WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 17 2001
Report links Real IRA to bin Laden
FROM ALLAN HALL IN BERLIN AND DANIEL MCGRORY
REAL IRA suspects arrested in Slovakia earlier this year were linked to the al-Qaeda network and received cash from Osama bin Laden's European financial chief, it was alleged yesterday. If the report in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo is accurate, it links extreme Irish nationalism with the events of September 11 for the first time.
The paper said that it had learnt from American secret service agents that three Irishmen arrested under international warrant in the west Slovak town of Piestany in July had alleged links with the al-Qaeda network and laundered cash for it.
The men were reported to have met an Algerian, Hamid Aich, who was bin Laden 's chief financial organiser in Europe. The Spanish newspaper reported that the trio said that they were given a large sum of money from Aich, to be deposited in banks in Spain, laundered through a fake Islamic charity in Dublin.
The newspaper's lengthy report concentrates mostly on the links between the IRA and Eta, the Basque terror group.
The paper alleged that Aich, 34, a "social worker" according to his passport, was in fact the treasurer of bin Laden in Europe. He had operated from a flat in Dublín, although the Irish police, who briefly arrested him in 1999, later regarded him as a master bomber.
"The residence was registered as an Islamic charity centre. The charity was a cover which Aich and bin Laden used to provide financial aid to a total of 22 terrorist organisations," the paper said.
There is speculation over why the three Irish men were in Slovakia but the odourless and portable Semtex explosive is manufactured in the neighbouring Czech Republic, and El Mundo said that on their "shopping list" when arrested was 5,000kg of explosives, along with detonators, ammunition and hand grenades.
Intelligence sources believe that the Real IRA is close to exhausting its bomb-making materials and is desperate to replenish them. If it had formed an alliance with al-Qaeda, the Real IRA would have been in a position to provide the fanatics with details such as the home addresses of British ministers and politicians, sensitive military sites, potential targets and possibly the use of IRA safe houses in mainland Britain.
The three men, all from Co Louth in the Irish Republic, were flown to London and charged with offences under the Terrorist Act 2000.
The claim that the Real IRA trio met Hamid Aich will embarrass Irish police. Only after they freed him in December 1999 did they suspect that he was one of al-Qaeda's master bombers. Detectives discovered bomb-making designs and other paraphernalia at the Dublin flat used by Aich.
The bomb timers he perfected were allegedly found in the car boot of another bin Laden suspect who was stopped as he crossed into America from Canada with tonnes of explosive hidden in the vehicle.
The driver, Ahmed Ressam, was on his way to deliver the so-called "Millennium Bomb" at Los Angeles airport.