Posted on 10/18/2004 7:52:48 PM PDT by Libloather
Spain Arrests 7 in Suspected Terror Plan
The Associated Press
October 18. 2004 8:29PM
Police arrested seven people Monday in nationwide raids targeting a suspected Islamic terror ring that was reportedly preparing for an attack.
Police described the detainees as suspected members of an active Islamic militant group, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
"The ring is composed of Muslims that are residents in Spain," the statement said. It added that the suspects allegedly were in contact with people elsewhere in Europe, the United States and Australia.
The private news agency Europa Press, citing police in charge of the case, reported that the arrests were made after police detected conversations in which the suspects referred to preparations for an attack with explosives. The report could not immediately be confirmed.
In the conversations, it was unclear whether the suspects already had the explosives, according to Europa Press.
Those arrested included at least four Algerians and one Moroccan in Madrid, El Ejido, Gandia, Malaga and Almeria. They were identified as Smail Latrech, Ali Omar "Jelloul," Djamel Merabet, Mourat Yala "Abu Anas," Ahmed Mohamed and Magid Mchmacha. One remained unidentified.
Islamic militants linked to al-Qaida have been blamed for the March 11 train bombings in Madrid. The attack killed 191 people and wounded more than 2,000 in Spain's worst terrorist attack.
Monday's operation was ordered by Judge Baltasar Garzon of Spain's National Court, which handles terrorism cases.
Police said the operation was still open and that they don't rule out more arrests or home searches.
Separately, the El Pais newspaper reported that Spanish intelligence agents warned police in November 2003 that an Algerian now identified as a ringleader of the Madrid train bombings was preparing an attack in Spain.
The agents asked the Interior Ministry for urgent help in locating the suspect, Allekema Lamari, who had served jail time in Spain on terrorism charges and was considered dangerous. But the ministry did not heed the warning, the newspaper said, quoting sources close to the National Intelligence Center.
Seven Muslims? Spain should have surrendered...or at least ousted its government for an even more pacificist group of EUrocrats.
thank goodness some of Anzar's people are still in the counterintel agencies in Spain. The Socialist/Commies haven't had time to purge them yet.
Geez, I thought the terrorists promised to leave them alone if they left Iraq ... could the terrorists have lied? Hmmmmm.
After which they promptly asked the arrestees who they would like to have in Spanish government.
This report simply must be wrong... Spain was told they'd be left alone from attacks if only they would let the Islamists win.
And they thought they had gotten away from that stuff
How can this be? I thought since they elected that socialist scumbag that the terrorists were appeased? Wasn't that the way it was supposed to work? /sarcasm>
The "Peace in Our Time" crowd in Spain got lucky this time.
Appeasement of thugs doesn't work. Maybe the Spanish will get the message.
GWOT alert!
What would Kerry have done differently?. . .
yuo know if this wasnt so sad it would be flipping hilarious....
now just for once will someone ask the question : Hey this was supossed to end with the lefty election? what gives?
Gee, I thought the Islamabombers were going to leave Spain alone, now that they have capitulated in the War on Terror and all.
As if we all needed another lesson in the dangers of trusting the Islamabombers.
I hate to say it, but the Spanish deserve whatever they get at this point.
Now the number is up to eight arrested, with a ninth person (an Algerian in prison in Switzerland) about to be arrested. They were planning to use a truck bomb at the headquarters of the Audiencia Nacional (National Court) where the courts that are prosecuting Islamic terrorism cases are located. It also seems that they were trying to buy dynamite from ETA for the purpose.
Spain: Terror suspects targeted court
By MAR ROMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
MADRID, Spain -- A radical Muslim cell broken up by Spanish police had been plotting to bomb the National Court, a hub of Spain's investigations of Islamic terrorism, the interior minister said Tuesday.
Meanwhile, a Spanish TV station broadcast previously unseen security-camera footage of the March 11 train bombings at Madrid's main Atocha rail station. The footage shows an orange fireball bursting from a train, enveloping commuters with smoke and leaving the platform littered with bodies and stained with blood.
Seven terror suspects were arrested Monday in Madrid and southern Spain, and anoter was arrested Tuesday in the northern city of Pamplona, Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso said. Most are Algerian, and some had contacts with militants elsewhere in Europe, the United States and Australia.
"This was an operation against radical Muslims. They were planning to commit terrorist attacks," he told reporters at Parliament.
"They were talking about attacking the National Court, a judicial body. But the police do rule out any other kind of possibility," Alonso said, adding that no explosives were found during the arrests.
Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported the plan involved detonating a truck containing 1,100 pounds of explosives outside the courthouse, located on a busy avenue in downtown Madrid.
Among the suspects identified were Smail Latrech, Ali Omar "Jelloul," Djamel Merabet, Mourat Yala "Abu Anas," Ahmed Mohamed and Magid Mchmacha.
Police said the operation was continuing and didn't rule out more arrests and home searches.
The arrests were ordered as part of a probe by the court's Judge Baltasar Garzon, Spain's leading anti-terrorism magistrate. Since September 2003, Garzon has indicted 41 people on terrorism charges, including Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida suspects accused of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
Another judge at the court, Juan del Olmo, is leading a probe into the March 11 train bombings in Madrid, which killed 191 people and have been blamed on Muslim militants linked to al-Qaida.
Three days after that attack, conservatives in power who backed the Iraq war lost to Socialists in general elections amid widespread voter sentiment that then-Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar had made Spain a target for Osama bin Laden's terror group.
The footage of the March 11 train bombings, shown on Telecinco, started with dazed commuters milling about on a smoke-shrouded platform after one early morning explosion. Then, smoke flows toward the camera and people on the platform are apparently knocked over by another blast.
About five seconds later, a ball of orange flame erupts from a stopped train, filling the screen. The tape includes no sound, just images.
Minutes later, bodies are seen strewn on the platform amid pools of blood. Police and emergency medical staffers attend to them. A few minutes afterward, police and crews are seen screaming for people to evacuate the station and themselves running toward the escalator, fearing another explosion. Telecinco said this warning turned out to be a false alarm.
The footage appeared to have been taken from atop an escalator, looking down onto the platform.
Telecinco also aired two other pieces of March 11 video that had not been broadcast publicly.
One showed a gun-carrying, masked militant claiming responsibility for the attacks on behalf of al-Qaida. The video was found near a mosque on the eve of the March 14 general election.
"We claim responsibility for the Madrid attacks, two and half years after the blessed conquests of New York and Washington," the Arabic-speaking man said, according to Telecinco's translation.
In the other video, made March 27 of this year, three hooded men wearing belts loaded with dynamite cartridges threaten more attacks against Spain unless it withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.
Those three are now believed to have been ringleaders of the March 11 bombing cell and among seven suspects who blew themselves up in an apartment outside Madrid on April 3 as police prepared to storm it.
Pretty interesting stuff.
I will bet you dimes to doughnuts that the commies and terrorists conspired to blow the trains stations up.
Now the terrorists and commies are fighting for control of the country.
It is interesting that Spain's Intel on these terrorists has gotten significantly better in just a few months.
Now that the commies are in power, they are moving to arrest all of the co-conspirators who where involved in the terror attack on the trains.
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