Very interesting. See my other posts. I think ETA and AQ are working together, and have been for at least a few years (possibly since 2001). I follow this regularly in the Spanish press, particularly the conservative press, which actually prints the entire text of hearings, etc.
It appears that they began to work together seriously starting in 2000, and by 2001, jailed ETA and AQ members were consciously planning for the future.
Aznar did a lot to crush ETA, but one of the major problems was that the Socialist-allied intelligence services were thoroughly arrayed against him. He reformed them in his second term, completely reconstructing the agencies. But there were many civil service positions he could not change, and these people were enormously damaging. (Sound familiar?)
That said, I think we're going to see lots of domestic terrorist/AQ work in the future, particularly in Spain, where the current government's response to ETA has been quite feeble (Socialist government, Marxist ETA, what more do I need to say?). IMHO, we've already had it here with OKC.
This was on November 3. Spanish authorities got the information from Islamic extremists who had been arrested for the planning of a different attack.
German news is now saying that that today was a "false alarm". The Stadium was searched and no bomb was found.
Not taking any chances, probably.
Bernabeau holds 80,000.
03.11.04 15:26
Terror-Plan: Real Madrids Santiago Bernabéu sollte gesprengt werden
Islamische Extremisten hatten einen schlimmen Terror-Plan. Sie wollten das Stadion von Real Madrid in die Luft sprengen. Die spanischen Behörden haben jetzt Terror-Pläne über das Vorhaben gefunden.
Der Anschlag sollte bei einem Spiel von Real passieren. In das Santiago-Bernabéu-Stadion passen 80.000 Menschen rein. Die Extremisten wurden bei der Planung eines anderen Anschlags festgenommen.
source: www.bild.t-online.de
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Stadium Santiago Bernabéu / Picture from www.bild.t-online.de
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