Madrid Not Al Qaeda, Film At Eleven
Yes, I have returned. Well, not full-time, but I feel better today than I have in a while. So, I decided that today would be my return to the site as Thomas and Marcie have both been pushing me to do something. TY for the prayers, and the kind words while I go through this.
The Madrid story came off the AP wires late yesterday.
A two-year probe into the Madrid train bombings concludes the Islamic terrorists who carried out the blasts were homegrown radicals acting on their own rather than at the behest of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, two senior intelligence officials said.
Spain still remains home to a web of radical Algerian, Moroccan and Syrian groups bent on carrying out attacks — and aiding the insurgency against U.S. troops in Iraq— a Spanish intelligence chief and a Western official intimately involved in counterterrorism measures in Spain told The Associated Press.
The intelligence chief said there were no phone calls between the Madrid bombers and al-Qaida and no money transfers. The Western official said the plotters had links to other Islamic radicals in Western Europe, but the plan was hatched and organized in Spain. "This was not an al-Qaida operation," he said. "It was homegrown."
Both men spoke on condition of anonymity, the first because Spanish security officials are not allowed to discuss details of an ongoing investigation and the second due to the sensitive nature of his job.
The attack has been frequently described as al-Qaida-linked since a man who identified himself as Abu Dujan al-Afghani and said he was al-Qaida's "European military spokesman," claimed responsibility in a video released two days later.
Ahead of Saturday's anniversary of the March 11, 2004 blasts — which killed 191 people and wounded 1,500 — victims' groups have been clamoring for more progress in the investigation.
Gabriel Moris, whose 30-year-old son died in the bombings, said: "These past two years have done nothing to clear up what happened. My questions are simple: Who ordered the massacre? Who killed my son and the other innocent victims?"
The intelligence official said authorities know more than they have revealed, including the suspected ideological and operational masterminds of the attack.
"We haven't explained it well enough to the victims because we can't reveal judicial secrets," he said, adding the investigation is nearly complete.
Authorities believe the ideological mastermind was Serhan Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, a Tunisian who blew himself up along with six other suspects when police surrounded their apartment three weeks after the bombings, and that Jamal Ahmidan, a Moroccan who also died that day, was the "military planner."
Law enforcement had focused on another man, Allekema Lamari, as the head of the group. But the official said evidence, particularly from wiretapped phone conversations, indicated it was Ahmidan who gave the military orders. Lamari also died in the apartment blast in a Madrid suburb as authorities closed in.
Some 116 people have been arrested in the bombings, and 24 remain jailed. At least three others — Said Berraj, Mohammed Belhadj and Daoud Ouhane — are sought by authorities, though all are believed to have fled Spain long ago. The intelligence official said the top planners are all either dead or in jail.
While the plotters of the Madrid attack were likely motivated by bin Laden's October 2003 call for attacks on European countries that supported the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, there is no evidence they were in contact with the al-Qaida leader's inner circle, the intelligence official said.
Most of the plotters were Moroccan and Syrian immigrants, many with criminal records in Spain for drug trafficking and other crimes. They paid for explosives used in the attack with hashish.
That is a far cry from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States — allegedly planned by al-Qaida leaders like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh and funded directly by the terror network through international wire transfers and Islamic banking schemes.
Paul Wilkinson, chairman of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland, said the model used in Madrid, and likely for the July 7 London transport bombings fits in well with al-Qaida's business plan.
"Al-Qaida is not and never was a topdown organization that did everything in terms of attacks around the world. They have a key role in ideological terms ... but they rely on local cells and those that are inspired to carry out these attacks," he said.
After the fact, bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri are happy to claim responsibility because they recognize the carnage as inspired by their movement.
Still, Wilkinson cautioned that just because no direct link has been established between the Madrid plotters and al-Qaida, it doesn't mean none exists. "If security officials knew everything that was going on, we would have caught Osama bin Laden by now," he said.
Both the Spanish intelligence chief and the Western official said there is reason for concern despite the lack of a direct al-Qaida connection.
"There were a lot of moving parts to the March 11 plot, but we were still not able to detect it, and that is scary because a similar thing could happen again," said the Western counterterrorism official. "Since March 11, there have been plans for other significant attacks that the Spanish have disrupted."
Those plans include a scheme in late 2004 to bomb buildings in Barcelona, including the 1992 Olympic village and office towers known as the city's World Trade Center complex. Police also thwarted a 2004 plot by Moroccan and Algerian militants to level Madrid's National Court — a hub for anti-terror investigations — with a 1,100-pound truck bomb.
And agents specializing in Islamic terrorism have arrested dozens of suspects — all allegedly working to recruit potential suicide bombers for the Iraq insurgency.
At least two Spanish citizens — including March 11 suspect Mohammed Afalah — are believed to have blown themselves up in Iraq, and an investigation by the respected El Pais daily revealed some 80 others have traveled to the country in recent months intending to do the same.
The intelligence official said the March 11 attacks were a wakeup call, and authorities are much better prepared now to stop Islamic terrorism. But he said the bombings show how easy it is for those bent on terrorism to carry out attacks.
He said authorities believe the Madrid bombers learned how to construct the bombs — all connected to Mitsubishi Trium T110 mobile phones — from Internet sites linked to radical Islamic groups. The devices were similar to ones used in the 2002 Bali bombing, he said, evidence that militants in both countries got information on the same radical Web sites.
Spanish authorities were monitoring several of the bombers in the months before the attack — and actually stopped Ahmidan's car on a highway in late February, unaware he was leading a caravan of other terrorists transporting the explosives used in the blasts.
The intelligence official said authorities had never imagined a group of petty drug traffickers were capable of planning such a massive attack.
"Had we been told a day before (the bombing) that this is what was going on, we would have dismissed it," he said.
All right then, the Madrid bombings weren't al Qaeda. They were homegrown attacks. So, let's step back and take a look at this from a different angle. The Madrid 3/11 bombings were done by amateurs. The London 7/7 bombings were done by amateurs. I think it's safe to say that Mohammed Taheri-azar qualifies as a homegrown terrorist. The same goes for the University of Oklahoma student, Joel Hinrichs. I think it is time that we admit that there is a problem occurring around the world. Young men, thus far, of the Islmaic religion who are unstable are looking for something in life. Whether driven by what they see from the radicals around the globe, or driven by what they hear in their mosques, or among peers, these people are becoming what the enemy wants.
They are becoming the tool of terror in our midst. Think about it for one moment. If these incidents are all of the "homegrown" variety, how are we to stop them? I know we must be vigilant. That is the key to remaining one step ahead of these people. Despite what excuse may be given (The MSM seemed content to give Hinrichs a pass as a "depressed and troubled student") we need to keep an eye on people like this. I am not saying watch every Muslim. That is foolish and rather premature. I know of many people who would react exactly like that. I can't. I'm a realist in the world. Yes, I would be vigilant, but not detrimental in that surveillance. Moderate Muslims worldwide go on about their daily lives without ever even conceiving of pulling something like what I have pointed out above. And remember that bin Laden cursed those people to be lower than us infidels because they weren't doing what bin Laden wanted; they weren't a part of his psychotic jihad.
Homegrown terror is a frightening concept. Not just for the sheer terror involved. We wouldn't have the first clue as to where it would strike. And unlike the bombings in Madrid and London, Taheri-azar struck his former campus with a three-ton weapon rather than a bomb. Bomb making materials aren't exactly easy to come by in America. I aware of a couple of states where all that is required to get shaped charges--for things such as construction--is a driver's license and a contractor's license. Of course, that was about two years ago. I'd have to do some checking to see if that still applies. It shouldn't. There should be more steps to getting something like explosives. But nonetheless, the lengths Taheri-azar was willing to go through to run down a group of people were enough for the police officers at Chapel Hill. Michelle Malkin actually has a copy of the search warrant if you'd like to take a look at it. I personally think the telling quote in the two paragraphs she cites is that the attack was "an eye for an eye" and that he had been wanting to do something for the past two years.
I believe at this point, our own homegrown problems should be treated less as crimes under the criminal system of justice, i.e. not murder or attempted murder, but rather as what it is. Hinrichs can't be charged because he's dead, but what the police found in his home regarding the explosives and fragmentation notes would be enough that had he not succeeded, he could have been charged with terrorism. The same goes for Taheri-azar. This is terrorism on US soil as much as 7/7 was terrorism on London soil, and 3/11 was terrorism on Spanish soil. It is terrorism any way it is sliced. Time to start calling spades what they are, and charging people appropriately.
Mistress Pundit
Yes, I have returned. Well, not full-time, but I feel better today than I have in a while. So, I decided that today would be my return to the site as Thomas and Marcie have both been pushing me to do something. TY for the prayers, and the kind words while I go through this.
The Madrid story came off the AP wires late yesterday.
A two-year probe into the Madrid train bombings concludes the Islamic terrorists who carried out the blasts were homegrown radicals acting on their own rather than at the behest of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, two senior intelligence officials said.
Spain still remains home to a web of radical Algerian, Moroccan and Syrian groups bent on carrying out attacks — and aiding the insurgency against U.S. troops in Iraq— a Spanish intelligence chief and a Western official intimately involved in counterterrorism measures in Spain told The Associated Press.
The intelligence chief said there were no phone calls between the Madrid bombers and al-Qaida and no money transfers. The Western official said the plotters had links to other Islamic radicals in Western Europe, but the plan was hatched and organized in Spain. "This was not an al-Qaida operation," he said. "It was homegrown."
Both men spoke on condition of anonymity, the first because Spanish security officials are not allowed to discuss details of an ongoing investigation and the second due to the sensitive nature of his job.
The attack has been frequently described as al-Qaida-linked since a man who identified himself as Abu Dujan al-Afghani and said he was al-Qaida's "European military spokesman," claimed responsibility in a video released two days later.
Ahead of Saturday's anniversary of the March 11, 2004 blasts — which killed 191 people and wounded 1,500 — victims' groups have been clamoring for more progress in the investigation.
Gabriel Moris, whose 30-year-old son died in the bombings, said: "These past two years have done nothing to clear up what happened. My questions are simple: Who ordered the massacre? Who killed my son and the other innocent victims?"
The intelligence official said authorities know more than they have revealed, including the suspected ideological and operational masterminds of the attack.
"We haven't explained it well enough to the victims because we can't reveal judicial secrets," he said, adding the investigation is nearly complete.
Authorities believe the ideological mastermind was Serhan Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, a Tunisian who blew himself up along with six other suspects when police surrounded their apartment three weeks after the bombings, and that Jamal Ahmidan, a Moroccan who also died that day, was the "military planner."
Law enforcement had focused on another man, Allekema Lamari, as the head of the group. But the official said evidence, particularly from wiretapped phone conversations, indicated it was Ahmidan who gave the military orders. Lamari also died in the apartment blast in a Madrid suburb as authorities closed in.
Some 116 people have been arrested in the bombings, and 24 remain jailed. At least three others — Said Berraj, Mohammed Belhadj and Daoud Ouhane — are sought by authorities, though all are believed to have fled Spain long ago. The intelligence official said the top planners are all either dead or in jail.
While the plotters of the Madrid attack were likely motivated by bin Laden's October 2003 call for attacks on European countries that supported the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, there is no evidence they were in contact with the al-Qaida leader's inner circle, the intelligence official said.
Most of the plotters were Moroccan and Syrian immigrants, many with criminal records in Spain for drug trafficking and other crimes. They paid for explosives used in the attack with hashish.
That is a far cry from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States — allegedly planned by al-Qaida leaders like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh and funded directly by the terror network through international wire transfers and Islamic banking schemes.
Paul Wilkinson, chairman of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland, said the model used in Madrid, and likely for the July 7 London transport bombings fits in well with al-Qaida's business plan.
"Al-Qaida is not and never was a topdown organization that did everything in terms of attacks around the world. They have a key role in ideological terms ... but they rely on local cells and those that are inspired to carry out these attacks," he said.
After the fact, bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri are happy to claim responsibility because they recognize the carnage as inspired by their movement.
Still, Wilkinson cautioned that just because no direct link has been established between the Madrid plotters and al-Qaida, it doesn't mean none exists. "If security officials knew everything that was going on, we would have caught Osama bin Laden by now," he said.
Both the Spanish intelligence chief and the Western official said there is reason for concern despite the lack of a direct al-Qaida connection.
"There were a lot of moving parts to the March 11 plot, but we were still not able to detect it, and that is scary because a similar thing could happen again," said the Western counterterrorism official. "Since March 11, there have been plans for other significant attacks that the Spanish have disrupted."
Those plans include a scheme in late 2004 to bomb buildings in Barcelona, including the 1992 Olympic village and office towers known as the city's World Trade Center complex. Police also thwarted a 2004 plot by Moroccan and Algerian militants to level Madrid's National Court — a hub for anti-terror investigations — with a 1,100-pound truck bomb.
And agents specializing in Islamic terrorism have arrested dozens of suspects — all allegedly working to recruit potential suicide bombers for the Iraq insurgency.
At least two Spanish citizens — including March 11 suspect Mohammed Afalah — are believed to have blown themselves up in Iraq, and an investigation by the respected El Pais daily revealed some 80 others have traveled to the country in recent months intending to do the same.
The intelligence official said the March 11 attacks were a wakeup call, and authorities are much better prepared now to stop Islamic terrorism. But he said the bombings show how easy it is for those bent on terrorism to carry out attacks.
He said authorities believe the Madrid bombers learned how to construct the bombs — all connected to Mitsubishi Trium T110 mobile phones — from Internet sites linked to radical Islamic groups. The devices were similar to ones used in the 2002 Bali bombing, he said, evidence that militants in both countries got information on the same radical Web sites.
Spanish authorities were monitoring several of the bombers in the months before the attack — and actually stopped Ahmidan's car on a highway in late February, unaware he was leading a caravan of other terrorists transporting the explosives used in the blasts.
The intelligence official said authorities had never imagined a group of petty drug traffickers were capable of planning such a massive attack.
"Had we been told a day before (the bombing) that this is what was going on, we would have dismissed it," he said.
All right then, the Madrid bombings weren't al Qaeda. They were homegrown attacks. So, let's step back and take a look at this from a different angle. The Madrid 3/11 bombings were done by amateurs. The London 7/7 bombings were done by amateurs. I think it's safe to say that Mohammed Taheri-azar qualifies as a homegrown terrorist. The same goes for the University of Oklahoma student, Joel Hinrichs. I think it is time that we admit that there is a problem occurring around the world. Young men, thus far, of the Islmaic religion who are unstable are looking for something in life. Whether driven by what they see from the radicals around the globe, or driven by what they hear in their mosques, or among peers, these people are becoming what the enemy wants.
They are becoming the tool of terror in our midst. Think about it for one moment. If these incidents are all of the "homegrown" variety, how are we to stop them? I know we must be vigilant. That is the key to remaining one step ahead of these people. Despite what excuse may be given (The MSM seemed content to give Hinrichs a pass as a "depressed and troubled student") we need to keep an eye on people like this. I am not saying watch every Muslim. That is foolish and rather premature. I know of many people who would react exactly like that. I can't. I'm a realist in the world. Yes, I would be vigilant, but not detrimental in that surveillance. Moderate Muslims worldwide go on about their daily lives without ever even conceiving of pulling something like what I have pointed out above. And remember that bin Laden cursed those people to be lower than us infidels because they weren't doing what bin Laden wanted; they weren't a part of his psychotic jihad.
Homegrown terror is a frightening concept. Not just for the sheer terror involved. We wouldn't have the first clue as to where it would strike. And unlike the bombings in Madrid and London, Taheri-azar struck his former campus with a three-ton weapon rather than a bomb. Bomb making materials aren't exactly easy to come by in America. I aware of a couple of states where all that is required to get shaped charges--for things such as construction--is a driver's license and a contractor's license. Of course, that was about two years ago. I'd have to do some checking to see if that still applies. It shouldn't. There should be more steps to getting something like explosives. But nonetheless, the lengths Taheri-azar was willing to go through to run down a group of people were enough for the police officers at Chapel Hill. Michelle Malkin actually has a copy of the search warrant if you'd like to take a look at it. I personally think the telling quote in the two paragraphs she cites is that the attack was "an eye for an eye" and that he had been wanting to do something for the past two years.
I believe at this point, our own homegrown problems should be treated less as crimes under the criminal system of justice, i.e. not murder or attempted murder, but rather as what it is. Hinrichs can't be charged because he's dead, but what the police found in his home regarding the explosives and fragmentation notes would be enough that had he not succeeded, he could have been charged with terrorism. The same goes for Taheri-azar. This is terrorism on US soil as much as 7/7 was terrorism on London soil, and 3/11 was terrorism on Spanish soil. It is terrorism any way it is sliced. Time to start calling spades what they are, and charging people appropriately.
Mistress Pundit
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 12:49 PM
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