Word: frankfurts
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...cell - with a series of arrests in both countries first in April and then in October - represents the way things are supposed to work. There have been other successful international busts in Europe: when police used a French tip and moved in on the so-called Meliani cell in Frankfurt last Dec. 26, they arrested two Iraqis, an Algerian and a French Muslim, but they didn?t get "Meliani" himself - Algerian Mohammed Bensakhria. The Spanish police did, acting on German information, on June 22, by which time the formerly sleek 40-year-old had grown a scruffy beard and melded...
Mohammed Bensakhria, 40 Algerian Status: Arrested in Alicante, Spain, June 22; extradited to France in July. Believed to be head of a Frankfurt cell and a key player in organizing bin Laden terrorist groups in Europe. Fled Frankfurt after police foiled a plot to attack a Strasbourg market in December...
...Sami Ben Khemais, 33 Tunisian Status: Arrested in Milan, April 3. Thought to be head of al-Qaeda cell in Milan and behind the foiled attacks on U.S. targets in Italy. Investigators taped a series of conversations between Khemais and Libyan Lased Ben Heni, suspected liaison between Milan and Frankfurt cells...
...pilots of three suicide flights all came from Hamburg. That German city on the North Sea, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said last week, served as a "central base of operations." What was it about Hamburg that made it more attractive as a base than, say, Frankfurt, London or even Cairo...
Police believe another attraction of Hamburg was the relative absence of activity by Islamic radicals. "In a city like Cologne or Frankfurt, where there is a big Islamic scene, there was a danger the terrorists could come to the attention of state agencies while attending a mosque or Islamic meetings," said a police official. The run-down al-Quds mosque, where the terrorists worshiped, didn?t set off any alarm bells, although Bahaji had come under surveillance briefly in 1998. A Hamburg-based Syrian entrepreneur, Mamoun Darkanzli, who had ties to a bin Laden money man, also attended the mosque...