Europe drive against terrorists

By Vaiju Naravane

PARIS, SEPT. 21. With the arrest of suspected terrorists in France, and arrest warrants issued in Germany today, European Governments have started a concerted anti-terrorist campaign.

Several suspects were arrested earlier this week in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Police in Europe are turning up fresh evidence that the terrorists who took part in the attacks against the United States on September 11 transited through several European countries.

On Friday morning, French police arrested seven suspected Islamic fundamentalists. They were being questioned by the DST, the French counter-espionage agency. Officials said the detentions were linked to a series of raids in Belgium and the Netherlands carried out on the basis of declarations made by a Franco- Algerian arrested at Dubai airport in late July. The Spanish Interior Ministry said today that the 33- year-old Egyptian terrorist, Mohammad Atta, who was aboard the American Airlines flight that crashed into the World Trade Center's north tower had spent two weeks in Spain in July.

Spain's El Mundo newspaper reported that Atta had gone to Spain to meet a member of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda organisation.

Spanish authorities said Atta stayed at a hotel in Salou, a seaside town, rented a car and left from Madrid airport on July 19. The hotel owner told reporters he found Atta ``educated and likable'' and that the man did not meet anyone during his two-day stay at the hotel.

Germany says it has issued warrants for a 29-year-old Yemeni national and a 26-year-old man of German-Moroccan descent on charges of ``belonging to a terrorist organisation, carrying out the murder of several thousand persons and other serious crimes.''

Investigators in Germany said there are as many as 100 suspected Islamic terrorists lying low in Germany. Regional Interior Minister, Mr. Fritz Behrens, said authorities had identified some of the so-called ``sleepers'' and taken ``important steps so that our country does not become a base for mass murder.'' In the Netherlands, police charged two French men and one Dutch national for forging and falsifying documents with a view to planning an attack. Police in Prague are also looking into contacts made there by Mohammed Atta.

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Section  : International
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