Terror Suspect Accused of Huge Plot in Spain

[82nd Airborne Dad]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=182369

Suspected Muslim Militant Accused of Planning Attack to Deal Spain Its 'Biggest Blow in History'

The Associated Press

MADRID, Spain Oct. 20, 2004 - A Muslim militant schemed to punish Spain with the "biggest blow of its history" a half-ton suicide truck bombing of the National Court aimed at killing judges investigating Islamic terror, including the Madrid train attacks, said a police intelligence report obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.

"If Spain loses three or four of its most important judges, that is worse than losing its prime minister," the report said. It quoted an informant whose testimony on his contacts with the militant triggered the arrests of eight suspects this week in Spain.

Western Europe has never suffered a major suicide bombing, (neither has the U.S. - yet - FDL) although suicide blasts killed 61 people last November in Istanbul, Turkey.

An estimated 220 pounds of explosives was used in the 10 backpack bombs that hit the Madrid commuter rail network March 11, killing 191 people. Al-Qaida-linked militants were blamed.

Seven suspects in that attack blew themselves up on April 3 as police closed in, including several alleged ringleaders. But their goal was apparently to evade arrest and become martyrs for Islam, not kill a large number of people. One special forces officer died.

In the new investigation, police said they had intercepted hundreds of letters from suspected cell members in Spain in which they said they were willing to stage suicide attacks.

The National Police intelligence unit report detailed a plot to blow up the National Court Spain's nerve center for investigating Islamic terror on a busy avenue in downtown Madrid.

The report said the protected witness had been in contact with suspected cell ringleader Mohamed Achraf, an Algerian born in the United Arab Emirates.

Switzerland confirmed Wednesday he's in custody there for entering the country illegally and said deportation proceedings were pending when his alleged link to the plot surfaced.

Spain's leading anti-terrorism magistrate, Judge Baltasar Garzon, is preparing to send the Swiss authorities a warrant spelling out specific charges against Achraf, setting the stage for Spain's government to request his extradition, sources at Spain's National Court said.

Garzon is scheduled to question the eight detainees on Saturday, the sources said.

The plot suggests Spain remains a target for Muslim militants even though the new Socialist government withdrew Spain's troops from Iraq after taking office in April.

In a videotape recovered two days after the March 11 attacks, a masked militant claiming to speak for an al-Qaida group said the bombs had been in revenge for Spain's presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Conservatives who backed the Iraq war lost Spain's general election the next day.

On March 18, a group named for Abu Hafs al-Masri, a former top lieutenant of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, said it was calling a truce in Spain to give the newly elected Socialist government time to withdraw the Spanish troops from Iraq.

Achraf, the purported ringleader of the court bombing plot, had served time for credit card fraud in a jail near Salamanca in western Spain where he allegedly recruited other prisoners. He was in Spain when he plotted the attack, police said. It was apparently to have taken place some time after the March 11 blasts, the informant said, according to the report.

The eight suspected members of Achraf's cell were arrested in Spain on Monday and Tuesday. All eight had been with him at the Salamanca jail, police said.

The Interior Ministry said wiretapped phone conversations showed the cell had been talking about bombing the National Court, but no explosives were found in the raids.

"Achraf told the witness, in a closed meeting, that he needed to give Spain the biggest blow of its history, for which he needed 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) of Goma 2," the report read.

Goma 2 is a kind of compressed dynamite a version of which was used in the March 11 attacks although officials say there's no evidence the new cell took part in that bombing.

The witness told police Achraf was using half the explosives for a first attack targeting the National Court. The report made no mention of what he planned to do with the rest.

"He wanted the attack to be at the National Court in Madrid or the Supreme Court," the report said. "Furthermore, with this attack, many case files related to mujahedeen would be destroyed," the witness added.

Garzon, an investigative judge at the National Court specializing in anti-terrorism, has over the past year indicted 41 people on terrorism charges, including Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida suspects accused of staging the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. That case file alone is believed to be tens of thousands of pages long.

Another judge at the court, Juan del Olmo, is leading the probe into the March 11 bombings.

Achraf said many Muslims in Spanish jails wanted to get out "and have the opportunity to die as martyrs. In any case, Achraf made clear that the day of the attack, he would be the first martyr," the informant is quoted as saying.

The protected witness gave this testimony Sept. 14, triggering a police operation that netted the eight arrests this week.

The ministry said the suspects had contacts elsewhere in Europe, the United States and Australia. Australian police were investigating a suspect whose name given to them by Spain.

In the report's only mention of the Madrid bombings, the informant quoted Achraf as saying increased airline security after Sept. 11 had made the March 11 attack possible.

"After Sept. 11, all eyes turned to the skies, monitoring flights, and this helped stage the March 11 attacks on the trains," the report said.

The witness is not named, only identified by a number. The only detail on him in the report says that he knew many Muslims through a mosque in the southern town of Roquetas de Mar.

[Snowden]

Western Europe has never suffered a major suicide bombing, (neither has the U.S. - yet - FDL) although suicide blasts killed 61 people last November in Istanbul, Turkey.

9/11 was carried out by 19 or so suicide bombers. Not quite the same MO as being wrapped in explosives and pulling a cord, but those men who used the airplanes as bombs would still qualify, I believe.

This is an interesting article, Neal; thanks for putting it here.

[AT3Weins]

Originally Posted by Snowden

9/11 was carried out by 19 or so suicide bombers. Not quite the same MO as being wrapped in explosives and pulling a cord, but those men who used the airplanes as bombs would still qualify, I believe.

This is an interesting article, Neal; thanks for putting it here.

I agree.

[Hoss68]

Considering how the vote went after the train bombing... Among other things.

[Carnage_59]

...the Spanish people have made the following mistakes:

1. They elected a government that naively believes if the placate the Islamic extremists the bombings and violence will stop. What just happened proves them wrong.

2. The Spanish government under Prime Minister Zapatero has been giving Spanish taxpayer money to mosques in Spain in the vain hopes that the mosques will not accept monies from the Wahabbis in Saudi Arabia. DUH.

3. The bishop of Cordoba in Spain was approached by a group of Muslims asking permission to "share" the famous Catholic Church in Granada, namely the Alhambra, as a mosque again. The bishop had given permission but was immediately overruled by Cardinal Ratzinger in Rome, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The main reason was Cardinal Ratzinger and the Holy Father knew of the Koranic canon that if two or more Muslims pray in a building, it becomes a mosque. The Alhambra was originally a Church until the Moorish conquest and was a mosque, then was restored to being a Church again at the Reconquest.

To placate radicals is foolish. Neville Chamberlain is the worst example of this.