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.
