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Alleged Belgian/Dutch link to Casablanca bombs

Expatica News | 21.05.2003 22:57

Belgian and Dutch Moroccans, who would have spent some time in Afghanistan, could allegedly have returned to Morocco to train the perpetrators in explosives.

Alleged Belgian link to Casablanca bombs
Expatica News, Belgium, 21 May 2003

BRUSSELS – The Moroccan government confirmed Tuesday that international terrorism was behind the weekend's suicide attacks, providing a possible link between Belgian nationals and the bombings.

"We don't know who exactly is behind these attacks," Moroccan Foreign Affairs Minister Mohammed Benaissa was reported as saying in La Libre Belgique. It is possible however that help could have come from Europe, the Belgian daily suggests.

Belgian and Dutch Moroccans, who would have spent some time in Afghanistan, could allegedly have returned to Morocco to train the perpetrators in explosives.

Belgium's federal judiciary has not been informed by Moroccan authorities of the possible link, however.

As the suicide bombers, all aged between 19 and 24, would not have the technical know-how to put the bombs together, investigators suspected possible Taliban links, which subsequently led them to the Belgo-Dutch group.

Expatica News
- Homepage: http://www.expatica.com/belgiummain.asp?pad=88,89,&item_id=31427

Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

Dyab Abu Jahjah

21.05.2003 23:07

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2529683.stm
I'd say the odds were pretty good that he's either going to 'disappear', or these bombings will be officially linked to him.

E2G


Dutch Muslims 'linked' to bombing

21.05.2003 23:17

Dutch Muslims 'linked' to bombing
Expatica News, Netherlands, 21 May 2003

AMSTERDAM — Extremist Muslims in the Netherlands and Belgium might have helped the suicide bombers who carried out deadly attacks in Casablanca last week, justice sources in Morocco have suggested.

Newspaper De Telegraaf reported on Wednesday that anonymous sources claim the 14 bombers, of which all but two died, did not have the expertise to build such bombs.

The sources said the group might have received assistance from accomplices from Moroccan nationals living in the Netherlands and Belgium, who in turn, received terrorist training in Afghanistan.

The Moroccan police have arrested 30 local people alleged to be members of a radical Islamic group in the country that does not have a history of launching large-scale and sophisticated attacks.

Moroccan Justice Minister Mohammed Bouzoubaa said earlier this week that some of the attackers were "Moroccan citizens who came to the country a long time ago", the BBC reported. "They came from abroad," he said.

The Moroccan government continues to insist the suicide attacks were connected to international terrorism and that foreign intelligence agencies have been asked to assist in the investigation.

But a spokesman for the Dutch public prosecutor's office told De Telegraaf that there was no evidence at the moment of involvement by individuals living in the Netherlands. The national team assigned to tackle international terrorism has not been called in to help in the investigation of the Casablanca blasts.

A spokesperson for the Dutch intelligence service AIVD declined to comment to the newspaper about the claims of Dutch or Belgian accomplices.

But in April, Dutch caretaker Interior Minister Johan Remkes presented the AIVD's 2002 report to Parliament, which stated radical Islamic networks are active in the Netherlands.

The report said the groups generally play a supporting, rather than a front-line terrorist, role by giving financial, material and logistical assistance to terror cells.

The Dutch groups also recruit young men for the holy war, or jihad, against the "enemies of Islam," the AIVD alleged.

There have been repeated concerns raised in the past 12 months about mosques in Amsterdam and Eindhoven, which are allegedly used as bases to help recruit young people for jihad.

A Rotterdam court is due to pronounce its verdict on 5 June in the trial of 12 suspected Muslim terrorists. Originally, some of them faced up to life imprisonment on charges of assisting the enemy in a time of armed conflict — a charge last used to prosecute Dutch nationals for collaborating with the Nazis in the Second World War.

But the State has dropped this charge against all but two of the men and the 12 now face a maximum of three years in jail if convicted on lesser charges.

Last year, the same court freed four other Muslims, ruling a tip-off from the AIVD was insufficient to justify their arrest.

The court also made a point of saying there was not enough evidence to support the claim the men were part of a plot to bomb the US embassy in Paris.

Meanwhile, the Dutch Foreign Ministry renewed its earlier advice on Wednesday that people travelling to Morocco should take extra precautions in large cities and tourist areas.

Expatica News
- Homepage: http://www.expatica.com/main.asp?pad=2,18,&item_id=31396


oh really !!

22.05.2003 09:24

who sttands to gain from this ?
destabilising the MO and North Africa ?
a timely statement from the man himself (Bin Laden) and
the yankkkees will be able to do wot ever the fuck they want.
I would be surprised if their wasn't evidence linking "muslims" (Extremists / fanatix/ wotever) with the combined resources of Mossad / CIA / MI5 on the case they could make it look like Michael Jackson did it if they wanted to.
Surely all this has come from a right wing website and is totally anti semitic. While Israel boots out all foriegn observers in the run up to the mass eviiction of the palestinians from their lands, what they hope will be the final solution. the U.S.A is warning the Arab world not to try and stop the slaughter .. I should co co ..

stan 2 gain


De Telegraaf....

22.05.2003 10:32

is not the most reliable source of information, being the sensationalist tabloidy-type paper it is.

justagirl


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