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Two held over Afghan assassination

Massoud, far right, was killed by assassins posing as journalists
Massoud, far right, was killed by assassins posing as journalists  


BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Two more men have been arrested in connection with the murder in September of Afghan Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud.

Belgian police said on Friday they arrested a Moroccan and a Tunisian on charges of falsifying passports linked to the killers.

Prosecutor's office spokeman Jos Colpin told Reuters on Friday that documents found in house raids showed a link between the suspects and stolen passports carried by Massoud's assassins.

Colpin said the suspects had false passports whose serial numbers corresponded to passports stolen in 1999 during a burglary at Belgium's consulate in Strasbourg, France and its embassy in The Hague, in the Netherlands.

The stolen passports had been found on the bodies of Massoud's killers.

Colpin said the Moroccan and Tunisian were arrested earlier this week and charged with belonging to a criminal organisation and counterfeiting passports.

So far, more than a dozen people have been arrested in France and Belgium.

Masood's killers, apparently posing as journalists, are said to have blown themselves up while conducting a mock interview with the opposition leader in northern Afghanistan on September 9.

Four other members of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance were also killed when a bomb inside a television camera exploded.

The suicide bombers were suspected of being sent by Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect behind the September 11 hijacker attacks on New York and Washington.

In October an Egyptian was arrested in London charged with conspiracy to murder Massoud.



 
 
 
 


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