(CNN) -- European intelligence agencies are on alert for new al Qaeda terrorist plots following the arrest of two men at an Italian port and investigations into the activities of an alleged al Qaeda network based in Brussels.



Bassam Ayachi officiated at the wedding of Malika el Aroud (pictured), who became an al Qaeda "icon."



The two are closely tied to a Brussels-based al Qaeda recruiting network, Belgian counter-terrorism officials have told CNN. They are Bassam Ayachi, 62, and Raphael Gendron, 33 -- and they were detained in the port of Bari on November 11 last year after allegedly trying to smuggle three Palestinians and two Syrians into Italy in the false bottom of a camper van they were driving.



Now they face much more serious allegations following a counter-terrorism investigation by Italian, French and Belgian police. Italian authorities have officially charged them with being leaders of a logistical support team for al Qaeda.



A bug planted by Italian police in the suspects' detention facility picked up snatches of conversation about an alleged scheme to attack Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. A partial transcript of one of their alleged conversations has now been released.



"I'll hit de Gaulle," Gendron tells Ayachi.



"We'll hit it there," Ayachi replies. "At night when there will be a lot of people."



Later in the conversation they appear to discuss buying grenades off contacts in the Middle East.



French authorities have said that they were never aware of a concrete plot to attack the airport.



Italy suspects well known to Belgian Security Services



Ayachi and Gendron were detained after Italian authorities allegedly found Jihadist propaganda in their possession when they arrived on a ferry from Greece. Belgian police say they alerted Italian authorities that the pair were known extremists. Ayachi is a naturalized French cleric of Syrian descent, and in the early 1990s had founded the Centre Islamique Belge (CIB), an organization Belgian authorities say espoused hard-line Salafist and pro al Qaeda views. Gendron, described by Italian police as a computer expert, was the main administrator of the CIB's Web site in Belgium. In 2006 Gendron and Ayachi's son Abdel Rahman Ayachi were convicted in Belgium for posting threatening anti-Semitic messages on the site. Their prison sentences were later reduced to a fine by an Appeals court.



A Belgian counter-terrorism source tells CNN that the CIB has clandestinely continued its operations in Belgium. When CNN reporters visited its headquarters on the Rue Memling in Brussels in February, Islamists appeared to still occupy the premises. In previous interviews with Belgian journalists, Avachi said his organization concentrated on pastoral care for Muslims in Brussels and did not promote pro-al Qaeda views.



In April 1999 Ayachi officiated at the wedding of two protégés at CIB, Abdessattar Dahmane and Malika el Aroud. The couple would later become "icons" of the al Qaeda movement, according to Belgian counter-terrorism officials. Two days before 9/11, Dahmane assassinated Ahmed Shah Massoud, the head of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, in a suicide bombing operation in Afghanistan. After his death Malika el Aroud, a Belgian citizen of Moroccan descent who had accompanied him to Afghanistan, returned to Europe and founded Minbar.SOS -- a Web site promoting Bin Laden's Jihad. She also remarried. In a CNN interview in 2006 el Aroud demonstrated how she and her new husband Moez Garsallaoui ran the site, which contained postings of attacks on coalition troops in Iraq and translations of the speeches of al Qaeda leaders.



Alleged recruitment for training in Pakistan



According to Belgian police el Aroud and Garsallaoui moved to Brussels in 2007 and worked in tandem to recruit operatives to train in the tribal areas of Pakistan. El Aroud, it is alleged, inspired young men to volunteer for Jihad through her incendiary Web postings. Garsallaoui, the police say, went out to the streets to recruit people. El Aroud was arrested last December in Brussels and charged along with five others with participation in a terrorist group. She denies the charge.



El Aroud and Garsallaoui allegedly recruited six individuals in all, four from Belgium and two from France, according
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