In Morocco's 'Chemist,' A Glimpse of Al-Qaeda

Bombmaker Typified Resilient Network

CASABLANCA, Morocco -- On March 6, Moroccan police surrounded a cybercafe here and arrested a fugitive who many people assumed had fled the country or was dead. Saad al-Houssaini, known as "the Chemist" because of his scientific training and bombmaking skills, had vanished four years earlier after he was accused of helping to organize the deadliest terrorist attack in Moroccan history.

It turned out that Houssaini hadn't gone anywhere. Since 2003, according to Moroccan police documents, he had remained underground in Casablanca as he rebuilt a terrorist operative network and recruited fighters to go to Iraq. He also spent time honing his bombmaking techniques, designing explosives belts that investigators believe were used in a string of suicide attacks this spring, including one that targeted the U.S. Consulate in this North African port city.

"The Chemist" provides a vivid example of how veteran members of al-Qaeda's central command have continued to plot major terrorist attacks around the world, particularly in Europe, North Africa and Iraq, despite the capture or deaths of many of the network's top operatives since Sept. 11, 2001.

His long underground career demonstrates the limits of stepped-up anti-terrorism cooperation between governments in the past five years -- Houssaini, now 38, eluded not just Moroccan authorities but intelligence agents from France, Spain and the United States who feared he was involved with sleeper cells in Europe.

British counterterrorism officials say most major terrorist plots in their country in recent years, including the July 7, 2005, public transit bombings in London, can be traced back to al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan. Investigators suspect that a key sponsor in at least two cases was Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, an al-Qaeda military commander in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq who was captured in December in a CIA operation and is now imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has blamed last month's attempted car bombings in London and Glasgow on "people who are associated with al-Qaeda." Although officials have not revealed hard evidence of a connection to the network, British investigators are examining whether the plot had its roots in Iraq.

Security officials are focusing on the role played by Bilal Abdulla, a Sunni Iraqi who was charged Friday with conspiring to cause explosions. He and another man are alleged to have rammed a Jeep Cherokee into the Glasgow Airport terminal. Abdulla earned his medical degree in Baghdad in 2004 and was known for his radical views, as well as his strong verbal support of al-Qaeda operations in Iraq.

"We have seen how al-Qaeda has been able to survive a prolonged multinational assault on its structures, personnel and logistics," Peter Clarke, head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism branch, said in a recent speech. "It has certainly retained its ability to deliver centrally directed attacks here in the U.K. In case after case, the hand of core al-Qaeda can be clearly seen."

Morocco also continues to keep up its guard. On Friday, it raised its national security alert level to maximum, indicating that a serious terrorist attack was expected imminently, the Interior Ministry announced in a statement. The ministry cited "reliable intelligence information" but gave no details about a specific threat.

Houssaini, the Moroccan, abandoned his graduate studies in chemistry in Spain in the mid-1990s. He went to Afghanistan, where he trained in al-Qaeda camps and consulted with high-ranking members of the group, including deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who would later become chief of the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to documents and interviews.

While there, he helped found an affiliated network known as the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, which is blamed for the March 2004 train bombings in Madrid. As operational commander of the group, he was suspected of fashioning the bombs used in coordinated suicide attacks in Casablanca in May 2003 that killed 45 people.

Four years later, suicide bombers struck in Casablanca again, blowing themselves up on three separate occasions in March and April, including the attack on the U.S. Consulate. No bystanders were seriously injured in the attack on the consulate, but the diplomatic post remained closed for nearly two months because of security concerns.