AN ENDURING THREAT: EUROPE’S ISLAMIST TERROR NETWORKS THEN AND NOW 647 NIZAR TRABELSI aka Qaqa Tunisi Role: Convicted in 2003 of plotting a suicide attack on a NATO airbase in Kleine Brogel, Belgium in 648 649 2001. Beghal claimed Trabelsi was to be the suicide bomber used to attack the US Embassy, yet it has also been suggested Trabelsi’s attack in Belgium was intended to take place at the same time as attacks on 650 the US Embassy and Strasbourg’s Christmas markets. Bio: Trabelsi, a Tunisian, signed for Fortuna Dusseldorf in 1989 before being released and moving from team to team as he became increasingly involved with drugs including cocaine. After a number of criminal offences he was jailed, though it is unclear for how long. On his release, he is believed to have come under 651 the influence of Islamist radicals in Dostrum, Germany, potentially at a mosque visited by Djamel Beghal 652 and it has been claimed he was recruited by Beghal. French authorities say he attended classes run by 653 Abu Qatada in London before travelling to Afghanistan, where he claimed to have met Osama bin 654 Laden in 1999 and asked to be allowed to carry out a suicide attack. Trabelsi then appears to have 655 returned to Belgium and was arrested in Brussels on 13 September 2001. When Trabelsi was arrested, 656 the authorities discovered a machine gun and bomb-making instructions in his Brussels apartment. The 657 materials for a bomb were also discovered in a Brussels restaurant. Trabelsi was tried alongside 23 others, 18 of whom were found guilty of crimes relating to the bomb plot, acting as al-Qaeda recruiters and forgery, and was given a ten year sentence.658 In 2006, he was indicted by a US court over his trip to 659 Afghanistan and his extradition was requested in 2008. He was extradited to the US in October 2013 660 and is currently awaiting trial. 661 Foreign training/combat: Trabelsi spent time in training camps in Afghanistan in the late 1990s. Movements: 662 Germany (1989); UK (1990s); Afghanistan (1999); Belgium (Unclear date of return). Criminal history: Trabelsi had a history of petty crime, drug abuse and violence prior to his radicalisation 663 and spent time in prison on at least one occasion. Convicted in 2003 of plotting a suicide attack on a 664 NATO airbase in Kleine Brogel, Belgium in 2001. ! ! 647 ‘Deposition in U.S. v. Adis Medunjanin’, 29 March 2012, available at: http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/world/deposition-in-us-v-adis- medunjanin/859/, last visited: 9 August 2016, p. 68. 648 ‘Belgium foils al-Qaeda jailbreak’, BBC News, 21 December 2007, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7155539.stm, last visited: 9 August 2016. 649 Barnett, A. and Burhan Wazir, ‘From football to terrorism’, Guardian, 7 October 2001. 650 O’Neill, S. and Daniel McGrory, The Suicide Factory: Abu Hamza and the Finsbury Park Mosque (London: Harper Collins, 2006), p. 227. 651 Johnson, Z., ‘Chronology: The Plots’, PBS Frontline, available at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/special/cron.html, last visited: 9 August 2016. 652 Bird, S., ‘Quiet existence in Leicester suburb masked complex terrorist network’, The Times, 2 April 2003. 653 ‘The Baker Street connection’, Independent, 6 October 2001. 654 O’Neill, S. and Daniel McGrory, The Suicide Factory: Abu Hamza and the Finsbury Park Mosque (London: Harper Collins, 2006), p. 227. 655 ‘Belgium foils al-Qaeda jailbreak’, BBC News, 21 December 2007. 656 Bird, S., ‘Quiet existence in Leicester suburb masked complex terrorist network’, The Times, 2 April 2003. 657 ‘Al Qaeda Bomb Plotter Convicted in Belgium’, The Washington Post, 1 October 2003, available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/10/01/al-qaeda-bomb-plotter-convicted-in-belgium/a1a562bf-dc73-435b-8c99-4e513941482a/, last visited: 9 August 2016. 658 ibid. 659 ‘Tunisian Nizar Trabelsi extradited to US on terror charges’, BBC News, 4 October 2013, available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24393770, last visited: 9 August 2016. 660 ‘Court chides Belgium over terror suspect Nizar Trabelsi’, BBC News, 4 September 2014, available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-29062760, last visited: 9 August 2016. 661 Simcox, R. et al., ‘Islamist Terrorism: The British Connections’, The Henry Jackson Society (2011), p. 366. 662 Johnson, Z., ‘Chronology: The Plots’, PBS Frontline; and ‘The Baker Street connection’, Independent, 6 October 2001. 663 O’Neill, S. and Daniel McGrory, The Suicide Factory: Abu Hamza and the Finsbury Park Mosque (London: Harper Collins, 2006), p. 226; and Johnson, Z, ‘Chronology: The Plots’, PBS Frontline. 664 ‘Belgium foils al-Qaeda jailbreak’, BBC News, 21 December 2007. ! ! 54 !