The Garda Special Branch is expected to detain the three Libyans and one Algerian arrested in south Dublin yesterday until later this week. However, there is no indication that charges are likely.
According to Garda sources there is little evidence that the four were involved in any serious terrorist activity. All four men are held under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act which allows their detention without charge for three days.
One of the men, arrested at his home in Ballinteer, has lived here since the 1980s and is a naturalised Irish citizen. He is in receipt of disability and rent allowances but appears to have a separate income. He has been involved in a number of Islamic charities, including Mercy International Relief Agency (MIRA) which is registered here as a charity and has been connected with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda group.
However, there is no indication that large sums of money passed through MIRA accounts here. It seems, in fact, that it was used to collect small regular donations from members of the Muslim community. The total amount passing through the charity's account is thought to be less than £20,000.
However, garda∅ from the newly-formed "Middle Eastern Section" of the Special Branch, under the direction of a chief superintendent, are understood to have seized a large sum of money, thought to be around £10,000, along with documents, during yesterday's searches.
One of the men is understood to be a cousin of an extreme figure who lived here from 1999 to July this year. It was this man who is believed to have been the link between a small group of between 15 and 20 Islamic extremists and bin Laden's group. It is believed that this man, who is 36, has now joined associates in Afghanistan.
It is believed he began his career in terrorism with the Algerian "Armed Islamic Group" (known by its initials in French, GIA). This group was responsible for the killings of tens of thousands of civilians during the bloody civil war in Algeria following the suspension of elections in 1992. GIA has provided the backbone of bin Laden's international network, al-Qaeda, whose representatives here are all Algerian, Libyan and Egyptian.
Members of GIA were central to the September 11th attacks in the US. The group is one of the most extreme ever to emerge in the field of international terrorism. Many of its members travelled to the Balkans and fought as part of a mujahideen brigade on the side of the Bosnian Muslims.
Several GIA figures were then traced to Canada where, as French speakers, they were able to assimilate easily into the population in the late 1990s.
It was during this period that GIA, which had previously been regarded as restricting its activities to its campaign within Algeria and the occasional terrorist attack in France, became internationalised under the guidance of Osama bin Laden.
In 1999 three GIA members were cited as being responsible for plotting a Millennium bomb attack in either Seattle or Los Angeles from across the Canadian border in Montreal. One was a 34-year-old man who shared an apartment with two other Algerians, Ahmed Ressam and Abdel Majid Dahoumane.
Earlier this year, Ressam was convicted of conspiring to carry out a terrorist bomb attack in the United States. Dahoumane fled from Canada before arrest and was said by the FBI to have travelled to Afghanistan.
The three lived together in the Montreal suburb of Burnaby between 1995 and May 1999, when the third man left and travelled to Dublin.
In Dublin he rented a house in Stillorgan and opened a bank account where the State paid rent and disability allowance totalling over £300 a week. This man married and his wife gave birth during his stay in Ireland, providing the family with instant Irish citizenship.
Although he continued to claim disability and rent allowances he clearly had a separate income source and the family had two cars and he was said to be a regular foreign traveller.
During their investigations into the activities of these three men, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) travelled to Dublin at the end of 1999. As a result of requests by them and the FBI the Garda Special Branch arrested the man and four other younger men on December 21st 1999.
The man who came here from Canada is an electrical engineer. During the raid on his rented house in Tallaght, garda∅ found a schematic, or design for a switch. Garda sources said this switch could be used in a bomb or, equally, in the repair of an innocent electrical device like a kettle. It was decided there was not sufficient evidence to bring charges or extradite any of the five and they were released and continued to live here. Two subsequently disappeared and the leading suspect stayed until July this year when he, his wife and daughter left separately.
FBI and Canadian government sources expressed concern at the decision to release the five, but Government sources here insisted there was simply no means, under our laws, to allow their further detention or extradition.
It subsequently emerged during the trial of Ressam, that his associate Dahoumane had concocted bomb ingredients with the apparent intention of blowing up Los Angeles Airport. Explosives and bomb-making material were found at a Vancouver motel in December 1999. These included a schematic identical to that found in Dublin.
The US State Department subsequently posted a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Dahoumane, who is 35. He was considered sufficiently dangerous to attract the same bounty as that on the head of Osama bin Laden .
