Er....no relation I assume....

Tunisian Convicted in Bombing Plot - 30 September 0900

A Tunisian-born al-Qaida operative was convicted today of plotting a suicide- bombing against a NATO base in Belgium. Nizar Trabelsi, a 33-year-old one-time professional soccer player in Germany, was arrested days after the 11 September kamikaze attacks in New York and Washington and charged with plotting to blow himself up at the Kleine Brogel airbase, at which the US Air Force maintains a small stock of nuclear weapons.

Trabelsi, who met Usama bin Ladin while undergoing bomb-making training in Afghanistan, faces a 10-year prison term. He was one of 23 North African immigrants or Belgian citizens of North African origin detained by Belgian authorities in the six months following 9/11 for involvement in various al-Qaida schemes, including the September 2001 assassination in Afghanistan of legendary anti-Taliban commander Ahmed Shah Masood and unsuccessful plots to truck-bomb American embassies in Paris and Rome in 2001. Most of the others still are awaiting trial or the outcome of extradition proceedings.

Antwerp and Brussels have large North African and Arab communities, and Belgium in recent years has had a booming market in fraudulent travel documents and a reputation as a hub for the enormous black market in "conflict" diamonds smuggled out of war-torn African countries. Rounding out the country's advantages for conducting terrorist backroom operations are its open borders, lax anti-terrorism laws, and courts that refuse to extradite Belgian citizens or hand over foreigners charged abroad with crimes that carry the death penalty. On balance, however, al-Qaida is unlikely to jeopardize its use of Belgium as a support base by staging an attack locally.

Nope. No relation.

This guy has been in the news for a long time, by the way. He's convicted now, but he was first arrested over a year ago...

Sporting Life, one of many websites which had stories about Hatem Trabelsi leaving for England or Italy,has a story today which indicates that the player may agree to an extension at Ajax.

VI,Ajax Netwerk,etc.,all running variations of the same story,say things like"Trabelsi content with Ajax bid" and that the player is now being shown contractual[my word]respect by Ajax ; a bone of contention before.

That would be awesome!

At the start of the season I thought he was going to be the first to leave. In recent weeks I kind of expected that he was gonna leave during the winter break. This, however, sounds very promising. Good news.

The latest news is that Hatem will be out for 6-10 weeks after leaving the Celta-match injured

Yeah, damn...

By the way: I did not read 'six to ten', but just 'six'. Either way: it seems like he will miss the remaining three group games in the Champions League, plus games against PSV (away) and feienerd (home).

Nigel de Jong will have to play better than he did yesterday as Trabelsi's replacement. I thought he had a very weak performance as a sub.

Yeah, Ajax Netwerk updated their news and now it reads "at least 6 weeks". Still a lot, though.

My replacement is Grygera - Nigel hasn't impressed me and if Escude can come back soon he and Pasanen will do just fine as central defenders.

I say give chance to De Jong at least in the league and see how it goes.

Sadly, don't know if Ajax can afford the luxury of playing him and seeing how it goes.I think the more established Grygera is a better option.

While we would love to have him in the squad for all of the important upcoming Champion's League games and games against PSV, AZ, ... Trabelsi's injury may be a good thing for Ajax. Why? Because it may keep the teams interested in him from stealing him away from Ajax during the next transfer period. If he is out for a minimum of 6 weeks, he may not be fit for quite a while which would deem him unattractive to teams looking for help now.

I am totally psyched for the PSV-Ajax game this weekend! I think we may have some Ajax fans in the Toronto newspaper media. I have seen pictures of Ajax in action in the Toronto Star, the Toronto Sun (Sonck's backflip against Brugge), and now there was a picture of our buddy Zlatan flying over a Celta player in the National Post. Pretty good dutch representation for a city with lots of supporters of Italian, English and Scottish teams. I am glad that Holland drew Scotland only because I can watch the game here as they will surely be showing it at some Toronto pubs.

Hup Ajax!

Eric

Any updates on Trabelsi's injury please ? sources please ...

Thanks in advance...

Cheers,