Posted on 05/19/2004 8:39:07 AM PDT by areafiftyone
MADRID, May 19 (Reuters) - A Spanish judge accused three Algerians on Wednesday of belonging to al Qaeda and forming part of a network that recruited Islamists across Europe to go to Iraq and fight the U.S.-led occupation.
High Court Judge Baltasar Garzon said the mobilising of insurgents was directed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose group has claimed responsibility for the beheading of a U.S. hostage and the assassination of the head of the Iraqi Governing Council.
Jordanian-born Zarqawi has emerged, through a series of attacks and a barrage of recent propaganda messages, as the leading al Qaeda operative fighting the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
The operation described by Garzon was linked to an Iraq recruiting network broken up by Italy in November and two of the men involved were brothers.
The three Algerians, along with a Spaniard accused of collaborating with them, were arrested in various parts of Spain last Friday and jailed pending further investigation.
The judge also drew links between the Algerians and the Hamburg cell that plotted the September 11 attacks.
Garzon accused one of the men, Samir Mahdjoub, of helping others "distribute money to finance the sending of mujahideen to Iraq", using the infrastructure of militant group Ansar al-Islam in other countries like Italy and Syria. He accused Mahdjoub and the other two Algerians, Redouane Zenimi and Mohamed Ayat, of forming part of a Spanish al Qaeda cell. Their main task was "lending economic financing to the rest of the European network," Garzon said.
Garzon, an investigating magistrate, has been probing suspected al Qaeda cells in Spain since before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Another judge is separately investigating the train bombs that killed 191 people in Madrid on March 11.
Last year Garzon charged 35 people including Osama bin Laden with belonging to al Qaeda. Eleven of those were charged with playing a role in September 11, for which he said plans were discussed in Spain in the summer of 2001.
RECRUITING RING BUSTED
Garzon said the Algerian al Qaeda group took orders from German-based Abderrazak Mahdjoub, a brother of one of the men accused on Wednesday.
Abderrazak Mahdjoub was arrested in Germany and later extradited to Italy after the Italians smashed a European ring suspected of recruiting militants for suicide bombings in Iraq.
Under Zarqawi's orders, Abderrazak Mahdjoub and a suspect named Abdelahi Djaouat "travelled to Damascus in March 2003 with the intention of going to Iraq where other mujahideen would be arriving," Garzon said.
But they never made it, having been arrested in Syria. They both returned to Europe and were arrested again, Djaouat in Spain and Mahdjoub in Hamburg, Germany last November.
LINK TO HAMBURG CELL, RICIN PLOT
Garzon said the Spanish al Qaeda cell included Heidi Ben Youssef Boudhiba, who is in jail in Britain. He said Boudhiba formed part of a network that was attempting to attack London with the deadly toxin ricin in January 2003. Garzon has asked British authorities to hand him over.
Garzon also linked Boudhiba to members of the cell based in Hamburg which supplied three of the suicide pilots for September 11. He said Boudhiba and another cell member left the port city and flew to Istanbul eight days before the attacks.
bmp
Another big must read!
'nother Qaida - Saddam link. Keep this one bumped up folks!
...but the useless idiot liberals said there was no link, no Al Qaida in Iraq, now WMDs..............
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