September 30, 2003: Would-Be Suicide Bomber Sentenced to Ten Years in Prison

Al-Qaeda operative Nizar Trabelsi is sentenced to ten years in jail in Belgium for his part in a plot to attack the NATO base in Kleine Brogel in the country’s north-east. A couple of hundred US troops were stationed at the base, which was also home to nuclear weapons. The plan was for Trabelsi to pack a van with as much explosive as it could carry, and drive it into the base canteen at lunchtime. Trabelsi admits his participation in the attack and boasts he was to be the first suicide bomber in Europe, but he refuses to give any details about other plots he is alleged to have been involved in, such as a planned bombing of the US embassy in Paris, France. [O’Neill and McGrory, 2006, pp. 227]