Alabama Camp Linked to Terrorists

The South China Morning Post
July 27, 2002

An Alabama urban-warfare training camp primarily used by law-enforcement authorities may also have been used to help Islamic militants prepare for terror attacks, ABC News reported.

But the network's report on its World News Tonight programme said authorities did not know whether the British, privately owned camp was used by the al-Qaeda network headed by Osama bin Laden, who is blamed for the September 11 attacks on the United States.

US and British authorities did not know how many militant recruits may have come through the "Ground Zero USA" camp, which displays bullet-riddled police cars and a school bus with mannequin targets, the network said.

Its owners, believed by authorities to be the militants' unwitting accomplices, offered training in automatic weapons, urban warfare and martial arts to fight guerilla attacks, according to the report.

The suspected militant ties at the camp near Marion, Alabama, became known to officials only after September 11, when British authorities arrested an accused al-Qaeda supporter who was charged with operating a Web site to recruit militant Muslims.

The Web site, since removed, described training that included live-fire exercises at a state-of-the-art shooting range in the US.

Authorities believed the militants chose the camp to take advantage of relatively lax US gun laws, it said.

© Copyright 2002

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