A judge has also ordered his arrest with other members of a Spanish terror
cell that helped prepare the way for the September 11 attacks in 2001 on New
York and Washington.
With his red hair, green eyes, pale features and trimmed beard, Syrian-born
al-Suri was able to easily pass as a European and plot some of al-Qaeda’s
worse atrocities.
Married to a Spanish woman, he spent three years in London in the 1990s,
before moving to Afghanistan to run two of Osama Bin Laden’s terrorist
training camps where he began experimenting with chemical weapons and set up
sleeper cells in Europe.
While in this role, he conceived the plan to attack the London transport
system and may have met some of the British-born suicide bombers led by Mohammad
Sidique Khan when they are believed to have visited terrorist train
camps in Pakistan.
Al-Suri, who had a £3 million US State Department bounty on his head, was
reportedly captured in Pakistan in November 2005 and handed to the CIA.
His hideout was thought to have been identified after US intelligence
intercepted a call from his wife.
In a move that has never been officially confirmed, the Americans then
reportedly turned him over to Syria where he had been held for the past six
years in the Aleppo prison, on its border with Turkey.
Quoting local sources, Syrian opposition website Sooryoon.net revealed
al-Suri’s release last week.
It said: “The timing of his release raises a lot of questions and observers
believe the release may indicate the regime is stopping security
co-operation with the Americans and thus releasing all those Washington
considers a threat to its interests.”
The release comes as President al-Assad is facing huge international pressure
after he responded to peaceful anti-government protests which began in March
last year with overwhelming military force leaving thousands of civilians
dead and wounded.
With the uprising continuing and heavy fighting on the streets of the capital
Damascus, European and Arab countries last week drafted a UN resolution
calling for the president to stand down, only for it to be blocked by the
Russians who said they would veto the strong wording.
But if al-Suri is now a free man, it will be a blow to the attempts to
dismantle al-Qaeda’s leadership and undermine its ability to launch
terrorist attacks following the death of Osama Bin Laden last May and the
death of Anwar al-Awlaki in a US drone attack in Yemen last September.
Before al-Suri’s capture, he was seen as a possible successor to Bin Laden,
though the pair had been bitter rivals.
His wife Helena, who converted to Islam and lives in Qatar with al-Suri’s four
children, said: “I have not heard anything official or unofficial since my
husband disappeared in 2004.”
She added: “I hope that one day we will be together again.”
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