Submitted by Jack(United States), Oct 11, 2005 at 08:42
From Elaine Sciolino and Helene Fouquet, "Belgium Is Trying to Unravel the Threads of a Terror Web," New York Times, Oct. 10, 2005:
BRUSSELS — On a damp, gray day in March 2004, the Dutch traffic police stopped a Belgian driver for a broken headlight and accidentally stumbled onto a major investigation of Islamic radicals.
The driver was Khalid Bouloudo, a sometime baker and former Ford autoworker born in Belgium. During a routine check, his name turned up on an Interpol watch list, for an international arrest warrant from Morocco charging him with links to a terrorist organization based in Morocco and involvement in suicide bombings in Casablanca in 2003.
The random arrest set in motion a cascade of events that underscored the extent of the radicalization of young Muslims throughout Europe—and a rapidly expanding and homegrown terrorist threat.
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