MADRID, Spain (AP) -- Police detained six Algerians allegedly linked to Osama bin Laden and to a group suspected of planning attacks on U.S. targets in Europe, the Spanish government said Wednesday.
The six people detained Tuesday night and before dawn Wednesday belong to a dissident faction of the Armed Islamic Group, Algeria's most hard-line insurgency movement, Interior Minister Mariano Rajoy said.
The group is reportedly backed by bin Laden, the Saudi exile suspected of masterminding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Rajoy did not say if there was any evidence linking the Algerians to the suicide airliner attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The Algerians were picked up in the provinces of Almeria and Huelva in the south, Navarra in the north and Murcia and Valencia in the east. They have not been charged on any counts.
Spanish police were acting in coordination with colleagues in Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Britain and Belgium, Rajoy said.
The six Algerians have not been charged but ``evidently had serious connections with international terrorism and were financially connected with terrorist bin Laden's organization,'' Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar told reporters.
The men are ``directly related'' to two men who belong to a group accused of planning attacks in Europe _ Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian arrested in Belgium on Sept. 13, and Jerome Courtailler, a Frenchmen arrested in the Netherlands the same day, Rajoy said.
The Algerians appeared to be responsible for sending optical, electronic, computer and communications equipment to colleagues in Algeria, as well as camping material to Chechnya, Rajoy said.
Russia maintains that separatist rebels in Chechnya are Islamic extremists aided by foreign terrorist groups.
Spanish also police found forged passports and sophisticated computer equipment used to produce fake documents, and airline tickets for trips to Algeria and France, he said.
The state news agency Efe identified the six Algerians as group leader Mohamed Boualem Khnouni, Mohamed Belaziz, Yasin Seddiki, Hakim Zerzour, Madjid Sahouane and Hocine Khouni.
The six also produced fake documents to help other members of the group and other Islamic radicals travel undetected, financing their activities with bogus credit cards, Rajoy said.
Spanish officials say Mohamed Atta, believed to have piloted one of the airliners that crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, was in Spain in July and may have met then with other Islamic extremists.
Another alleged bin Laden cohort, Mohammed Bensakhria, was arrested in southeastern Spain in June and extradited to France on charges of planning terrorist attacks on French soil.
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