AN ENDURING THREAT: EUROPE’S ISLAMIST TERROR NETWORKS THEN AND NOW 907 908 Djoumakh and sentenced to six years in December 2004. Believed to have provided logistical 909 support. 910 MOHAMED AOUANI aka Heni ben Lased: Aouani acted as a liaison between the ‘Frankfurt cell’ 911 and an Italian al-Qaeda cell, and was also involved in weapons and explosives trafficking. Born in Tunis on 5 February 1970, he was thought to be Libyan, claiming to be Heni ben Lased. Other aliases include 912 Al-Asad ben Hani and Mohamed ben Belgacem Awani. Italian authorities issued a warrant for his arrest over links to a criminal gang and he was arrested in Munich on 10 October 2001. He was alleged to be 913 involved in smuggling and document forgery, was wanted for providing logistical support to al-Qaeda, and was claimed to have been in regular contact with the ‘Frankfurt cell’ between August and November 914 915 916 2000. He was tried in Milan, charged with trafficking chemical weapons, explosives and arms, and sentenced to six years. According to the UN Security Council he was deported on the 27 August 2006 917 from Italy to Tunisia. MEROUANE BENAHMED: Suspected of having provided bomb-making expertise to the Strasbourg cell, Benahmed is also thought to have been the leader of a plot to blow up the Russian Embassy in 918 919 Paris. An Algerian former commander of the GIA and expert in bomb-making and electronics, Benahmed is alleged to have visited militant training camps in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Georgia. He had extensive contacts within European Islamist networks and with the GSPC. These contacts also 920 included Rabah Kadri. Benahmed was convicted in 2006 and sentenced to ten years for conspiring to 921 attack in France as part of a ‘Chechen Network’ between 2001 and 2002. ! ! 907 ‘French court convicts group in Strasbourg Christmas market bomb trial’, Agence France Presse, 16 December 2004. 908 ibid. 909 ‘Jail for Strasbourg bomb plotters’, BBC News, 16 December 2004. 910 ‘SECURITY COUNCIL AL-QAIDA AND TALIBAN SANCTIONS COMMITTEE APPROVES DELETION OF TWO ENTRIES FROM CONSOLIDATED LIST’, United Nations Security Council, 24 January 2011, available at: http://www.cnbs.gob.hn/files/uif_pdf/Entidades%20Suprimidas.pdf, last visited: 9 August 2016. 911 ‘Freeze Ordered U.S. on Assets Of Pakistan-Based Group, 9 People’, The Washington Post, 20 April 2002, available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2002/04/20/freeze-ordered-us-on-assets-of-pakistan-based-group-9-people/b101c368-dbfa-4ad6-8ef4- 23632457c73e/, last visited: 9 August 2016. 912 ‘SECURITY COUNCIL AL-QAIDA AND TALIBAN SANCTIONS COMMITTEE APPROVES DELETION OF TWO ENTRIES FROM CONSOLIDATED LIST’, United Nations Security Council, 24 January 2011. 913 ‘Libyan terrorism suspect remanded in custody in Germany’, Agence France Presse, 16 October 2001. 914 Simcox, R. et al., ‘Islamist Terrorism: The British Connections’, The Henry Jackson Society (2011), p. 446. 915 Willan, P., ‘Al-Qaida suspect on trial in Italy’, Guardian, 4 July 2002, available at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jul/04/philipwillan, last visited: 9 August 2016. ‘Freeze Ordered U.S. on Assets Of Pakistan-Based Group, 9 People’, The Washington Post, 20 April 2002. 917 ‘SECURITY COUNCIL AL-QAIDA AND TALIBAN SANCTIONS COMMITTEE APPROVES DELETION OF TWO ENTRIES FROM CONSOLIDATED LIST’, United Nations Security Council, 24 January 2011. 918 ‘FFI Report- Jihad in Europe’, Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, 13 April 2004, pp. 62-3. 919 ‘France dismantles terror cell linked to al-Qaida, ministry says’, Associated Press International, 27 December 2002. 920 David, R., ‘Assigné à résidence, un ancien membre du GIA retourne en prison’, Le Figaro, 29 July 2015, available at: http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite- france/2015/07/29/01016-20150729ARTFIG00287-assigne-a-residence-un-ancien-membre-du-gia-retourne-en-prison.php, last visited: 9 August 2016. 921 ‘Assigné à résidence, le terroriste Merouane Benahmed témoigne’, Europe 1, 27 February 2015, available at: http://www.europe1.fr/faits-divers/assigne-a- residence-le-terroriste-merouane-benahmed-temoigne-2385153: last visited: 9 August 2016. ! ! 73 !