Killer learnt trade in al Qaida camps

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They believe Bourgass went through basic mujahideen training in the camps before being singled out and selected for instruction in making poisons at a specialist al Qaida centre.

He then came to Britain as part of a clandestine network of hundreds of Algerian terrorists who are spread across the West.

They are thought to be linked to numerous plots in the United States, France, Spain and Italy.

Police believe a leading figure in the network was Abu Doha, a 39-year-old Algerian firebrand cleric - he is also known as Amar Makhlulif, Rachid, Dr Haider and The Doctor - who has been in Belmarsh jail in London since he was arrested at Heathrow Airport in February 2001 when about to board a plane to Saudi Arabia.

He is currently awaiting extradition to the US, where the FBI accuses him of involvement in the so-called "millennium plot" to blow up Los Angeles International Airport in late December 1999.

In the 1990s, before his capture, Doha was a senior figure in the extremist Algerian terror organisation Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) which was forged in the mayhem of the Algerian civil war.

Doha is alleged to have based himself in London, providing logistical support.

A police source said: "The tentacles of this network stretch across Europe and across the world. The GSPC changed from being just concerned with Algeria and are now part of the wider al Qaida-inspired ideology.

"Those who volunteered to fight in Algeria, in Afghanistan and Chechnya were sent back to Europe to actively target Europe."

The breaking of the ricin plot is a major blow to the terrorist network in the UK, but in recent weeks Lord Stevens, the former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, was still warning that up to 200 graduates of the Afghan camps, including many Algerians, might still be in the country.

A police source said: "It's a large network and I think it would be foolhardy to say we have damaged it beyond repair."

Other alleged members of the network are awaiting extradition from Britain to Spain and France, and much of the intelligence leading to its disruption is thought to have come from the French.