Sweep of Worldwide Terrorist Web

Besides staging raids on American soil in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, authorities in Germany, Belgium, France and England have taken several people in custody.

By Stephen M. Silverman

Originally posted Sunday September 23, 2001 10:52 AM EDT

The FBI on Friday raided a home in Burlington, Ky., detaining about 20 people in connection with Sept. 11's attacks. More than 115 people are now in federal custody in connection with the investigation, including several individuals who have been placed under arrest. Overseas, German police in Hamburg this weekend charged Said Bahaji, 26, a German of Moroccan origin, and Ramzi Binalshibh, 29, of Yemen with "forming a terrorist organization and with at least 5,000 counts of murder," reports ABCNEWS.com "The two were part of preparation for the attack (on America) since at least 1999," said Kay Nehm, Germany's federal prosecutor. "We have not established a link with bin Laden, but we are headed that way." Elsewhere in Europe, French police arrested seven people outside Paris in connection with the investigation into last week's attacks. The raids took place in the pre-dawn hours of Friday, and the seven individuals taken into custody are believed to have connections to the July arrest of an Algerian man in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, who has ties to Osama bin Laden. Authorities in Belgium arrested two men and seized chemicals that could have been used to make a bomb, but an official declined to say whether the men were planning an attack. The international dragnet also snared four men and one woman in London, arrested "in connection with the World Trade Center terrorist attack and . . . being questioned by Anti-Terrorist Branch officers," said Scotland Yard. According to the Associated Press, one of the four, identified by a source as the brother of a pilot (also arrested) who took flying lessons in Arizona, was released Saturday. Meanwhile, The New York Times on Sunday reported that European, American and Pakistani officials say that they have identified new elements of the bin Laden terrorist network, including a top lieutenant in Europe and a previously undisclosed cell in the Gaza Strip. At least 11,000 terrorists have been trained in the past five years at camps operated by bin Laden in Pakistan, officials tell The Times -- which points out that these terrorists have been dispatched so far and wide that eliminating their training camps, or even bin Laden, may only be part of the solution.