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INVESTIGATORS OF THE 3/11 TERRORIST ATTACK ON Spain have found that the leader of the radical Islamic cell was a drug dealer who traded a load of hashish for the explosives that killed 191 people. Spanish authorities are finding that the al-Qaeda-related terrorists are also ­tangled up in organized crime, the underworld of robbery, counterfeiting, fraud, drug dealing, and murder. How can that be? A Muslim who steals is to have his hand cut off. Islam forbids the use of drugs. How can there be an alliance between fundamentalist Islam and organized crime? The answer, reports Sebastian Rotella of the...

The body of a police special forces officer who died when Islamic terrorists blew themselves up in Madrid was taken from its grave, mutilated and burnt yesterday. The coffin and body of special agent Francisco Javier Torronteras were pulled from the tomb in Madrid Sur cemetery in Carabanchel and pushed 1,000 yards in a wheelbarrow before being doused with petrol and set alight. The body was found with a pick driven into its head and a spade dug into its chest. Although no motive was immediately apparent, police speculated that it could be the work of sympathisers of the Moroccan...

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish police are searching for an apartment where Islamist militants may be hiding after a weekend raid on another apartment ended with up to six suspects blowing themselves up, newspapers said on Wednesday. The Spanish government says most of the suspects in the Madrid 11 train bombings which killed 191 people have either been arrested or killed themselves in the weekend siege of an apartment in the Madrid suburb of Leganes. But a prosecutor has asked a judge to issue new arrest warrants in the investigation, news reports say, and police believe between one and three suspects...

Spanish President Aznar will be auxiliar proffesor in Georgetown about European policies and Transatlantic relations. He received the Golden Medal of Georgetown in January. His courses will be held two times every six months.

<p>A bomb containing several detonators has been found on a French rail line linking Paris to Basel, in Switzerland, according to police.</p> <p>The device "strongly resembled" a previous bomb planted by a shadowy group calling itself AZF which has threatened to blow up parts of France's rail network unless it is paid millions of euros, police said.</p>

TARNOW, Poland – Poland vowed Monday to keep troops in Iraq and warned Spain's incoming government that its plan to pull out could be seen as weakness in the face of terror after the Madrid bombings. Poland has 2,400 troops in Iraq and commands a 9,000-strong division of troops from 24 nations, including 1,300 Spanish soldiers, in a central-south zone. "Revising our positions on Iraq after terrorist attacks would be to admit that terrorists are stronger and that they are right," Prime Minister Leszek Miller told a news conference in the Polish town of Tarnow. Spain had been due to...

CAIRO (Reuters) - A group claiming to have links with al Qaeda said Wednesday it was calling a truce in its Spanish operations to see if the new government would withdraw its troops from Iraq (news - web sites), a pan-Arab newspaper said. In a statement sent Wednesday to the Arabic language daily al-Hayat, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, which claimed responsibility for the Madrid bombings that killed 201 people, also urged its European units to stop all operations. "Because of this decision, the leadership has decided to stop all operations within the Spanish territories... until we know the intentions...

Spain's spies see Muslims behind attack-radio Saturday March 13, 03:36 PM MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's intelligence service is "99 percent certain" that radical Muslims and not the Basque separatist group ETA are responsible for the train bombings that killed 200 people, a Spanish radio station has reported. Private radio SER, whose owners have links to the opposition Socialist Party, said the National Intelligence Centre (CNI) believes the evidence points to an Islamic group, and that 10 to 15 people left bombs on the trains and fled, the radio said on Saturday. The centre-right government, facing an election on Sunday, has...

More than 11 million people they were pronounced in all Spain against the attacks of Madrid MADRID, 12 (EUROPE PRESS) More than eleven million people they have been pronounced today in all the country to put record of its consternation before the attacks happened yesterday in Madrid, according to informed to Europe Press the Main directorate into the Police. This calculation, according to the mentioned sources, has been made on the different ones PUBLICITY manifestations that have taken place this late in all the capitals of province, following the call of the central Government. Only in Madrid, the Delegation...

MADRID, March 11 (Reuters) - Following are some reactions from leaders and experts to the deaths of at least 173 people in bombings in Madrid on Thursday: JOSE MARIA AZNAR, SPANISH PRIME MINISTER The victims were killed "simply for being Spanish... The criminals who have caused so many deaths today will be arrested... We will succeed in finishing off the terrorist band (ETA). GEORGE W. BUSH, U.S. PRESIDENT The bombings were a "vicious act of terrorism". Bush "condemned this vicious act of terrorism in the strongest possible terms," a White House spokesman said. VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT "Terrorism has once...

Border police tightened security Thursday between France and Spain after train bombings in Madrid that killed more than 170 people and wounded hundreds of others. Police stopped people on foot and searched cars and other vehicles, creating traffic jams at several checkpoints between the two countries, including Hendaye and Behobie. At the Biriatou border crossing, heavy trucks were stopped for security checks. The French Basque region has long been a haven for militant Spanish Basques, although it has largely been spared the violence that has scarred the Spanish Basque provinces, just across the border. President Jacques Chirac condemned the Madrid...

UNITED NATIONS, March 11 (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council on Thursday condemned the Basque separatist group ETA as the perpetrators of the deadly bombings in Spain, although members had no way of determining the veracity of the charge. Despite some hesitations over the resolution, members voted 15-0 to accept the word of the Spanish government, which immediately blamed the ETA for the simultaneous explosions that killed 190 people and injured more than 1,200 on packed trains in Madrid. The resolution "condemns in the strongest terms the bomb attacks in Madrid, Spain, perpetrated by the terrorist group ETA on 11...

"No pasaran" was the message of those defending ballot-box democracy during the Spanish civil war. As the full horror of the Madrid atrocity unfolds, surely the time has come to unite against terrorism - the new fascism of the 21st century, wherever it takes place. On Sunday, millions of Spaniards will vote freely to chose a government. Today we see a monstrous assault on European democracy and all of Europe must stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Spain as they find themselves in the front line against the evil of world terrorism. I learnt my Spanish in San...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush called Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar on Thursday to express solidarity and sympathy after explosions killed more than 170 people and injured hundreds more in Spain's worst terrorist attack ever. Bush condemned "this vicious attack of terrorism in the strongest possible terms," National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack said.</p>

PURVIS, Miss. (AP) - A dam holding back an 1,100 acre lake in southern Mississippi broke on Friday, damaging dozens of homes and several roads in two counties, authorities said. Following the failure of the Big Bay Lake dam, state emergency officials found 43 homes damaged and 12 mobile homes destroyed. Gov. Haley Barbour declared a state of emergency for Marion and Lamar counties. Officials had not determined whether anyone was missing or injured, search crews were going door to door in areas below the dam, west of Purvis. Chip Gibson, a local pilot, said when he flew over the...

Attacks. - The terrorists tried to fly the station of Atocha by means of the simultaneous explosion of six pumps MADRID, 11 (EUROPE PRESS) The terrorist authors of the today attacks tried to explode at the same time in the station of Atocha six of the pumps placed in two of the attacked trains, according to judicial sources informed and into the displaced police equipment to the place of the facts. The same sources indicated that, according to the first investigations, the pumps placed in the trains whose explosive charges exploded in the station of Atocha and the neighborhoods...

I just got this in reply to my email I sent to the Spanish Consulate yesterday The Spanish Consulate is organizing a silent demonstration to take place today at 1pm at the Cervantes Institute, located at Amster Yard, 211-215 East 49th Street, New York City. We hope you will convey your solidarity and support to the victims and their families in this demonstration. Sincerely, Consulate General of Spain in New York.

In Spain: ETA and Al-Qaeda Forge New Anti-EU Alliance NCM Online, By Paolo Pontoniere, October 1, 2001 The Basque terrorist organization ETA and bin Laden's al-Qaeda cells have joined forces. Their shared goal: to organize and carry out an attack on the EU meeting scheduled for March 2002 in Barcelona, according to two Spanish publications, Tiempo and El Mundo. According to the reports, which have been confirmed by Italian and French media, representatives of the two terrorist organizations have already met together three times in Brussels in December 2000; in Malaga, Spain in February 2001; and in Barcelona last July....

Spain pledged Friday to find those responsible for train bombings that killed at least 198 people. Businesses emptied nationwide for several minutes as Spaniards observed a period of silence to honor the victims of the country's worst terror attack. Spanish officials initially blamed Basque separatists for Thursday's stunningly well-coordinated string of 10 explosions on packed commuter trains, but they also were studying a claim of blame by a shadowy group in the name of al-Qaida. Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar said no suspects had been ruled out. "We will bring the guilty to justice," Aznar said at a news conference....

For San Francisco Freepers with time on their hands at noon today: ANNOUNCEMENT The Consulate General of Spain wishes to express its profound sorrow for the victims of the barbaric terrorist attack perpetrated today, March 11, 2004, in the capital of Spain, and declares its solidarity with the relatives of the victims. It is necessary once more to manifest absolute repudiation and condemnation of any type of terrorism, as well as the unconditional will to defend the Rule of Law and the Constitution. The Consulate General of Spain invites all those who want to condemn this insane act of violence...