LONDON, Jan 18: British security services are on high alert after US Attorney-General John Ashcroft warned that five more Osama bin Laden terrorists are at large.
Video film of the five men was found buried in the rubble of a building in Afghanistan believed to have been used by Mohammed Atef, who allegedly directed Osama bin Laden’s terrorist operations. In the film one Al-Shibh is known to have been an associate of Mohammed Atta, ringleader of the Sept 11 hijack gang.
The British media reports say Al-Shibh provided the gang with money and has been linked with Mr Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, now in US custody.
“Moussaoui lived in London for nine years when it is thought he was in the al-Qaeda group run by Djamal Beghal, Osama’s UK recruiting officer”. Meanwhile, the police are interrogating a London man following a number of arrests made on Thursday in London and Leicester, for possible links with al-Qaeda network in Britain.
The man was arrested under the Terrorism Act in north-west London and taken to the nearby town of Leicester, where 12 other men are being held following a number of raids in the city yesterday.
Ten of the 13 arrested men face terrorism charges. Two men were remanded in custody in Leicester on charges relating to terrorism and links with al-Qaeda network.
The decision to charge the men follows a five-month investigation around Europe into a plan by Osama to bomb the US Embassy in Paris in 1998.
