Paris embassy attack plot

The Paris embassy attack plot was a suspected Al-Qaida plot in 2001 to destroy the Embassy of the United States, Paris, France, as well as a munitions depot in Belgium. The NATO headquarters in Brussels was also possibly targeted.

The attack on the U.S. embassy would have involved a suicide bomber. Nizar Trabelsi, a former professional football player, was the designated bomber.

The plot was uncovered and stopped around the time of the September 11 attacks that destroyed the U.S. World Trade Center.

The operation was based at an apartment in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The Rotterdam cell probably provided the false passports that were used in the assassination of Ahmed Shah Massoud.

Tunisian Nizar Trabelsi, a former professional football player in Germany, planned the attack and was the designated suicide bomber. An IT student named Kamel Daoudi led the cell and was the alleged bomb maker.

The plan called for a bomb to be built out of sulfur and acetone. Trabelsi planned to strap this bomb onto himself, and cover it up with a business suit. He would then detonate himself in the U.S. embassy.

Then, a van packed with explosives would be driven into the U.S. cultural center of Paris and the explosives inside would be detonated at nearby Place de la Madeleine.

The plot began to unravel when a 36-year-old French Algerian conspirator named Djamel Beghal was arrested in late July 2001 for passport fraud at Dubai International Airport in the United Arab Emirates. He was trying to travel back to Europe on a false French passport after receiving training in Afghanistan. Trabelsi went to Brussels and disappeared.

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Wikipedia