Alleged Mastermind in LAX Bomb Plot Indicted

A federal grand jury has indicted a London-based Algerian, accusing him of masterminding a plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport and of forging an alliance with global terrorist Osama bin Laden in a holy war against the United States.

The indictment returned late Monday by a grand jury in New York accused Dr. Haydar Abu Doha, 37, of being a leader of the Algerian terrorist group behind the plan to bomb LAX just before New Year’s Day 2000. It charged Doha with eight criminal counts, including conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction to blow up the airport.

Doha--also identified in the indictment as “The Doctor,” Rachid, Amar Makhlolif and Didier Ajuelos--faces life in prison if convicted on all counts. U.S. authorities said Tuesday they are seeking to extradite him from London, where he was being held on immigration violations and on an earlier terrorism-related complaint.

Bin Laden, who remains a fugitive in Afghanistan, was named in the indictment but not charged with any crime.

The indictment stopped short of implicating Bin Laden in the LAX bomb plot. But it marked the first time that the federal government has directly linked the Saudi militant to a group of Algerian terrorists who were behind the so-called millennium plot.

The grand jury alleged that Bin Laden and Doha met in December 1998 “to discuss cooperation and coordination” between their respective Islamic extremist organizations.

At that meeting, in the Taliban-controlled city of Kandahar in southeast Afghanistan, the two men agreed that the group of Algerian terrorists whom Doha “coordinated and oversaw” would join forces with Bin Laden’s global network of guerrillas in carrying out attacks against the United States, the indictment said.

By then, Doha and other Algerians had been training for months in one of Bin Laden’s terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and plotting to attack an airport or other high-profile target in the United States, the indictment said.

One of those Algerians, Ahmed Ressam, was later caught trying to enter the United States from Canada with a car trunk full of explosives. He was tried and convicted of attempting to blow up LAX and later agreed to cooperate with federal authorities in exchange for leniency.

U.S. counter-terrorism authorities said Tuesday that Ressam provided them with key information leading to Doha’s indictment.

The indictment is significant because it acknowledges that Bin Laden has been seeking in recent years to join forces with other terrorist groups, particularly battle-hardened Algerians who were veterans of that country’s brutal civil war, said one senior White House counter-terrorism official.

“That’s why this administration is not focusing on Bin Laden as the be-all and end-all,” said the official, who asked that his name not be used in accordance with a Bush administration policy against commenting on terrorism issues. “Getting rid of him will not end the terrorist problem. You have these other cells out there operating.”

The Times last month disclosed how authorities here and in Europe consider the emergence of the relatively new alliance between Bin Laden and the Algerians as a serious threat. Many of the Algerians, as well as Tunisians, Libyans and Moroccans, have trained at Bin Laden-run facilities in Afghanistan. But authorities now believe that, while they often maintain close ties to Bin Laden, these North African terrorists are picking their own targets and carrying out their attacks with little direct assistance or financing from the exiled Saudi multimillionaire.

At the time, authorities described Doha as a leader of Algerian terrorist cells in Europe, Canada and elsewhere, who provided jihad, or holy war, warriors with access to Bin Laden camps.

The indictment charges that Doha continued his alliance with Bin Laden long after his alleged associate Ressam and others were arrested for their roles in the LAX plot. Ultimately, four Algerians were convicted of conspiring to detonate a bomb at LAX.

Doha also was charged with providing material support to Bin Laden’s terrorist organization Al Qaeda, which is Arabic for “the base.”