ATbar Plot to Down El Al Plane Thwarted
Hebrew English
Loading Search Engine
Home › ICT's Publications ›

Plot to Down El Al Plane Thwarted

20/05/2006 | by Fighel, Jonathan (Col. Ret.)  
A plot to blow up an El Al plane at Geneva's international airport has been thwarted by Swiss intelligence agencies. The authorities uncovered a terrorist cell that was plotting to strike an Israeli plane while it was taking off through an RPG rocket attack in December 2005.[1]

The plot to shoot down the plane was uncovered by Claude Kuvasi, a Swiss secret service member who worked under the codename Babylon. Swiss newspaper Blick reported that Kuvasi was planted as an undercover agent in an Islamic center in Geneva to find out if a terror cell was operating there. The episode was kept secret for six months, until the Swiss agent exposed it on his own. Kuvasi, who became closer to the head of the Islamic center in Geneva, Hani Ramadan, feared that his new friend would face complications due to the fact that some of his students planned a terror attack.

The French website Le Point featured a report on 19 May 2006 saying that "intelligence of the Swiss secret services carrying the date December 2005 shows that two people, a Libyan and an Algerian, held a mortar bomb, and planned to carry out an attack against an Israeli airlines El Al plane at Geneva's airport." According to the reports, the cell members used the Islamic center as a shelter for their operational preparations for the attack.[2]

The Islamic Center of Genevais headed by Hani Ramadan, whose father, Said Ramadan, was expelled from Egypt by then-dictator Gamal Abdul Nasser. Going to Saudi Arabia first, Said Ramadan was one of the founders of the World Islamic League, a Saudi charity organization, whose goal is to spread worldwide the Islamic faith. He moved to Geneva, Switzerland in 1961. There he created the Islamic Center of Geneva, which was inaugurated in 1978 by Saudi King Kahled Bin Abdulaziz.[3]

According to Richard Labeviere, a French journalist who has written about the Brotherhood's ties to terrorism, Said Ramadan used Geneva as the launching pad for the Muslim Brotherhood's international expansion, the group even created its own Swiss bank, Al Taqwa, with offices in the Swiss town of Campione d'Italia as well as the Bahamas. Al Taqwa Bank is one of the financial institutions allegedly used by Al Qaeda whose assets were frozen after 9/11.

The Islamic Center of Geneva, headed by Ramadan's son Hani, was linked to Al Taqwa.

The Secret Service of Switzerland had long suspected that the center acts as the meeting and training location of terrorists from Algeria and Afghanistan, what apparently had accrued.

The Saudi Kingdom has established more than 1,359 mosques around the world at a cost of SR 820 million, The Islamic Center Mosque in Geneva, Switzerland was build with the Saudi King personal contribution financing at a cost of SR 16 million and receives annual support from the Saudi "King Fahd Foundation" of SR 19 million,[4] contains a large Mosque, a cultural center, a school and a lecture hall.[5]

Abdallah Obeid, the Muslim World League general director stated in 1977 that the Geneva Islamic Center is operated and supervised by his organization.[6]

The Saudi regime has invested billions of dollars in the past three decades (directly, and via the charitable institutions) in support of its policy of exporting Wahabbi Islam outside its borders. This money has gone to projects in Islamic countries and Western countries to build a worldwide network of Saudi Islamic institutions. This network of mosques, Islamic centers, various educational and charitable institutions, whose activists are mostly Saudis or graduates of the Wahabbi ideology, has become the backbone of recruitment into terror organizations and has supplied these organizations with the required manpower and the religious justification for Jihad against the West.

Throughout King Fahd's reign, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has played an active role in all these organizations, using its influence to nurture and encourage unity in the Islamic world amongst which the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth. In addition the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has played a role in nurturing Islamic unity through the Muslim World League, based in the Holy City of Makkah.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has supported and contributed in the establishment of many mosques and Islamic centers amongst which the Cultural Center in Brussels, Belgium which has received total support of SR 19 million. The Islamic Center in Geneva, Switzerland, which receives annual support of SR 19 million, and contains a large mosque, a cultural center, a school and a lecture hall, the Islamic Center in Madrid, Spain, which has had total support of SR 27 million, is one of the largest in Europe. It comprises a very capacious mosque, a prayer hall for women, a library, a lecture hall and a medical clinic, the Islamic Center in London, England in which the Kingdom has contributed some SR 25 million to the cost of the London Islamic Center. The Islamic Center in Edinburgh, Scotland, which is located in the city center, contains a mosque, which can accommodate 1,000 worshippers, and includes a library, a lecture hall and classrooms. It cost around SR 15 million. The Islamic Center in Rome, Italy that comprises a mosque, a library and a lecture hall. King Fahd donated US$ 50 million (some 70% of the total) to cover the cost of construction. The Center also receives an annual donation of US$ 1.5 million. The Mosque of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques in Gibraltar, which cost in excess of SR 30 million and comprises a mosque for men, a prayer hall for women, a school, a library and a lecture hall.[7]