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CHANNEL 4 NEWS, January 17,
2002 Bosnian conspiracy Broadcast: January 17, 2002 Reporter: Gaby Rado Global There are reports tonight from the Bosnian capitol Sarajevo that the Americans are either about to, or have already spirited out a group of suspected al-Qaeda members from there. In a secret operation, the men - all Algerians - are said to be bound for the American military base in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. There are already some eighty al-Qaeda suspects from Afghanistan being held captive at the base. Our Foreign Affairs correspondent, Gaby Rado, is here with more: It�s a remarkable plot: in the middle of October, both the US and UK embassies in Sarajevo were closed for a few days after police announced they�d discovered a plot by al-Qaeda to attack targets on Bosnian soil. The conspiracy pieced together appeared to involve a group of terrorists capturing light aircraft or helicopters at an airstrip at Visoko, just north of Sarajevo, and using them to attack American peacekeepers at NATO bases in Tuzla - called Camp Eagle, consisting of some 3,000 men - and a smaller base called Camp Conor near Srebrenica. After the group was arrested, the NATO secretary-general Lord Robertson himself linked them with al-Qaeda. The evidence on which the group was arrested came from what they allegedly said on their mobile phones, which was intercepted by US intelligence. However, a court in Sarajevo refused to accept such evidence and announced the phone taps had been carried out illegally on its soil. The six men were officially supposed to be released tomorrow, and our information is that the Americans plan to pick them up as they leave prison in Sarajevo and fly them to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Of the six Algerians, the leader is thought to be Bensahay Balkatsem, who�s 41. Perhaps the most incriminating piece of evidence is said to be the number found in the memory of his cellphone of a close associate of Osama bin Laden. He�s said to have made 70 calls to Afghanistan in September and October. Another man, Saber Lahmar was, like Balkatsem, an Algerian who had Bosnian citizenship. He had in fact married a Bosnian Muslim woman whose father worked in the US embassy in Sarajevo. The other men - Mustafa Adir, Muhammad Nehle, Lakdar Boumedienne and Budellah Hadz - are also Algerians. There have been claims these men are members of GIA, an Algerian terrorist group - some or all came to Bosnia in the early Nineties to fight on behalf of the Bosnian Muslims, and were given Bosnian citizenship. Global al-Qaeda plots: Let�s just look at the extent of Al-Qaeda plots around the world. Obviously on September 11th the terrorists completed their missions attacking the New York and Washington. But there have also been a number of plots that have failed. Just today, the police in the Philippines discovered a large cache of explosives and arrrested three men with suspected links to al-Qaeda. Authorities in Singapore arrested 15 people in December. The suspects are accused of attempting to blow-up the American Embassy, and targeting high-profile Americans living there. As recently as yesterday in Malaysia Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed said members of a group Islamic militants arrested recently were trained in Afghanistan by al-Qaida and Taliban forces. And of course there�s what we�ve been discussing in Bosnia. |
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