Mosque linked to key terror network

Detectives suspect the Finsbury Park mosque is at the centre of an international al Qaeda terror network plotting attacks in Britain and the Continent.

The raid on the mosque yesterday was launched after a leading Algerian terror suspect was seized in France. He is believed to have given intelligence agencies vital information on the activities of al Qaeda cells in Britain.

Security sources have revealed that Merouane Ben Ahmed has links to Chechen fighters as well as al Qaeda sympathisers and Algerian extremists. The development came as demands grew for the Government to expel the mosque's controversial preacher Abu Hamza.

Scotland Yard is now liaising with French and American intelligence agencies in connection with recent arrests. Other north African countries are also believed to be involved in the terror conspiracy.

Members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group as well as Tunisians with links to extremist groups are believed to be under investigation.

Today anti-terrorist detectives are continuing to question seven men arrested in the Finsbury Park raid involving more than 150 officers. Police discovered a stun gun, an imitation weapon which fires blanks and a CS gas canister during searches of the building.

Hundreds of documents, including forged passports, many of them French, identity documents and credit cards which

could have been used to provide false identities were also found. Officers also seized computers while MI5 is reported to have asked the GCHQ listening station at Cheltenham to intercept coded emails sent and received by computer terminals at the mosque.

Among those held were three Algerian men who are believed to have slipped into the country unnoticed.

Six men, aged 23 to 48, are from north Africa and a 22-year-old is from eastern European. Immigration officials are checking the status of all seven of the men held.

One of the three Algerians is said to be a "key player" in the al Qaeda network and was being hunted by both MI5 and Scotland Yard.

He and others held are said to be linked to the ricin poison plot exposed during a raid on a kitchen sink laboratory at a flat in Wood Green two weeks ago.

Police believe they are in the process of unravelling a network-of highly skilled international terrorists, some of whom have trained at al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and the Caucasus.

However, police sources warn that a number of suspects are still at large. The operation yesterday - codenamed Mermant - came after police analysed documents seized during the Wood Green raid.

Reda Hassaine, an Algerian who infiltrated the mosque for MI5, told the Evening Standard that it should have been closed down a long time ago and said it was a "haven for killers".

Mr Hassaine, 40, fled the war in his country in 1994. To get his wife and young child out of Algeria, he made a pact with the Algerian intelligence service. They would help him take refuge in Britain if he helped them gather intelligence on Algerian militants using London as a base. He posed as a member of the GIA, one of the most bloodthirsty of Algeria's fundamentalist groups. Then he began working for the French. In 1998 he became an agent for Special Branch and then MI5 and infiltrated the mosque.

Mr Hassaine told security services that Algerian terrorists were using the mosque as a base. "The level of hatred in that mosque was frightening," he said. "Among the 200 people who go there regularly only about 20 or 25 are extremists, but these people are very militant.

"They talk of killing only non-Muslims. They discuss car bombings, attacks on the Underground and assasinations. Killing is their watchword. To kill in the name of Islam is a dream for these people. They think it will give them a guaranteed-route into heaven." Mr Hassaine made a map of the mosque for his secret service contacts. He said: "There are offices with computers, and there is dormitory accommodation for the hardliners."

The building is believed to have been under intense surveillance before the decision was taken to launch yesterday's raid. According to an informed source, Scotland Yard was especially anxious to detain one individual, identified in information provided by the French.

Abu Hamza accused the police and Government of adopting "Rambo-style" tactics. He claimed the operation was in retaliation for the murder of Detective Constable Stephen Oake in Manchester and that it was part of a Governmentbacked "war" on Islam.

Scotland Yard defended the raid and said it had taken account of the sensitivities of Muslim worshippers.