European intelligence: Al Qaida sleepers planned attack

World Tribune ^ | March 12, 2004

[Rutles4Ever]

LONDON — Western intelligence sources believe Al Qaida employed insurgents from North Africa for the train bombings in Spain that killed about 200 people.

The sources said Spanish and other European intelligence and security agencies believe that sleeper cells established by Al Qaida-aligned groups helped designate the targets and provide logistics and safe haven for operatives who detonated 10 backpack bombs aboard commuter trains in Madrid on Thursday. The cells were established by organizations that stem from Algeria and Morocco and employed local insurgency operatives, including Basque separatists.

"These attacks were the result of years of liasion and planning between North African groups aligned with Al Qaida and Basque separatists and other local terrorist operatives," a European intelligence source said. "Everybody knew a major attack was coming, but nobody expected it to be this lethal."

On Thursday, an Al Qaida cell, called "Abu Hafs Al Masri Brigades," asserted that the bombings in Madrid constituted an Islamic attack against U.S. allies in Europe, Middle East Newsline reported. The letter termed the strikes "Operation Death Trains." The North African groups believed to have been involved in the Madrid attacks include the Salafist Jihadiya in Morocco and the Salafist Brigade for Combat and Call in Algeria. Salafist Jihadiya was said to have been contracted by Al Qaida for the May 2003 suicide bombings in Casablanca in which 44 people were killed. Algeria's Salafist Brigade has been regarded as the chief subcontractor for Al Qaida in Europe and North Africa.

"We have succeeded in infiltrating the heart of crusader Europe and struck one of the bases of the crusader alliance," the letter, sent to the London-based Al Quds Al Arabi daily, said. "This is part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America's ally in its war against Islam. Where is America, O [Spain's prime minister] Aznar? Who is going to protect you, Britain, Japan, Italy and other collaborators from us?"

The Abu Hafs group is named after a late Al Qaida commander. Abu Hafs is a pseudonym of Mohammed Atef, a relative by marriage to Osama Bin Laden and killed in a U.S missile strike in 2001.

"We bring good news to Muslims of the world that the expected 'Winds of Black Death' strike against America is now in its final stage," the letter said.

The Abu Hafs Brigades claimed responsibility for the November 2003 suicide bombings of two synagogues in Istanbul, Turkey and the August bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. Abu Hafs also claimed responsibility for Monday's suicide bombing of a Masonic Lodge in Istanbul.

At first, the Spanish government attributed the explosions to ETA, a Basque separatist group. But on late Thursday Spanish Interior Minister Angel Acebes appeared to confirm the assessment of Western intelligence agencies that Al Qaida was involved in the blasts.

Acebes said a van found near the scene of the bombings contained seven detonators and an Arabic tape with verses from the Koran. "I have just given instructions to the security forces not to rule out any line of investigation," Acebes said.

Intelligence sources said most Western agencies regard Abu Hafs as a fictitious group used by Al Qaida in its psychological warfare campaign against the West. They said Abu Hafs has been used by Al Qaida in attacks coordinated with local insurgency cells.

Spain, which broke up an Islamic insurgency network linked to the Al Qaida strikes against the United States in 2001, has been a target of Osama Bin Laden since last year, apparently because of Madrid's participation in the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq, the sources said. A Bin Laden message on Oct. 18, 2003 cited Spain as a target along with Australia, Britain, Italy, Japan and Poland.

U.S. intelligence analysts dismissed the prospect that ETA was behind the Madrid bombings. They said ETA appeared to lack the capability and motivation for such an attack, but added that an emerging young leadership was believed to be forming links with Islamic insurgency groups aligned with Al Qaida.

"Neither ETA nor Grapo [another Spanish insurgency group] maintains the degree of operational capability it once enjoyed," the State Department said in its annual report on terrorism released in 2004. "The overall level of terrorist activity is considerably less than in the past, and the trend appears to be downward."

[ValerieUSA]

Al Quaida worked with Basque separatists in Spain..... and with anti-government extremists in America, namely Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Their worldwide network includes other terror-bent outcasts who are not necessarily Islamic jihadists.

[backhoe]

-Terror Strike! Madrid--

[laconic]

Obviously, I have no idea who committed this heinous mass murder. But it would appear to me to be a bit early to discount the Basque radicals, given: 1) they were caught at Christmas planning to detonate bombs at the Madrid rail station, and 2) Spanish police caught two of them in NE Spain with 1,200 pounds of dynamite on the morning of the attack. In addition, I'm amazed at the lazy press' mantra that ETA does not go after civilians -- their bombs killed 13 at a cafe and 25 at a supermarket in Barcelona in 1987.

[magua]

"winds of black death"sound like an arial attack of some sort.

[livius]

Ping to an article relevant to a discussion you folks were holding on an earlier thread.

[Porterville]

European Intelligence? What the hell is that?

[Porterville]

911 days since 9/11/01 and a van full of koran.

[livius]

I suspect that they're working together. There are many connections between ETA and al Qaeda (and Islamic radical groups in general).

ETA does not hesitate to murder, but this is way out of their league, and was also done very efficiently. ETA, fortunately, always had a somewhat amateurish air and never managed to pull off any huge attacks, although it did carry out a number of vicious assassinations and smaller bombings.

This level of attack means that things have changed. I have read speculation that ETA was in charge of supplying the materials, while others (al Qaeda) were in charge of the planning and much of the actual execution of the attack.

[Hollywoodghost]

Destroy them both and let G-d sort out who is guilty. there is blood enough for all here. There are no innocents among these groups.

[xm177e2]

911 days since 9/11/01 and a van full of koran.

Somebody obviously wants us to think it's al-Qaida... but that doesn't necessarily make it so.

[DallasMike]

Somebody obviously wants us to think it's al-Qaida... but that doesn't necessarily make it so.

Agreed, but let's kill every Al Qaeda member anyway.

[Porterville]

True, like when they tried to hide 9/11, very discrete

[xm177e2]

True, like when they tried to hide 9/11, very discrete

I know you are just being sarcastic, but try to understand my argument before mocking it. I didn't say al-Qaida tries to hide their handywork, I said it's conceivable the ETA could do so for political reasons. Who better to blame than Osama? They get to slaughter people, interfere with elections, and the public is distracted by Muslims, so they can plan for their next attack. There is absolutely nothing illogical about it.

[laconic]

Good point; its not unusual for radicals of like ideology to run together, witness the IRA in Colombia caught training the Marxist FARC guerillas and the Japanese Red Army or Baader-Meinhof, always ready to do the dirty work for the PFLP and other terror groups.

[Porterville]

I'm just ribbing you, but I can't believe even ETA would do something like this, OKC bombing- T McVey right?? I thought it was Islamic terrorist then and I still do- Everyone tries so hard to convince us otherwise. I'm going by my gut... If Spain finds out that Al Queda and let's say some state like Syria had something to do with this- well then let the Spanish whop ass begin. That one Mid Eastern dude on Fox (the little guy with a mustache) last night he thought it was Al Queda and a state sponsor. The media would love for us to believe it was a European terrorist group to show that Irish, Spanish-Basque and Danish perverts are just as bad as Mid East terrorist, but they aren't. No Euro weanie, Basque or otherwise would take out 200 of their own. In France the trains were messed with last week, and in Bulgaria today 5 trains of propane were wired to BLEVE. Basque live in the hills of Spain, not in Bulgaria.

[alnitak]

SQL Server says not:

select datediff(day, '09/11/2001', '03/11/2004')

---

912


The idiots forgot it was a leap year.

[Steve_Seattle]

"years of planning"

If true, that would seem to preclude the idea that the bombings were retaliation for Spain's role in the Iraq war.

[expatpat]

Chemical or biological.

[SauronOfMordor]

I didn't say al-Qaida tries to hide their handywork, I said it's conceivable the ETA could do so for political reasons. Who better to blame than Osama? They get to slaughter people, interfere with elections, and the public is distracted by Muslims, so they can plan for their next attack. There is absolutely nothing illogical about it.

If we were talking about a serial killer who gets his kicks by killing, I'd say you got something there. But terrorism is supposed to have a purpose. It's supposed to accomplish something, like convincing a government to withdraw from an area, or stop supporting some group, in exchange for an end to the terror attacks. This purpose is defeated if the attacker stays completely anonymous