Word: syrian
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...large, the U.S.-led effort to dismantle his global network is yielding some returns. Last week Saudi officials announced the arrest of 13 al-Qaeda operatives believed to be planning attacks on U.S. military installations. American officials acknowledged that Syria has detained Mohammed Heidar Zammar, a German national of Syrian origin believed to be a recruiter for the Hamburg cell that produced Mohamed Atta (see box). But the arrests of low-level operatives won't necessarily lead the U.S. closer to bin Laden. Some counterterrorism officials believe that al-Qaeda has no middle management, which helps ensure that vital information...
Thanks to Syrian interrogators, American intelligence officials are learning more about al-Qaeda from Zammar. "He's like Abu Zubaydah," says a U.S. intelligence source. "He's kind of cooperating. Or he's cooperating without realizing that he's doing it." Zammar may also be revealing how Atta and his fellow Hamburg students were recruited. Zammar, who moved to Germany in 1971 at age 10, was well known in several Hamburg mosques where he advocated jihad. He claimed to have fought in Bosnia. Beginning in 1997, neighbors of Atta's would often see Zammar carrying boxes up to the Egyptian...
...months, German investigators wondered how they had managed to lose track of a 300-lb. terror suspect. Mohammed Heidar Zammar, a Syrian-born German citizen, had been questioned and put under surveillance after 9/11 because of his close ties to Mohamed Atta and other hijackers. But the Germans didn't have enough evidence to arrest him, and when he arranged to travel to Morocco, officials gave him a temporary passport and let him go. Zammar left on Oct. 27--and vanished. The Germans had no idea where he was until last week, when they learned that Moroccan officials had arrested...
Americans are still waiting for the arrest of Mamoun Darkazanli, another Syrian-born German and a friend of Zammar's, who has had financial connections to al-Qaeda. The U.S. has frozen his assets, and German investigators have him under surveillance. "You can imagine what my life is like," Darkazanli told TIME last month. "My name is known in the whole world. Every businessman is afraid to deal with me." Darkazanli should at least be grateful he isn't with his friend, in the hands of America's unlikely new ally...
GERMANY German intelligence agents say Mohamed Heidar Zammar is an important player in the Sept. 11 plot. But on June 12 the Germans said they had lost track of Zammar, a German citizen of Syrian origin, after letting him travel to Morocco last October. They claim he is in U.S. custody and have asked the U.S. for his whereabouts. The State Department has not replied...