Attention centers on mosque in London

As they trace the movements of suspected terrorists rounded up over the past month, European law enforcement authorities find their way back to a modern, red brick building around the corner from a bustling North London thoroughfare.

The Finsbury Park Mosque is the center of radical Muslim activism in England. Through its doors have passed at least three of the men held on suspicion of terrorist activity in France, England and Belgium, as well as one Algerian man in prison in the United States.

“It’s the center of everything,” said Andrew Dismore, a Labor member of Britain’s Parliament and a frequent critic of what he says has been lax government surveillance of this splinter of London’s sizable Muslim community. “I’ve raised this to the home secretary and I’m told they’re being watched and under investigation, but nothing happens.”

The mosque’s chief cleric, Abu Hamza al-Masri, lost his hands fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and he advocates the elimination of Western influence from Muslim countries. He was arrested in London in 1999 for his alleged involvement in a Yemen bomb plot, but he was set free after Yemen failed to produce enough evidence to have him extradited.

Today, Hamza, his mosque and some of its allegedly militant members are under close scrutiny as part of the puzzle European law enforcement officials face in trying to uncover suspected terrorist activity in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The unprecedented global terrorism investigation has moved rapidly through dozens of countries and has traced overlapping relationships of suspects, though it has yet to produce clear results. And it confronts the additional challenge of trying to discern who among loose-knit groups of young, mostly religious immigrant men are potentially dangerous extremists.

Several dozen people have been detained in Europe since the attacks, most recently in Ireland, Italy and Germany. The Egyptian government disclosed last week that it broke up a cell allegedly linked to Osama bin Laden, whose al-Qaida organization is one of the main targets of law enforcement.

One of the most significant arrests since the Sept. 11 attacks springs from a case that began three months earlier in Dubai.

Djamel Beghal was stopped July 28 in Dubai for a passport violation on his way from Pakistan to France. Beghal, who has since been extradited to France, gave authorities details of a planned attack on the American Embassy in Paris that would have used two other men as suicide bombers, according to U.S. sources familiar with the investigation.

According to news reports in England, Beghal, who attended the Finsbury mosque while living in London, said the embassy attack had been ordered by a top bin Laden lieutenant, Abu Zoubaydah, during a visit to Afghanistan.

Beghal, Nizar Trabelsi and a third man, Kamel Daoudi, a 27-year-old Algerian computer expert whose alleged role was to maintain the group’s contact with al-Qaida over the Internet, are believed to have met in London. There, they attended courses in fundamentalist Islamic ideology and were sent on to Afghanistan for further training, according to the press reports.

Trabelsi is being held in Belgium on suspicion of involvement in the embassy plot.

Visit by Atta

Spanish authorities are focusing on an 11-day visit to their country by Mohamed Atta, one of the alleged suicide hijackers and possibly, investigators say, the plot’s ringleader.

Using credit card records, police have tracked Atta’s movements back to the Mediterranean town of Salou. Although Atta added 1,200 miles to his Madrid airport rental car, the Spanish police say they don’t know how Atta spent most of his time in Spain, or with whom he might have met in Salou.

Juan Cotino, the director of the Spanish National Police, said he believes it “very possible” that Atta crossed paths in Spain with Trabelsi. Cotino did not provide further details.

Spain seemed to be safe ground for Atta, and perhaps others. Western diplomats in Spain characterized the country as something of a haven for terrorists, who have used it as a meeting and staging area without much police interference.

Last week, the Spanish police were asked to search for eight suspected terrorists thought to have fled there from elsewhere in Europe. One of the eight is believed to be Ramzi Binalshibh, a 29-year-old Yemeni who shared a Hamburg flat with Atta and is suspected of helping the hijackers.

The Hamburg link to the hijacking plot has been an embarrassing one for German police, who were shocked to learn that Atta and two other suspected hijackers, Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, found a haven for years in their northern port city, known for its liberal politics and ethnic diversity.

“We lack the detailed knowledge about these networks that we need and will need in the future,” said a senior German intelligence official. “We have very little experience or feeling about the dark field of Islamic extremist networks.”

German police say the task has been complicated by the difficulties of infiltrating these groups.

One official in Hamburg, whose agency is responsible for domestic intelligence, said: “Our boys, standing out there, they have blue eyes and blond hair. It’s not so easy to get them inside.”

In addition, police have complained that until Sept. 11, they were not given the power to prosecute terrorists who were involved in conspiracies abroad.

Four arrests in Germany

There have been only four terrorism-related arrests in Germany since Sept. 11, and officials still aren’t certain whether those detainees had any connection to the Hamburg cell led by Atta.

The intelligence official said at least three appeared to be members of a group that was not aligned with al-Qaida. The three -- a 24-year-old and 26-year-old from Yemen, and a 27-year-old from Turkey -- were placed in federal custody Sept. 28 after a local police search in one of their Wiesbaden apartments turned up a loaded weapon, several maps of German cities, cash, bogus identifications and fraudulent credit cards, said Frauke Scheuten, a spokeswoman for Germany’s chief federal prosecutor.

Police also found a receipt for a Sept. 4 airline ticket to Islamabad, she said. The ticket apparently was never used. Police identified the men because a Web site operated by one of them was filled with extremist propaganda, Scheuten said, including fundraising solicitations for the Taliban and recruitment information for fighters needed in the Caucasus.

It also included a link connecting surfers to the e-mail of Said Bahaji, 26, a German-Moroccan wanted on an international arrest warrant issued Sept. 21 by Germany. Bahaji, a student at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg, lived in the same Hamburg apartment as classmate Atta, and is suspected by authorities of providing key logistical help for the Sept. 11 operation. Authorities believe Bahaji fled to Pakistan about a week before the attacks.

A fourth man was arrested in Munich last week on a warrant issued out of Italy. Lased ben Henin, 32, a Libyan, is expected to be extradited to Italy. He has been identified as a leader in an Algerian terrorist group related to al-Qaida but is not accused of any involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Bank accounts

The Germans also moved to freeze the bank accounts of suspected bin Laden sympathizers.

According to the nation’s Economics Ministry, more than 200 accounts, with total assets of about $4 million, have been frozen so far. The most significant was an account belonging to Mamoun Darkazanli, a Syrian businessman with links to al-Qaida and the Sept. 11 terrorists who lived in Hamburg.

Although Darkazanli was released after questioning by German authorities in the days after Sept. 11, he remains a key figure in the nation’s probe, the intelligence official confirmed.

German law enforcement records show Darkazanli had power of attorney in 1995 over the account of Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, accused in the U.S. as a top bin Laden aide and possibly the chief of finance for al-Qaida. Salim was arrested in Munich in September 1998 and was extradited to New York, where he awaits trial.

Darkazanli also has publicly admitted he knew at least Atta and Bahaji because all three attended the same Hamburg mosque, Al Kuds Mosque, which is in a storefront in one of Hamburg’s grittier neighborhoods.

By contrast, London’s Finsbury Park Mosque is difficult to miss, especially these days.

Each Friday, a dozen London police officers stand outside in glaring lime green safety jackets, making sure there is no trouble. There is also a 24-hour police guard.

“They say they are here for our protection,” said one young man who belongs to the mosque but who declined to give his name. “What are they protecting us from?”

The police say they haven’t had any incidents at the mosque. But Hamza’s rhetoric has caused plenty of consternation in other parts of England, including among London’s more moderate Muslims.

“They are not part of the established community,” said Fatma Atmer of London’s Central Mosque. “The established Muslim community in Britain does not approve of their views.”

Mosque followers

Nonetheless, those views are freely expressed, and they were heard by some of the people in custody. Besides Djamel Beghal, three other terrorism suspects under arrest in Europe, though not necessarily for the Sept. 11 attacks, were loyal Finsbury Park Mosque followers, according to a member of Parliament and many press reports.

One is a Frenchman, Jerome Courtellier, who was recently arrested in the Netherlands in connection with the embassy bombing plot in Paris. A second is Algerian Ahmed Ressam, in prison in the U.S. for conspiring to blow up the Los Angeles International Airport terminal building during millennium celebrations.

The third worshiper is the man Ressam says was the mastermind behind the plot, an Algerian named Abu Doha. It was Doha, according to Ressam, who helped decide who would go to al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan.

Doha was arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport last February, and a subsequent police search of his apartment turned up false passports, 20 credit cards, 100 black berets and a telescopic rifle sight. A New York grand jury has indicted Doha in the millennium bombing case, and he is fighting extradition to the U.S.

Hedges reported from London and Simpson reported from Germany. Chicago Tribune staff reporters John Crewdson in Spain and E.A. Torres.