I find this story especially interesting because of the financial twist.
German police arrested two suspected al-Qaida members Sunday believed to have plotted a suicide attack in Iraq — with a side venture in insurance fraud, taking out a policy on the suicide bomber to use the money to fund the terror organization.
The chief suspect, 29-year-old Iraqi Ibrahim Mohamed K., is also believed to have tried to obtain nearly two ounces of uranium in Luxembourg.
He also “played a not unimportant role in al-Qaida, because he showed signs of contact with Osama bin Laden and met with Ramzi Binalshibh,” one of the plotters of the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States, chief federal prosecutor Kay Nehm told reporters.
The Iraqi, a resident of Mainz, was arrested on suspicion of recruiting suicide attackers in Germany and providing logistical help to al-Qaida, Nehm said.
The other suspect, a 31-year-old Palestinian, identified as Yasser Abu S., was allegedly recruited by the Iraqi to be a suicide bomber in an attack in Iraq. The Palestinian is a Bonn medical student, who was born in Libya and has an Egyptian passport, Nehm said.
Prosecutors said the Iraqi took out a $1 million life insurance policy on the medical student, who was then to fake his death in a car accident in Egypt. The majority of the insurance payoff was to fund al-Qaida activities, they said.
After the faked death, the Palestinian was to go to Iraq to carry out a suicide bombing, the prosecutor said.
The story goes on to point out that the Iraqi suspect had trained multiple times at the al-Queda camps in Afghanistan before the terror-loving Taliban regime was toppled. Details of other recent German moves against radical Islamists within their borders are also listed.