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[FoneBone]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/12/international/europe/12SPAI.html

MADRID, July 10 — Terrorists are not usually talkers. But the man who calls himself the mastermind of the March 11 train bombings in Madrid is an exception.

For nearly three months, the Italian police have eavesdropped on Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, "Muhammad the Egyptian" as the 32-year-old Egyptian is known. The contents of his conversations, both in custody in Milan and before his arrest last month, have provided the police with a mother lode of information about the secret world of a man who claims to have recruited suicide bombers and organized terrorist operations in the name of Islam.

Senior Spanish investigators believe that Mr. Ahmed played an important role in the Madrid bombings, which killed 190 people, and could indeed be the architect of the operation, although they are still searching for other leading suspects. The Italian authorities arrested Mr. Ahmed after his monitored conversations spoke of an imminent attack in an undisclosed location.

Dozens of pages of transcripts obtained by The New York Times and interviews with officials in Spain, Italy, Germany and France have shed light on Mr. Ahmed and his ability over the years to take on new identities, cross borders and avoid the police as he pressed his cause against the West. They also offer a case study of the challenges and frustrations Europe faces in monitoring radicals, routing out sleeper cells and prosecuting and convicting those they arrest.

In Germany in 1999 and 2000, Mr. Ahmed served 16 months in a detention center, feigning different Arabic accents and pretending to be a "stateless Palestinian" seeking political asylum.

In Madrid in 2001 and 2002, he befriended a group of radical Muslims, some of whom were involved in the March 11 bombings and were killed in a suicide operation while trying to escape the police.

In a Paris suburb in 2003, he eked out a living as an illegal construction worker and house painter. In Milan in 2004, he lived in an apartment in a tidy, upscale neighborhood, where he seemed to spend most of his day watching Arabic-language movies and news on satellite television.

"We looked for a job for him," said Ghazi Bidel, a 27-year-old Egyptian pizza maker who was his roommate in Milan. "But he said he didn't want to work."

Last April, shortly after the Spanish police found Mr. Ahmed's Italian cellphone number in the address book of one of two men suspected of involvement in the plot, the Italian police began tapping Mr. Ahmed's phone and bugging his apartment.

In the taped conversations, Mr. Ahmed calls himself "the thread behind the Madrid plot," discusses an imminent terrorist operation in an unidentified location and the deployment of suicide martyrs to Iraq, and complains about his marriage and money problems. He shows off a computer program that activates numerous cellphones simultaneously — similar to the technology used in the Madrid attacks — and says he was in Madrid days before the bombings.

He declares that nationality does not matter in holy war, that he has converted drug dealers and criminals to the faith and that Muslims are allowed to marry Christians as a means of acquiring false documents. He describes the ease of buying false documents but stresses quality, saying, "If you don't know who used them, it is dangerous."

He takes what he calls a "beautiful photo" of Yahia Ragheh, a 21-year-old Egyptian he is grooming to become a suicide bomber — and who was arrested with him — and tells him that it will be sent to his family and other militants after his death. He boasts that while the Americans possess nuclear weapons, he has seen "something in the form of a hair dryer" that causes "the most horrible death possible" by suffocation.

 

[Idle Will Kill]

A device that looks like a hair dryer that sucks the oxygen out of a pressurized airplane thus suffocating all the passengers?!?!?

 

[Kuroyume]

Please... everyone knows the most horrible death possible is to be impaled by having a sharp stick shoved up your anus... like they use to do in the old days. Unnecessary surgery by a serial killer and a few disease related deaths rank up there... Earlier today I also saw the most violent and long video of lions eating a man in front of his family and that looked really painful.

 

[demon]

There's only one way terrorists can be sure to successfully take down a plane, and that is:


SNAKES ON A PLANE

 

[Ill Saint]

Earlier today I also saw the most violent and long video of lions eating a man in front of his family and that looked really painful.

What the hell?

 

[Ferrio]

Earlier today I also saw the most violent and long video of lions eating a man in front of his family and that looked really painful.

Unfortunatly I've seen that too. Easily the most disturbing thing I've ever seen, thanks for reminding me of it existance......

 

[Wolfy]

Link?

 

[Malakhov]

Link?

LOL

 

[demon]

Link?

It's sick fucks like you who make me hate the world.


that said, please provide a link so I know never to go to it. thx.

 

[belgurdo]

Link to animality plz

 

[Baron Aloha]

He boasts that while the Americans possess nuclear weapons, he has seen "something in the form of a hair dryer" that causes "the most horrible death possible" by suffocation.

John Titor!

 

[Doth Togo]

No, bio/chem weapons that cause asphyxiation. Sarin? Anthrax? Airborne ebola (it can be done...)?

A hairdryer is merely a transportation/dispersion shell for what the bio/chem weapon will be carried and distributed.

He didn't say Americans...he said "an imminent attack in an undisclosed location." Could be the moon for all we know.

 

[Tea Master]

Somebody please pm me the link to that man eating lion video.

 

[DaCocoBrova]

If it's the one I saw, it's not that disturbing mainly due to the poor camera work and the jeep getting in the way... I mean, how much footage is out there of a guy being eaten by a lion in front of his family?