al-Qaeda in Holland

Dutch prosecutors in Rotterdam said on Monday that they had arrested 8 persons who belong to a radical Islamic group that provided "logistical, material and financial support" to al-Qaeda, and recruited fighters for it. This cell is apparently unrelated to a previously apprehended group of 4 men.

The previously arrested cell included Jerome Courtailler, a Frenchman, Abdelkader Rabia of Algeria, and a Dutch citizen, Saad Ibrahim, all arrested last Sept. 13. Another Algerian member, Abel Tobbichia, was arrested in Canada and extradited to Holland in July. This cell, which was run by Djemal Beghal, a French Algerian, had planned to attack the US embassy in Paris. It has recently been revealed by Dutch authorities that there is evidence they also planned to attack the US military in Belgium.

Beghal was arrested in the UAE last fall and then extradited to France, where he revealed the embassy plot and fingered his collaborators before later falling silent. Courtailler and Rabia are implicated in supplying false passports to Islamic militants, and both such forgeries and machinery to make more were found in their apartment when they were arrested (along with videos of Usama Bin Laden). Their trial will begin in November.

Courtailler drove one militant to the airport when he left for training in Afghanistan, and once helped find a job for shoe bomber Richard Reid.