Belgium Police Hold 14 Suspects in Raids

By RAF CASERT
The Associated Press
Wednesday, November 30, 2005; 1:41 PM

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Belgium authorities raided homes Wednesday and detained 14 suspects with links to a terrorist network that sent volunteers to Iraq, including a Belgian woman who allegedly carried out a suicide attack in Baghdad.

In Paris, meanwhile, police arrested a 27-year-old Tunisian man suspected of having contacts with the Belgian cell, judicial officials said.

Belgian authorities "want to dismantle this network, which we knew was on our territory and which aimed to send volunteers for the jihad to the battlefield," federal police director Glenn Audenaert told reporters, referring to an Arabic word which among extremists can mean holy war in addition to its definition as the Islamic concept of the struggle to do good.

The dawn raids in Brussels and three other cities across the country involved more than 200 police officers and followed media reports that a Belgian woman had blown herself up in a Nov. 9 attack in Baghdad.

The woman allegedly carried out a car bombing against an American patrol on Nov. 9. U.S. officials said she was the only person killed.

She was 38, her first name was Mireille and she came from a middle class background in Charleroi, said an official close to the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The woman had converted to fundamentalist Islam after she married a man from Morocco, officials said. "This is how she came into contact with the organization which allowed her to become a fighter for jihad," Audenaert said.

Her husband was killed in Iraq in a separate incident, officials said. Audenaert refused to give any further information about the couple.

Nine of the 14 suspects detained Wednesday were Belgian. Three others were Moroccan and two were Tunisian. Belgian authorities can keep people in detention for up to 24 hours before formally charging them.

The Tunisian who was arrested in the Paris area is suspected of having been in contact with one of those arrested in Belgium and is thought to have known the husband of the alleged suicide bomber.

Belgium has been mentioned as a breeding ground for terrorists in the past. There are 13 Belgian and Moroccan nationals on trial for allegedly being members of an Islamic group suspected in recent bomb attacks in Spain and Morocco.

Islamic radical groups linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network are suspected of setting up networks in Belgium and other European nations with large Muslim communities.

© 2005 The Associated Press