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Spain shows suspect terrorist haul

MADRID, Spain -- Police have put on display materials said to have belonged to 11 alleged terrorists suspected of having links to Osama bin Laden.

The items included computer material, hunting rifles, and swords as well as videos allegedly used in recruitment campaigns, police said on Wednesday.

The men had been arrested the day before for allegedly belonging to the Muyaidin movement and having links to suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.

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Among the items was a video, which police had edited, allegedly showing terrorist training for future attacks. It had been shown during recruitment meetings at the homes of the 11 arrested, police said.

But National Police Chief Juan Cotino said "for the moment, there is no evidence they had any direct involvement" in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.

In the UK, detectives have arrested a 30-year-old man under the Terrorism Act in south-west London following a request from the FBI, Scotland Yard said on Wednesday. No further details were available.

One of the 11 arrested in the Spanish cities of Madrid and Grenada is alleged to have been bin Laden's agent in Spain.

The video was allegedly taken a year ago and showed Islamic terrorist meetings and preparations for attacks in Chechnya.

The video featured two Islamic militants, Abu Mughen and Omar Deghayes, who are known to have met in Spain with two of those arrested on Tuesday, Osama Darra and the group's suspected leader, Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas.

Mughen, who lost his right eye in fighting in Bosnia, has frequently used a British passport under the name of David Charles Burgess.

He has previously been arrested in Britain but has since been freed, police said.

Most of those arrested appear to be Syrian-born but with Spanish nationality; as well as possibly a Moroccan and a Lebanese, also with Spanish nationality. One is a Spaniard.

Many of them had Spanish nationality papers that Cotino said could be false.

Cotino said police believe Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, alias Abu Dahdah, was a deputy for bin Laden in Spain.

But no evidence exists to prove that he, or any of the others detained, had met bin Laden, the U.S.' prime suspect behind the September 11 attacks.

He said police had no information either that showed they had met with Mohammed Atta, the Egyptian suicide hijacker believed to be the leader of the September 11 strike.

Police know Atta was in Spain twice this year.

Cotino said Dahdah, had met, at least once, with the leader of six Algerians detained in Spain on September 26, for allegedly planning terrorist attacks against U.S. interests in Europe.

The six are believed to be members of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, an Algerian organisation allegedly financed by bin Laden.

Also among the seized material, shown to reporters were city maps for Prague, Berlin, Cologne, Munich, Belgrade, Milan, Florence, Palermo, and a map of Algeria.

The 11 were to be brought before Spain's National Court on Friday, Cotino said.



 
 
 
 


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