networks. In January, Abu Hamza was barred from preaching at his Finsbury Park mosque after a crackdown on an Algerian cell involved in producing ricin poison. He still preaches on the street, but he faces multiple investigations and expulsion from Britain.
Experts are working to assess al-Qaida's current ability to provide paramilitary training. The Afghan camps were largely primitive, but they created an esprit de corps and enabled al-Qaida masterminds to cultivate promising operatives for major missions.
Today, individual networks in the al-Qaida alliance try to fill the training void with piecemeal solutions, investigators say.
Chechnya is an example, French investigators say. The region's guerrilla war had drawn Arab and North African volunteer fighters for years. During the last year, al-Qaida and Chechen rebels have grown closer. They have engaged in chemical and biological training at bases in Chechen territory and the neighboring Pankisi Gorge in Georgia, according to Jean-Louis Bruguiere, France's top anti-terrorist judge.
The so-called Chechen network of Algerians arrested in December allegedly planned to hit the Russian Embassy in Paris, in a switch from a past focus on U.S. targets. The case has raised fears that Chechnya, only three hours from Western Europe by plane, could replace Afghanistan as a base, Bruguiere said.
Bruguiere acknowledges that there are obstacles to a mass flow of trainees to the Caucasus region, including pressure from Russian and Georgian troops and language differences between Chechens and Arabs.
Law enforcement officials say training is available in Pakistan and Algeria, countries with fierce Islamic movements and lawless zones. Journalist Mohamed Sifaoui reported that terrorist suspect Karim Bourti said there were secret training camps in Albania. And young extremists go to Koranic schools in North Africa and the Middle East that do not provide weapons instruction but ``facilitate it,'' the French intelligence official said.
VRN
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