SPAIN ARRESTS AL-QUAIDA SUSPECTS WITH VIDEOS OF U.S. MONUMENTS INCLUDING THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE

Spain arrests al-Qaida suspects with videos of U.S. monuments including Golden Gate Bridge By CIARAN GILES Associated Press Writer Published 10:40 a.m. PDT Tuesday, July 16, 2002 MADRID, Spain (AP) - Spanish police arrested three Syrians on Tuesday suspected of being al-Qaida members, including one who had videos of the World Trade Center and monuments in the United States including the Golden Gate Bridge.

Two of the suspects were arrested in Madrid and the other in the eastern town of Castellon, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. They were identified as Ghasoub Al-Abrash Ghalyoun, Abdalrahman Alarnaot Abu-Aljer and Mohamen Khair Al Saqq. Ghalyoun and Abu-Aljer had Spanish nationality, police said.

The ministry statement said Ghalyoun belonged to the radical Muslim Brotherhood and had been arrested in Spain in April but later released.

At the time of his first arrest, police confiscated many videos including five shot by Ghalyoun during a trip to the United States in 1997.

"The form and type of recording go beyond touristic curiosity as shown by two of the tapes, which are entirely of different angles from different distances of the Twin Towers in New York," the statement said.

It added that there were similar recordings of New York's Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, the Sears tower in Chicago, Disneyland and Universal studios in California.

Other videos were extremely violent and showed Islamic fighters training in camps and during combat scenes in Chechnya, the statement said.

An FBI task force is working with FBI operatives and local law enforcement in Spain to locate and capture suspected terrorists, a U.S. law enforcement official said. Some of the people the task force is looking to locate are men who might be tied to terrorists and have traveled to the United States in recent years.

It was not immediately clear why Ghalyoun was released in April or re-arrested Tuesday.

The arrests were ordered by Judge Baltasar Garzon as part of an operation begun last year with the detention of more than a dozen people across the country between November and April. The judge has accused those arrested then of recruiting members for al-Qaida, financing the group and taking part in preparations for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

Spanish authorities are trying to figure out what Mohamed Atta, the Sept. 11 ringleader, was doing during two trips to Spain months before the attacks. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Husband is captain in the Bay. He has had armed sea marshalls riding with him on and off since September. Lots of security July 4.

When you ride the ferries keep your eyes open, report anything thing that looks suspicious. I know of one incident where two ME women were acting strange, they were reported to the FBI. Tell the deckhands, tell the captain.

It would take alot of explosives to damage the GGB. I'm more worried about the toll increases!!

I was listening to Spanish radio today (the Spanish are addicted to talk radio, and have been for years) and they were wondering why, exactly, so many of the terrorists have shown up in Spain. One of the participants gave 4 reasons: Proximity (Spain is just across the Straits of Gibraltar from North Africa); the fact that anything Arab gets special treatment (European guilt complex); a third thing that I don't remember but that wasn't very significant; and the fact that the police have been busy with ETA (Basque terrorists).

When they did a poll, it turned out that most people (Spaniards) believed that it was because Spain was too tolerant of anything Arab - that is, they didn't arrest illegals from North Africa, tended to ignore crimes committed by them, etc.

This is true, but having spent a lot of time in Spain, I can tell you that Spain is probably better than most European countries in being realistic about the effect of an enormous influx of Muslims. In fact, Spain takes in fewer than France, although the problem is that it does not act aggressively in keeping out illegals.

But the politically correct EU has made it very hard for the Spanish to do what they would really like to do, which is clamp down and keep their country to themselves.

Still, I think Spain has done a great job. While a lot of the terrorists passed through Spain and were not caught while they were there (remember, they passed through Florida, too, and weren't caught there, either), the Spanish police and security forces have done a truly fine job of nabbing these people and getting their hands on the evidence, which is almost as important. ¡Viva España!

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