Free Republic

Mohammed Zammar, the al Qaeda operative responsible for recruiting the suicide-hijack pilots for the 9/11 attacks, has reportedly been freed inside Syria. Zammar's freedom was reported by Zaid Benjamin, the Washington correspondent for Radio Sawa, on his Twitter feed on Mar. 2. Writing for Al-Monitor, John Rosenthal cited multiple sources confirming Zammar's freedom in an account published on Mar. 10. Zammar was captured in Morocco in late 2001. Unlike most of the 9/11 co-conspirators who were captured, however, Zammar was not transferred to US custody. Instead, he was sent to Syria, where he was imprisoned by Bashar al Assad's regime....

By John Crewdson, Tribune senior correspondent. Reporting and research assistance was provided by Drew Crosby in Madrid MADRID -- The most sweeping criminal indictment to arise thus far from the Sept. 11 attacks reflects a quiet but dramatic change in understanding by investigators here and across Europe of the terrorist organization known as Al Qaeda, and the international Islamic radical-terrorist network of which, they now agree, it is merely a part. As laid out in the indictment, the defendants' alleged activities--from arranging travel and providing introductions to procuring false documents and, especially, moving money--provide the first detailed look at one...

Al Qaeda Recruiter Reportedly Tortured (Ex-Inmate in Syria Cites Others' Accounts) CASABLANCA, Morocco -- In January 2002, Driss bin Lakoul, a 38-year-old Moroccan committed to jihad, was arrested in Syria after unsuccessfully attempting to reach Afghanistan, where he wanted to fight against U.S. forces. For three months, the soft-spoken, bearded man with glasses recounted in an interview here, he was held in Damascus at the Far' Falastin detention center run by Syrian military intelligence. In the prison, inmates spoke of a German citizen held in the rat-infested basement, a warren of lightless cells each barely three feet long, three feet...

Hamburg: Ahead of the September 11 attacks, German intelligence attempted to recruit an Islamic extremist who was a key link to the Hamburg terrorist cell of hijackers, according to a news report. The report in Der Spiegel magazine, due to hit newsstands tomorrow, says German intelligence approached Syrian-German terrorist suspect Mohammed Haidar Zammar. Zammar, currently in detention in Syria, is widely believed to have recruited the suicide pilots who hijacked planes and flew them into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. As early at 1996, however, German intelligence approached Zammar with a lucrative incitement to provide information on radical...

Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion. SYRIA CONFIRMS GERMAN CITIZEN SUSPECTED OF SUPPORTING AL-QA'IDAH IN CUSTODY BBC Monitoring International Reports Source: Der Spiegel, Hamburg, in German 29 Jul 02 p 21 July 29, 2002 The decision by Prosecutor General Kay Nehm not to prosecute two suspected Syrian agents, who were arrested in Germany, has It is striking that death pilot Mohammed Atta spent an extended period in Zammar's home town of Aleppo promoted German-Syrian cooperation in combating terrorism. For the first time the Syrian government has now officially confirmed...