Hunt Is On for Middle Managers of Terrorism

Until his arrest last week, Tarek Maaroufi lived as a free man in Brussels, where he collected unemployment checks, dabbled in journalism, served as a spiritual advisor to fellow Muslims and ran an obscure think tank. It was all a front, according to Belgian police, who say Maaroufi is actually an underground terrorist boss--a top figure in Al Qaeda whose reach stretches across at least four European nations.

In London, another alleged Al Qaeda leader nicknamed Abu Qatada has lived for years in a government-subsidized apartment, rallying Muslims for a violent jihad against America and training recruits in the doctrine of terrorism. A target of the same police sweep that put Maaroufi behind bars, Abu Qatada is described by intelligence and law enforcement officials as Al Qaeda’s principal ideologue in the West.

Men like Abu Qatada and Maaroufi are the elusive quarries in the second front of the war on terrorism. They are allegedly the middle managers of an international network that is loosely affiliated and constantly shifting.

“They don’t have a lot of hierarchy,” said Judge Jean-Francois Ricard, one of France’s top anti-terrorist investigators. “An Islamic extremist can quickly establish contacts at a very high level. A young man from the slums can quickly enter into contact with an Abu Qatada.”

Unlike the Al Qaeda leaders and fighters blasted from their caves in Afghanistan, these European-based terror suspects cannot be eliminated by airstrikes or commando assaults. They operate more like drug kingpins or mafia bosses, carefully distancing themselves from actual violence and taking advantage of the legal safeguards of Western democracies.

Maaroufi and Abu Qatada, along with an emerging cadre of clandestine leaders in Europe, have skillfully used geographical and jurisdictional borders and the inchoate nature of Al Qaeda to keep the movement alive, according to police and intelligence officials.

Their skills have made Europe a staging ground for attacks elsewhere, such as the Sept. 11 hijackings and the assassination days earlier of Afghan opposition leader Ahmed Shah Masoud. The continent continues to be a source of threat, despite the collapse of Osama bin Laden’s command center in Afghanistan.

“If you kill or remove Bin Laden, it’s not like chopping the heads off the hydra,” said Quintan Wiktorowicz, an expert on Islamic groups who teaches at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn. “It’s removing certainly a central node in the network, but at the same time, those relationships are simply going to realign themselves.”

Surveillance of suspects such as Maaroufi and Abu Qatada, along with the arrests of three dozen alleged terrorists over the last three months, have helped police build a portrait of the workings of the network. They have unearthed a web of connections, built on ethnic solidarity and coded communications, in at least half a dozen countries. But even the most seasoned investigators struggle to understand the autonomous, often self-financed units.

Generalizations are difficult, but London is clearly the pivot for networks spread across Europe, a center of ideology, operations and finance--and until recently, a gateway to Bin Laden’s Afghan training camps. Germany and Belgium have been bases for the preparation of terrorist teams, including the Hamburg-based suspects in the Sept. 11 attacks. Italy and France have been logistical centers for fake documents and recruiting along with Spain, a source of financing and a busy transit point.

It appears that the ideologues and leaders are usually Middle Easterners. The operational experts and foot soldiers tend to be North Africans, particularly Algerians and Tunisians with combat experience in terrorist campaigns in their home countries.

Recently, Tunisians have risen in importance: A Tunisian network based in Brussels allegedly assassinated Masoud Sept. 9, a case that investigators say could shed light on the preparations for the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

“The Tunisians appear to have surpassed the Algerians and approached the level of the Saudis, who are the first circle around Bin Laden,” Ricard said.

The existence of a kind of Middle Eastern elite within Al Qaeda with privileged ties to Bin Laden was exemplified by the Hamburg cell, made up primarily of Saudis and led by Mohamed Atta, an Egyptian.

Although the European cells seem compartmentalized, there is constant trans-border cross-pollination--meetings, phone calls, supply of fake documents and arms--by middle managers. Even the ultra-secret Sept. 11 terror suspects made contact with cells in Spain and London, according to police.

Arrests Are Not Definitive Victories

The concept of a pyramidal chain of command does not necessarily apply. Al Qaeda is a community of interests, an “informal, geographically dispersed and unpredictable” terror federation, according to a French intelligence report.

“It’s a mistake to think of it as a group in itself,” said Abul Ela Madi, an Islamic activist in Egypt. “We have to think of it as the manager of different groups in the world.”

Wiktorowicz calls Bin Laden “sort of the Ford Foundation for terrorism.”

“These groups have ideas for terrorism, they come to him, they get money,” he said. “Then there’s a lot of independent operational work that goes on.”

European authorities have been watching and chipping away at the Islamic groups for years, and with renewed urgency since Sept. 11. A new cadre usually arises to replace those arrested, authorities say. Several thousand Muslim extremists trained in Al Qaeda’s Afghan camps and are now part of “sleeper cells” in Europe awaiting opportunities to strike, according to law enforcement officials.

“Among those people is someone else who is going to rise to a new level,” said Ronald K. Noble, secretary-general of Interpol. “You’ve got people who are trained, who have the theology and who are motivated. All they need is a leader.”

Arrests are not necessarily definitive victories. Law enforcement officials worry that the charges against Maaroufi may not be serious enough to keep him in jail for a significant period. Although investigators suspect that he was central to the network that carried out the Masoud killing, so far he has been charged only with conspiracy, document fraud and recruiting for Al Qaeda.

“These charges are not proportionate to his true stature in the organization,” a Belgian law enforcement official said. “Now that he is in jail, we have to keep going and deepen the investigation.”

For years, Maaroufi in Brussels and Abu Qatada in London portrayed themselves as men of letters rather than men of action. European investigators allege that the two men concealed their links to crime and took refuge in countries where anti-terrorism laws are weak.

Abu Qatada, a 41-year-old Palestinian cleric whose real name is Omar Mahmoud Othman, was so brazen that British legislators created a tough anti-terrorism law intended mainly to put him behind bars. British authorities have not confirmed that he was one of eight suspects arrested in a recent crackdown, but knowledgeable officials in two other countries said Abu Qatada has been jailed.

Within Europe, Abu Qatada’s prominence in “the incitement and theorization of jihad” compares with Bin Laden’s, the French intelligence report says. Abu Qatada’s reputation as a brilliant theologian makes him an idol of terrorists who listen to him on the Internet and drive hundreds of miles to hear him preach. Police often find cassettes of his sermons during raids on Al Qaeda hide-outs.

“Abu Qatada is one of the most erudite men in modern times,” the accused chief of a Milan terror cell declared to his accomplices this year, according to a wiretap transcript in an Italian prosecutor’s report. “There is no other sheik like him.”

Spiritual leaders are essential to extremists, whose fervor makes them hunger for reinforcing indoctrination and guidance.

“They need both the religious and the operational leaders,” a French law enforcement official said. “You can’t imagine how they live, think and breathe religion. You find thousands of Islamic documents on their computers. They need religious discussion and advice for every step of their daily life and much more so for terrorist acts.”

But Abu Qatada does not confine himself to theology and leave the dirty work to others, according to law enforcement officials. He allegedly gave the go-ahead for a Christmas attack last year on a cathedral in Strasbourg, France, a law enforcement official said. The attack was later aborted.

In Brussels, Maaroufi allegedly attained similar prominence. Investigators say the bearded 36-year-old is smooth and cocky and, until recently, seemed to relish his notoriety. He jousted with reporters during interviews.

Maaroufi has admitted making trips to Afghanistan, but he denies visiting Al Qaeda camps. He rejects allegations that he founded the Tunisian Islamic Fighting Group terrorism network, along with a London-based Tunisian named Seifallah ben Hassine, who is a fugitive. But he has acknowledged knowing Ben Hassine.

“He knows just how to work the system,” the Belgian law enforcement official said. “He is very sure of himself. He says he’s just an opponent of the Tunisian government, and the Tunisian intelligence services are out to frame him.”

Investigators Link Three Suspects

Maaroufi’s Belgian citizenship shielded him from an extradition request this year by Italian prosecutors, who charged him with being a leader of the Milan cell tied to the Strasbourg plot and another aborted plot to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Rome.

Investigations have found frequent contacts among Maaroufi, Abu Qatada and other alleged bosses. During their probe of the Milan cell this year, Italian investigators coordinated surveillance with French, Spanish and Belgian police as suspects traveled across European borders, invariably using mosques and Muslim immigrant neighborhoods as rendezvous points.

Another busy traveler was a bald, glowering Syrian with Spanish citizenship named Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, who was arrested last month and charged with playing a support role in the Sept. 11 attacks.

From his top-floor apartment in a Madrid condominium complex, the accused chief of the Madrid cell raised funds through petty crimes and credit card fraud and traveled tirelessly to meet with Islamic extremists from Australia to Indonesia to Jordan, Spanish court documents allege.

Spanish authorities say he also met with Maaroufi and Abu Qatada, making more than 20 trips to London and supplying funds that the Palestinian cleric forwarded to an imprisoned terrorist in Jordan.

Spain’s place in the Al Qaeda organizational puzzle intrigues police, who are focusing on activity there that could illuminate the network’s internal workings. In the months preceding the Sept. 11 attacks, key suspects from several cells traveled or fled to Spain, including an Algerian arrested on charges of masterminding the plot to attack the Strasbourg cathedral.

Atta, the suspected leader of the Sept. 11 plot, traveled to Spain in July, a mysterious trip that investigators believe was a key step in his final preparations. Atta and his Hamburg roommate, Ramsi Binalshibh, allegedly had contacts with Barakat, the head of the Madrid cell.

Binalshibh, whom U.S. officials accuse of intending to participate in the hijackings, passed through Madrid after leaving Hamburg in early September. And Barakat allegedly discussed the attacks in code with a suspect in London in the days preceding and following Sept. 11, Spanish authorities say.

In the aftermath of the Pentagon and World Trade Center attacks, the arrests of top figures in Madrid, London and Brussels have hurt the terror organization in Europe. Nonetheless, law enforcement officials worry about Al Qaeda leaders still at large in Europe and leaders who fled Afghanistan ahead of the U.S. military strikes.

There almost certainly are cells that remain unknown, and aspiring bosses who might rise quickly in an organization that has survived due to its unconventional nature.

“It’s not like you can decapitate it by arresting a general,” said Ricard, the French judge. “There are other leaders out there. In order to fight them, we have to be as much like them as possible: agile, fluid, constantly changing. Like them, we have to cooperate across borders. That is the great challenge.”