Slightly EFL
A Dutch Islamic cell linked to the murder of the film-maker Theo Van Gogh planned a terrorist "spectacular" at the Euro 2004 football championship this summer, it was revealed yesterday. | "Sunday Sunday Sunday...mujahid mayhem!" |
Adelino Salvado, the former chief of Portugal's judiciary police, said his men seized three members of the "hit squad" the day before the tournament began in June. The terrorist cell, known as the Hofstad Network, drove a car registered to Mohammed Bouyeri, the Dutch-Moroccan man accused of slitting Mr Van Gogh's throat in Amsterdam earlier this month. Among the three men was El Fahtni Noreddine, a Moroccan national who at one point shared a flat in Amsterdam with Bouyeri.| Tell me again why they weren't jugging or at least watching Bouyeri. |
José Manuel Barroso, then Portugal's premier and now the incoming president of the European Commission, was believed to be in imminent danger. Police confined him to his hotel in Porto on June 11, causing him to miss the gala dinner celebrating the opening match between Portugal and Greece. It followed a tip-off by Holland's AIVD intelligence service. "Everything indicated they were preparing an attack, and I could never sleep if I did nothing to prevent it," Mr Salvado told Portugal's Diario de Noticias. | Hey! A security officer who understands his job is to keep people safe! Maybe he can come work for Tom Ridge. |
The suspects were later deported rather than put on trial.| Deported to where? Holland? Morrocco? Disneyland Paris? |
The revelation provides a clue heightens fears that Mr Van Gogh's killer was part of a far-reaching Islamic cell, able to strike anywhere in Europe, taking advantage of Holland's tolerant society in a jihad against the West. The Hofstad cell is also under investigation about suspected plans to strike the Dutch parliament, Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, and the Borssele nuclear reactor. Piet Hein Donner, the justice minister, announced yesterday that his government was launching an international manhunt for the "spiritual leader" of the cell, a Syrian extradited to Germany before the murder of Mr Van Gogh.| Name, please. And how does a Syrian become the spiritual leader for a group of Morroccans living in Holland and planning to blow up the soccer stadium in Portugal... |
| He most likely has saudi "funding". |
A recent report by AIVD concluded that up to 50,000 of Holland's one million-strong Muslim community was sympathetic to extreme Islamic causes. The Hofstadt Network, believed to be linked to Al-Qa'eda, is part of the extreme Islamic movement el-Takfir wa el Hijra. The Dutch police have so far arrested 12 Islamic radicals after a "declaration of war" by the cabinet against an enemy within that is now threatening the stability of Dutch society. New measures include proposals to deport extremists, whether or not they are Dutch citizens, as the country turns its back on its 30-year experiment as the world's most easy-going model of multi-culturalism. |