DETROIT/SEATTLE/BERLIN, 30 August — Four alleged Muslim extremists were charged on Wednesday in Detroit with being part of "a sleeper operational combat cell" that sought to support terrorist attacks while a Seattle man linked to an alleged Al-Qaeda plot to train US recruits was indicted. The indictments comprised one of the busiest days for investigators since the Sept. 11 attacks destroyed the World Trade Center in New York and caused severe damage to the Pentagon in Washington.
In the Detroit indictment, the four suspects were charged with seeking "to cause economic harm to US businesses" while providing weapons and other support to groups planning "violent attacks against persons and buildings within the territory of Jordan, Turkey and the United States."
The suspects are all believed to be immigrants of Arabic descent who operated from US soil. The indictment said they had been linked to a religious movement called Salafiyya.
Three of the suspects, Karim Koubriti and Ahmed Hannan, both natives of Morocco, and Algerian-born Farouk Ali-Haimoud, were detained in Detroit shortly after the Sept. 11 hijack attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. A fourth suspect, whose name was given only as Abdella, remains a fugitive. The Seattle man, James Ujaama, was charged in a separate case in an indictment linking him to an alleged Al-Qaeda plot to train US recruits at a ranch in Oregon.
Meanwhile, in Karlsruhe, Germany, authorities said yesterday they had charged a Moroccan man with complicity in the Sept. 11 attacks, only the second person to be indicted worldwide, and had evidence the suicide-hijackings were planned almost two years in advance.
In another development, according to a UN panel report, Al-Qaeda still has access to considerable financial resources despite unprecedented international efforts to freeze its assets. The report by UN experts, made available to reporters by diplomats in New York yesterday, was compiled by a group set up in January to monitor the enforcement of measures ordered by the United Nations Security Council after the Sept. 11 attacks. (The Independent)
