{Terror} Terror cell 'smuggled missiles into Europe'

[BEER980]

Terror cell 'smuggled missiles into Europe'
By Henry Samuel in Paris
(Filed: 29/10/2005)

An Islamic terror cell has smuggled two surface-to-air missiles into Europe in a plot to shoot down planes at one of France's main airports, it was claimed yesterday. French and Algerian extremists with links to al-Qa'eda bought the Russian SA-18 Grouse missiles from Chechens in 2002 and smuggled them via Georgia and Turkey, according to French anti-terror sources quoted in Le Figaro. Both missiles and several of the extremists are reportedly still at large.

French anti-terrorism investigators learned of the missile terror plan while interrogating a Jordanian al-Qa'eda operative close to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of the Islamic terror group in Iraq. Adnan Muhammad Sadik, alias Abu Atiya, is now being held by the Jordanian authorities. He is believed to have been al-Qa'eda's chief in the Caucasus and responsible for training foreign "holy warriors" - many of whom returned to their countries of origin to set up sleeper cells.

According to Abu Atiya, one such group, the so-called "Chechen network", returned to France with the missiles and chemical and biological agents such as botulin, ricin and cyanide. Some of its members had allegedly been involved in a plan to explode a bomb during a Christmas market in Strasbourg in 2000. Others were linked to a conspiracy to blow up Los Angeles airport in 1999. In 2002 the group wavered between attacking a symbolic target such as Russia's embassy in Paris, to punish its Chechen policies, or a higher profile location, such as the Eiffel Tower.

Before homing in on a preferred target, most of the group was arrested in a swoop by the French terrorist brigade, the DST, in two Paris suburbs late in 2002. But some escaped.
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