Man Admits To Plotting Bombings In US & Europe

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From 'AFP': A US-born man pleaded guilty on Tuesday, June 3rd, to helping to train fellow Al-Qaeda agents to carry out bombings in Europe and the United States, after a five-year global investigation, officials said. The targets included European tourist resorts frequented by Americans, as well as US military bases, embassies and consular offices in Europe. "Today's guilty plea brings an end to the long, dangerous career of Christopher Paul, an Ohio native who joined Al-Qaeda in the early 1990s, fought in Afghanistan and Bosnia and conspired with others to target Americans both at home and abroad," said Acting Assistant US Attorney General Patrick Rowan. "His conviction demonstrates our continuing resolve to protect the American public against terrorism."

Paul, 44, was arrested in April 2007 on charges of providing material support to terrorists and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction. He agreed to a sentence of 20 years in prison in exchange for having two of the three charges dropped during a change of plea hearing at an Ohio court on Tuesday. "This guilty plea is a significant step forward in the war on terror," said US Attorney Gregory Lockhart said.

In a statement of facts read during the hearing, Paul admitted that he traveled to Pakistan in the early 1990s to join the mujahedeen (Islamic fighters) and was trained by Al-Qaeda to fight in Afghanistan. Upon his return to Ohio, Paul began recruiting "local individuals with extremist intentions in order to establish a jihadist group in Ohio," the US Justice Department said in a press release. He used various passports and false identities to travel to the Balkans and fought in conflict zones such as Bosnia from 1993 through 1995. While he was there he established further contacts with radical Islamic fundamentalists, and created a master list of Al-Qaeda leaders and other Islamic radicals worldwide, the statement of facts said. That list and bomb-making information was seized at his Columbus, Ohio home, officials said.

Paul continued to work with Al-Qaeda upon his return from the Balkans in 1997 and "conducted training operations in Burr Oak State Park in Ohio with several members of his local group, replicating terrorist training he had received in Afghanistan and Bosnia." He traveled to Germany in 1999 to provide explosives training to an Islamic terror cell "knowing that it was planning to use this training to construct bombs, car bombs, and similar devices to be used against Americans," the justice department said. From March 31, 1999 until January 31, 2000, Paul made 44 calls to an Islamic fundamentalist co-conspirator in Europe, who was arrested in 2003 and later convicted of a terrorist conspiracy, the statement said.

"Today's guilty plea brings an end to the long, dangerous career of Christopher Paul (who) ... conspired with others to target Americans both at home and abroad," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Rowan. "His conviction demonstrates our continuing resolve to protect the American public against terrorism."