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Tunisia blast order came from Karachi: France

Tunisia blast order came from Karachi: France

Author: Paul Michaud
Publication: Dawn, Pakistan
Date: November 10, 2002
URL: http://www.dawn.com/2002/11/10/nat19.htm

French police say that the order for the suicide attack of last April 11 on a synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia, was given in Karachi. The attack resulted in the death of 21 persons, among them two French and 14 German tourists.

The French anti-terrorist police who have been investigating the attack - with the support of Tunisian President Ben Ali - say they have been able to determine that the satellite telephone used by the kamikaze, Nizar Naouar, who drove an explosives-laden truck into the synagogue, was acquired in Paris by Walid Naouar, Nizar's brother, who has been undergoing police interrogation at Lyons, near where lives his family.

The police affirm that the last call placed by Nizar before undertaking the attack was to a number in Karachi that they've been able to identify as belonging to Khaled Shaikh Mohammad, whom they describe as being a Kuwaiti national and one of the "new" operational heads of Al Qaeda.

After four days of interrogation in Lyons, Walid Naouar is now being transferred to the Paris headquarters of the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST, the French equivalent of the FBI), where he is to be further questioned about the role he and his brother as well as Khaled Shaikh Mohammad played in the attack. Already police say that they are convinced that the call placed on April 11 to Karachi was intended to seek the green light from Khaled Shaikh Mohammad whom they consider to be the principal author of the attack.

French police say they are also convinced that Walid Naouar also played an important role in preparation of the attack, and that prior to his sending the 1800-euro ($1800) telephone to his brother Nizar in Tunisia, he used it himself to place a number of calls to Germany where they say Nizar Naouar was in touch with another important Al Qaeda confederate.

The French police say that a telephone intercept supplied by German police has Nizar Naouar telling the supposed German-based accomplice that all that he was awaiting before undertaking his attack was a go-ahead - which he describes as a "dawaa" - from Pakistan.
 


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