barrykind
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Seattle, al-Qaida Ties Investigated
published 11:27 PM - JULY 14, 2002 Eastern Time
SEATTLE (AP) _ A federal investigation into whether a now-defunct Seattle mosque had ties to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network was prompted by information from a British Taliban fighter in custody at Guantanamo Bay, a newspaper reported Sunday.
Feroz Abbassi, 22, told CIA investigators earlier this year that he had traveled to Afghanistan from London in 2000 with a Muslim convert now believed to have ties to a Seattle group suspected of supporting the al-Qaida network, The Seattle Times reported, citing federal sources it did not identify.
The two men reportedly met at Finsbury Park's North London Central Mosque, operated by Egyptian-born Abu Hamza Al-Masri, a suspected al-Qaida recruiter wanted in Yemen on terrorism charges, The Times said.
The same London mosque had been visited by Zacharias Moussaoui, the only individual charged in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, and Richard Reid, who is accused of attempting to blow up an American Airlines flight with bombs hidden in his shoes.
The man Abbassi met with _ The Times did not identify him _ has been described by intelligence sources as a close associate of Abu Hamza and helped set up a Web site that encourages jihad against the West.
Abbassi also told investigators that while in Afghanistan he met a Swedish citizen who reportedly had been scouting sites for possible al-Qaida training camps in the United States in November 1999. About the same time, two men from the London mosque arrived at a ranch in Bly, Ore., occupied by several members of the Seattle group, the paper said.
A Klamath Falls, Ore., police officer who had questioned the men during a traffic stop on Dec. 14, 1999, gave investigators their names, and Abbassi later identified one as the Swedish man who had told him about the training camp plan, the sources said.
Abbassi was captured by U.S. troops last December in fighting near Khandahar. His information, combined with intelligence information from detectives in Klamath County, Ore., prompted the investigation of the Seattle mosque, Dar-us-Salaam, The Times said.
Former mosque members are being investigated by the FBI and a federal grand jury for allegedly conspiring to support al-Qaida and Islamic terrorism against the United States, although it is not believed to be a full terrorist "cell" receiving regular orders from al-Qaida.
Representatives of the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office have not confirmed the investigation. However, an attorney for a former leader of Dar-us-Salaam said the grand jury was investigating and that federal investigators were pressing to speak to his client, Semi Osman, 32, of Tacoma.
Osman, who lived at the Bly ranch in 1999, has pleaded innocent to federal charges that he tried obtaining U.S. citizenship through a sham marriage and owned a semiautomatic handgun with the serial number removed.
The Dar-us-Salaam mosque in Seattle's Central District was closed two years ago because it was too small. A new mosque, called Taqwa, was opened nearby, but it also closed after it sustained damage during the February 2001 earthquake.
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Posts: 3529 | From: Orange, Texas | Registered: Jun 2002
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