Romania Deports Alleged Qaeda Cell

Five Students Banished For Trying To 'Brainwash' Romanian Muslims

(AP)  Romania has deported five students accused of having ties to al Qaeda, a spokesman for the country's intelligence service said Thursday, adding that their alleged cell was trying to recruit and "brainwash" members of the country's Muslim community.

Marius Bercaru said the five were placed under surveillance in the capital and the northeast city of Iasi and later deported and banned from returning for the next 15 years. He declined to say where they were sent, only saying the deportations took place this year.

"The operation aimed to stop this radical Islamic group in Romania and remove these people from the national territory," he told The Associated Press.

The five suspects were trying to recruit other members in Bucharest and Iasi, Bercaru said.

The newspaper Jurnalul National identified the group leader as Musaab Ahmed Mohamed Mujalli, a Saudi citizen. Other members were Khaldoon Walid Monir Nabhan, an Omani citizen, Sudanese national Aymen Ahmed Fouad Jadkareem and Asad Abrar Qureshi, a Pakistani, who had all been students in the city of Iasi, which has a large student population.

Bercaru confirmed the details of the newspaper report to AP in a telephone interview.

The paper said the group began operating in Iasi and then in Bucharest. Their goal, the report said, was "to brainwash Muslims, indoctrinating them in the spirit of fundamental extremism."

Romania has a Muslim population of about 140,000, of which 66,000 are Romanian citizens. The rest are foreign Muslims residing in the country.

The paper reported that Mujalli, the group leader, worked from an al Qaeda textbook outlining operational preparations and counter-intelligence.

"When (the group) met they made propaganda for terrorist acts committed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya or Bosnia-Herzegovina with the aim of supporting the radical al Qaeda ideology and of approving suicide terrorist attacks," the report said.

Group members used the Internet to communicate, and Mujalli had links with Islamic structures outside Romania, including receiving funding from the Middle East, the paper said.

Romania has been a strong U.S. ally since the Sept. 11 attacks and currently has some 860 troops in Iraq and 700 in Afghanistan.