Posted on 03/12/2004 9:47:14 AM PST by empirekin768
Al Qaeda has long presence in Spain
By Frank Davies
Knight Ridder News Service
WASHINGTON - In addition to the Basque separatist organization ETA, the al Qaeda terrorist network has a long history in Spain and many reasons for targeting that country, terrorism experts said.
At least some of the planning for the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon occurred in Spain, and Spain has been a vocal U.S. ally in the war on terrorism. It has dispatched more than 1,000 troops to Iraq and a smaller number to Afghanistan. Last year a Spanish diplomat and seven Spanish intelligence agents were assassinated in Iraq.
Spain has conducted an aggressive law-enforcement campaign against al Qaeda. Last year a chief magistrate issued a 700-page indictment of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and 34 others, including Muslim extremists living in Spain.
Spain served "as a place or base for resting, preparation, indoctrinating, support and financing" of al Qaeda, the indictment charged.
"The most significant al Qaeda cell we know of was in Spain. It financed other cells and subsidized attacks," said Matthew Levitt, a terrorism expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a research center on Middle East affairs.
An Arabic-language newspaper in London, Al-Quds al Arabi, said Thursday that it received a five-page e-mail from a group calling itself the Abu Hafs al Masri Brigades. Although little is known about the group, it is named for a close aide to bin Laden who was killed by U.S. missiles in Afghanistan.
The e-mail said the group had penetrated "one of the pillars of the crusade alliance, Spain," and called the simultaneous bombings "Operation Death Trains."
While the al Qaeda connection to Thursday's bombings is uncertain, Spanish investigators said they were ruling nothing out after finding a van with seven detonators and a tape in Arabic.
Tino Sotomayor, a spokesman for the Spanish Embassy in Washington, acknowledged that al Qaeda had a long presence in Spain but said that Spanish investigators haven't found links between ETA, a secular group, and the Muslim extremists of al Qaeda.
Levitt said Yusuf Galan, a Spanish national who was indicted last year on charges of involvement with al Qaeda, was a former ETA member who converted to Islam.
Like the bombings in Saudi Arabia, Al Qaeda is soiling its nest.
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