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| Yemeni terror suspect denies Al Qaida links |
| 2004-02-29 |
| A Yemeni national held in Lebanon on terrorism charges denied yesterday he was behind a string of small bomb attacks on US fast food outlets and an alleged plot to attack the US embassy. "Nope. Nope. Wudn't me." Judicial sources said Moammar Awwama also denied alleged ties to Al Qaida but told a military court he had worked for an Egyptian member of Osama bin Laden's network, killed by a car bomb last year. The court set March 8 for the next hearing. Awwama, also known as Ibn Al Shahid, faces a possible life sentence on charges including carrying out "terrorist acts" and membership of "terrorist cells". The kind that "kill people." In December, Lebanon sentenced 27 men to between three months and life imprisonment for attacks on American restaurants, and an alleged plot to kill US ambassador Vincent Battle. Nine others face charges on similar grounds. The attacks peaked at the height of the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation and the US-led war on Iraq. They stopped after a large car bomb was found outside a McDonalds restaurant in Beirut in April. It failed to explode. Awwama said he did not know any of the individuals implicated in the restaurant bombings, which he had only heard about from his late employer Abu Mohammed Al Masri, an Afghan war veteran on the FBI list of 22 "most wanted terrorists". Awwama, who worked at a sandwich shop in the southern Ein El Hilweh refugee camp, said he had heard Masri discussing possible plans to attack the US embassy with another man, but had not joined the conversation himself. Awwama was arrested in October by Palestinian Fatah gunmen in the camp and handed over to Lebanese authorities. The Yemeni said he came to Lebanon in 1996 to fight Israeli forces, then occupying the south of the country, had fought in Bosnia and had hoped to fight against US-led forces in Iraq. He denied accusations that he had met bin Laden's right hand man Ayman Al Zawahiri, or that Masri had talked about his fellow Egyptian Islamist. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 Awwama, who worked at a sandwich shop in the southern Ein El Hilweh refugee camp There's probably an economic reason why he and his boss tried to blow up a McDonalds. |
| Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-2-29 8:24:12 PM |