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Poison terror suspects linked to Al Qaeda training camp

By David Leppard and Nicholas Rufford

LONDON: Intelligence sources have identified a remote valley in the Caucasus as the site of a “terrorist academy” where a number of suspected terrorists in Britain and France trained in the production of toxic chemicals.

The Pankisi gorge, which links Georgia and war-torn Chechnya was used by Al Qaeda units fleeing Afghanistan to set up a new training camp. Last week police discovered traces of ricin, a deadly toxin, in a flat above a pharmacy in Wood Green, north London, which had been used by Algerian asylum seekers. Pankisi gorge is also emerging as a link between recently foiled terrorist plots in Britain and a wave of others in France over the past 10 weeks. Some sources believe that a terrorist mastermind with knowledge of toxins and chemical weapons was at a makeshift camp in the gorge, similar to Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.

A number of north Africans arrested in a Paris suburb last month with suspected bomb-making materials had been in Pankisi, according to the French interior ministry.

The Paris gang was held after police seized a biochemical protection suit and formulae for chemicals. According to Nicolas Sarkozy, French interior minister, there were also links between the gang and a suspected plot to release poison gas on London’s Underground.

The Pankisi gorge is an area of treacherous mountain country. Stretching along the Alazani River, it is home to about 7,000 Chechen refugees. Peter Shaw, a British banker kidnapped by suspected Chechen rebels and held for 141 days until he escaped last November, was held there. MI6, the intelligence service, and British anti-terrorist experts worked with Georgian authorities on raids against militants who had holed up in the area after the collapse of the Taliban regime. Georgia deployed thousands of troops in a bid to gain control of the gorge.

Information on terrorist plans to use poisons and chemicals has been filtering back to British intelligence agencies from Guantanamo Bay, the American detention centre in Cuba where Al Qaeda operatives are being held. Among the inmates is Saif al Islam el Masry, identified as a member of Al Qaeda’s military committee. He was arrested in the Pankisi last October with 14 other suspects. However, it is feared that a terrorist mastermind and poisons expert escaped the round-up of suspects.

Ahmed Fadheel al-Khalayleh, one of Al Qaeda’s top 25 terrorists, was trained in the use of poisonous chemicals, toxins and biological weapons. The Jordanian terrorist is said to have been appointed Al Qaeda’s commander in Europe.

Some reports say al-Khalayleh used London as his base until Osama Bin Laden ordered him to move to Afghanistan to run a training camp. Scotland Yard and MI5 foiled the “ricin plot” after raiding the bedsit used by the north African asylum seekers. Traces of the toxin were found in the kitchen and forensic teams recovered castor beans, which can be crushed to make the basic ingredient of ricin. Security officials remain unclear as to whether the “laboratory” was for experimentation or was a production line.

Western intelligence agencies have been warning for months that a chemical or biological weapons plot was afoot in Europe. Hans Beth, in charge of counter-terrorism at the BND, Germany’s equivalent to MI6, specifically singled out al-Khalayleh as a threat. —TST

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