Europe terror plot exposed

By JOHN LICHFIELD

A confession by a Franco-Algerian man arrested in the Gulf has given investigators in Paris the first direct link between Osama bin Laden and a plot to launch a series of terrorist attacks in Europe.

Djamel Beghal, aged 37, who was extradited to France on Sunday, was leader of an extremist Islamist group which planned to bomb the American embassy and an American cultural centre in Paris this northern winter.

He told French investigating magistrates on Monday that he was acting on the direct orders of Abu Zubeida, principal assistant to bin Laden, whom he met in Afghanistan in March.

Although he did not meet bin Laden personally, Beghal said he was given three presents by Zubeida, who told him they came directly from the Saudi millionaire.

Beghal - described by former neighbours as a tall, charming man with startling blue eyes - was persuaded to confess by police in Dubai over the northern summer.

They sent Islamic teachers to his cell to convince him that terrorism and murder are forbidden by the Koran.

The Algerian-born Beghal, who spent more than a year living in London in 1998-99, cracked in August and gave the Dubai and French authorities a list of names of his associates in France, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and Spain.

This network had already been under surveillance for several weeks before the suicide attacks on the United States.

Since being extradited to France, Beghal has given French magistrates specialising in anti-terrorist investigations more details of the terror campaign planned by his organisation.

It appears that attacks on US targets in Paris were to follow, rather than coincide with, the assaults in America.

Beghal told the French investigators that he had been ordered to carry out the attacks before April next year "at the latest".

Contrary to earlier reports, there was no plan to attack the US embassy, just off the Champs Elysees in Paris, with a helicopter.

Beghal told the French authorities that one of his associates arrested in Belgium 11 days ago - Nizar Trabelsi, a former professional footballer in the German league - was to enter the US embassy with explosives hidden around his waist and then blow himself up.

Another suicide attack was to be made on the American Centre in Paris - a cultural facility in the heart of the city - using a van packed with explosives.

Beghal was travelling back from Afghanistan when he was arrested with a false passport in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, in July.

French authorities, who had been trying to trace him for months, revealed his identity to officials in Dubai.

While Beghal and his family spent a year in London, their Paris apartment - in the Boulevard John Kennedy - was used by a number of young men, who are now believed to have been co-conspirators.

Among them was Kamel Daoudi, 27, who was arrested in Leicester, England, last week on a tip-off from the French police.

When police in a number of EU countries began to round up Beghal's network 11 days ago, Daoudi managed to slip away to Britain on a false passport. He was extradited from Britain to France last Friday.

Daoudi, a brilliant student who abandoned his computer studies in 1995, is believed to have been the computer expert and "postman" for Beghal's network, keeping members in at least four different countries informed by coded messages on the internet.

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