Allies in Terror
March 17, 2004
The Wall Street Journal
Amir Taheri
It may take weeks before the identity of those responsible for the 3/11 bombings in Madrid is established, and by then a new government, led by the Socialists, will be in power in Spain. But one thing is already certain: Europe has not yet taken the full measure of the terrorist threat to its way of life, indeed its existence as a zone of peace and prosperity in an unstable world.
Within hours, the Spanish political and media establishment was divided into two camps: one blaming the Basque-separatist ETA, the other pointing the finger at Islamist terrorists. In other parts of Europe, too, those who had supported Spain's decision to join the war of liberation in Iraq tried to portray the attacks as part of ETA's campaign of terror. Those who had opposed the intervention in Iraq, on the other hand, presented the attacks as an understandable, though not necessarily justifiable, retaliation by "Muslims with hurt feelings."
But the partisan approach to the understanding of the Madrid tragedy could harm efforts to develop a coherent European strategy in the context of the global war on terror. The two sides of the European divide, still squabbling over the Iraq war, have ignored a third possibility -- that ETA and al Qaeda might have worked together to bring about the Madrid tragedy.
* * *
This is not as fanciful as it might sound. Terrorism is a doctrine based on the maxim, "The ends justify the means." In the current debate those who try to exculpate ETA imply that it is, somehow less evil than al Qaeda. That assumption is both wrong and dangerous.
The difference between ETA and al Qaeda is one of means and methods not of nature and category. Until last week ETA had never managed to kill more than 30 people at any given time. But that was not for want of trying. Nor is ETA's relationship with Middle Eastern radical groups new.
ETA established contact with the People's Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in 1970. A number of ETA militants were trained in various PFLP camps both in Lebanon and Libya. British and Spanish intelligence have also established ETA's link with Libya at least until 1986. During that period Libya supplied the Basque terror group with money and arms.
An ETA delegation has visited Tehran every year since 1985 to participate in an annual gathering of "anti-Imperialist" movements that is held annually from Feb. 1 to Feb. 11. (The Tehran terror-fest, known as "The Ten Days of Dawn," celebrates the victory of the 1979 Islamist Revolution). Indeed, the list of ETA and Islamist-terrorist links is long and well-documented:
• In 1986, the French police identified one Vahid Gorji, an attaché at the Iranian Embassy in Paris, as the mullahs' liaison officer with European terror groups, including ETA. (Gorji was subsequently allowed to fly home under escort as Iran and France severed diplomatic ties.)
• In 1993, ETA -- along with a dozen other Western terrorist organizations -- had observers in the largest ever gathering of Islamist groups held in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. The conference elected a nine-member "steering committee" that included Osama bin Laden.
• In 1998, Spanish police arrested another Iranian agent, Rahman Dezfouli, on charges of contacts with ETA. He, too, was subsequently expelled because he was the holder of an Iranian "service passport."
ETA's literature, as disseminated over the past three decades, is replete with expressions of sympathy for various Islamist causes including "wiping Israel off the map" and "driving the American Imperialists out of the world." In exchange, al Qaeda literature has paid tribute to ETA's "heroic struggle" for Basque independence. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al Qaeda second-in-command, has spoken of his dream of "liberating Andalusia," the part of Spain once ruled by Muslims, presumably letting ETA rule its own neck of the wood in the Basque country.
Spain was targeted by Islamist groups long before it joined the war to liberate Iraq. These groups blame Spain for having "sold" the Spanish Sahara to Morocco while refusing Muslim rule over the two North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.
The more militant of the Islamist groups openly preach revenge for what they see as an unjust expulsion of Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula at the end of the 15th century. That sentiment is also reflected in school textbooks in many Muslim countries from the Persian Gulf to the eastern Mediterranean.
Some analysts claim that ETA, a leftist and nationalist group, cannot ally itself with Islamists who are on the extreme right and firmly reject nationalism. But so great is the terrorist groups' hatred of democracy that alliances across the ideological divide cannot be excluded.
An objective alliance of radical groups, from the extreme left to the Islamists, is already in place in many countries. This alliance has organized numerous marches opposing the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq, and conducts a vigorous campaign against any attempt at "imposing" democracy on any other Muslim country. The core of this alliance's ideology consists of an acute form of anti-Americanism which assumes that the U.S. represents evil in a Manichean view of the world.
The truth is that there is no good terrorism and that the current European wave of anti-Americanism cannot but encourage those who wish to impose their will on the world through terror. Whether or not they actually joined forces to plan and execute the Madrid attacks, ETA and al Qaeda remain objective political allies.
Mr. Taheri is the author, most recently, of "L'Irak: Le Dessous Des Cartes" (Editions Complexe, France; 2003).
http://online.wsj.com/public/us