Report Links Bin Laden to Algerians

Thursday, January 27, 2000 9:59 AM EST

NEW YORK (AP) -- Investigators believe they have found links between Osama bin Laden and Algerians charged with plotting a terror attack in the United States, The New York Times reported today.

A man under arrest in Senegal is believed to have directed the Algerians' effort to carry out a bomb plot from Canada late last year, the Times reported, citing unidentified law enforcement sources.

The plot was foiled Dec. 14 when U.S. authorities arrested a man at Port Angeles, Wash. Ahmed Ressam was entering the country from Canada in a vehicle that allegedly contained bomb-making materials.

Bin Laden and 17 others have been indicted on federal charges with a conspiracy to attack Americans in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The attacks killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. Bin Laden, a Saudi exile, is believed to be in Afghanistan.

No specific evidence shows that bin Laden was behind the alleged Algerian plot and authorities have not suggested possible targets.

The man held in Senegal, Mohambedou Ould Slahi, is a brother-in-law of one of bin Laden's key aides, known as ``the Mauritanian,'' the Times said.

Slahi has not been charged with any crime, but the United States requested his arrest and federal prosecutors in New York are preparing formal charges which could be used as the basis for his extradition, the Times reported. Agents were traveling to Senegal to question Slahi, the newspaper said.

A senior government official in Senegal and an officer at the central police station in Dakar told The Associated Press today they knew nothing of Slahi's detention. An official at the U.S. Embassy in Dakar said he was unaware of Slahi's case or any American investigators in the country.

At least four Algerian nationals and one woman married to an Algerian face charges in connection with the plot.

Little was revealed about Slahi, a citizen of Mauritania, but investigators told the Times he was in constant contact with a construction company in Sudan that was owned by bin Laden and was a front for his international organization, al Qaeda.

Last fall, Slahi traveled to Montreal, where he worked closely with Mokhtar Haouri, one of the Algerians charged with helping Ressam. But following Ressam's arrest, Slahi fled to a Montreal mosque and then left the country, the Times reported.

American officials said there are other emerging links between the bomb plot and bin Laden. One involves Hamid Aich, an Algerian who lived for three years in a Vancouver suburb where he shared an apartment with Abdelmajid Dahoumane, the Times said.

Dahoumane remains at large, accused of being Ressam's accomplice.

After leaving Canada last year and moving to Ireland, Aich became associated with Mercy International Relief Agency, an Islamic charity. The charity's director received calls from bin Laden's satellite phone, the Times said.

A search of the charity's files after the embassy bombings uncovered a document that referred to plans to obtain weapons from Somalia, the newspaper said.

Irish police said they arrested Aich on Dec. 21 and seized personal papers and computer records. They released him the following day, and gave the seized material to the FBI for analysis, Superintendent John Farrelly said.