Were the Madrid bombings on 3/11 part of a new, far-reaching jihad being plotted on the Internet?
This week, while we all discuss the elevated terror alert re: financial institutions in the US, and the Brits and Pakistanis arrest terror suspects with some urgency, the New Yorker has published a must-read article called THE TERROR WEB by Lawrence Wright. Check out these highlights - and then go Read The Whole Thing. Carefully.
The Internet document suggested that a new intelligence was at work, a rationality not seen in Al Qaeda documents before. The Mujahideen Services Center, whatever that was, appeared to operate as a kind of Islamist think tank. "The person who put together those chapters had a clear strategic vision, realistic and well thought out," Amirah says. He told Hegghammer, "This is political science applied to jihad."
Although the document was posted on the Internet in December, 2003, the authors note that a draft had been written in September. In October, assassins shot a Spanish military attaché in Iraq, José Antonio Bernal Gómez, near his residence; in November, seven Spanish intelligence agents were ambushed and murdered south of Baghdad. Photographs of the killers standing on the agents’ bodies circulated on Islamist Web sites. Another Internet document soon appeared ...Variations in the Arabic transcriptions of English words in the “Jihadi Iraq” document suggested to Amirah that writers of various nationalities had drafted it ... Those clues, plus certain particularly Moroccan political concerns expressed in the document, such as the independence movement in Western Sahara, suggested that at least some of the authors were diaspora Moroccans, probably living in Spain.
The link between the Internet document and the bombings soon became clearer....
The Al Qaeda cell in Spain is old and well established. Mohamed Atta, the commander of the September 11th attacks, came to Spain twice in 2001. The second time was in July, for a meeting in the coastal resort of Salou, which appears to have been arranged as a final go-ahead for the attacks. After September 11th, Spanish police estimated that there were three hundred Islamic radicals in the country who might be affiliated with Al Qaeda. .... And yet, according to Spanish police officials, at the time of the Madrid attacks there was not a single Arabic-speaking intelligence agent in the country. Al Qaeda was simply not seen as a threat to Spain. “We never believed we were a real target,” a senior police official said. “That’s the reality.” ....
“Al Qaeda has four different networks,” Aristegui told me in Madrid, the day after the Socialists took power.
Until the Madrid attacks, the Al Qaeda operations—in Dhahran, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Aden, New York, Washington, Jerba, Karachi, Bali, Mombasa, Riyadh, Casablanca, Jakarta, and Istanbul—had been political failures. These massacres committed in the name of jihad had achieved little except anger, grief, and the deaths of thousands. ... as the Spanish attacks showed, the new generation was more interested in committing violence for the sake of immediate political gain.
Had the Madrid cell rested on its accomplishment after March 11th, Al Qaeda would properly be seen as an organization now being guided by political strategists—as an entity closer in spirit to ETA, with clear tactical objectives. April 2nd throws doubt on that perspective. There was little to be gained politically from striking an opponent who was complying with the stated demand: the government had agreed to withdraw troops from Iraq. If the point was merely humiliation or revenge, then April 2nd makes more sense; the terrorists wanted more blood, even if a second attack backfired politically...April 2nd is comprehensible only if the real goal of the bombers was not Iraq but Spain, where the Islamic empire began its retreat five hundred years ago. “Spain is a target because we are the historic turning point,” Aristegui said. “After this, they are going to try to hit Rome, London, Paris, and the U.S. harder than they did before.” ...
Outside the Leganés apartment, the police attempted to negotiate, but the cornered terrorists cried out, “We will die killing!” ... the police decided to storm the apartment. ... an explosion shattered the apartment, killing the terrorists and a police officer....
In the ruins, police found twenty-two pounds of Goma-2 and two hundred copper detonators that were similar to those used in the train bombings. They also found the shredded remains of a videotape. These fragments were painstakingly reassembled, to the point where police could view the final statement of Fakhet and two other members of the cell, which called itself “the brigade situated in Al Andalus.” Unless Spanish troops left Iraq within a week, the men had declared, “we will continue our jihad until martyrdom in the land of Tariq ibn Ziyad.”
Al Andalus is the Arabic name for the portion of Spain that fell to Muslim armies after the invasion by the Berber general Tariq ibn Ziyad in 711. It includes not only the southern region of Andalusia, but most of the Iberian Peninsula. For the next eight hundred years, Al Andalus remained in Islamic hands. “You know of the Spanish crusade against Muslims, and that not much time has passed since the expulsion from Al Andalus and the tribunals of the Inquisition,” Fakhet says on the tape. He is referring to 1492, when Ferdinand and Isabella completed the reconquest of Spain, forcing Jews and Muslims to convert to Catholicism or leave the Iberian Peninsula. “Blood for blood!” he shouts. “Destruction for destruction!”
Were these the true goals of Al Qaeda? Were the besieged terrorists in Leganés simply struggling to get Spain out of Iraq, or were they also battling to regain the lost colonies of Islam? In other words, were these terrorists who might respond to negotiation or appeasement, or were they soldiers in a religious fight to the finish that had merely been paused for five hundred years? .....
One of the most sobering pieces of information to come out of the investigation of the March 11th bombings is that the planning for the attacks may have begun nearly a year before 9/11. ... It appears that some kind of attack would have happened even if Spain had not joined the Coalition—or if the invasion of Iraq had never occurred.
Go on. Go RTWT.
UPDATE: Thomas Nephew of Newsrack has more commentary on the New Yorker article and the Andalucia front in the GWOT.
I've just read the first three pages. The author should have read El Mundo (a Spanish newspaper)and other sources (including the testimonies submitted to the 3/11 Commission the past few weeks) to know that there are still many gaps in the "official story" (indeed supported by the Socialist government). The idea that the Aznar government had planned a major strike against ETA for March 12th has no supporting evidence and has not been discussed in the Spanish press, controlled largely by the opposition to Aznar.
I'm afraid Mr. Wright does not know what he is talking about.
With regard to Aznar's relationship to the ETA, or on the wider topic of the article (the rise of an internet-based jihadist movement)?
I can't comment on the former, but on the latter topic I think he's pretty accurate.
I've just finished reading it. I'm very disappointed with your must-read recommendation. More than 50% of the article refers to Spain on the basis of just talking to some "experts" but knowing nothing about history. It's surprising that he does not mention the well-known Socialist judge Baltazar Garzon who has been in charge of the investigation of Al Qaeda cell and who has willing to talk with anyone about his theories (but has failed miserably in his investigation). With respect to the web, maybe he's been watching the Matrix too often. The "conclusion" to the article (I assume it starts in the paragraph "Appeasement is a foolish strategy...) there is absolutely nothing related to the web and more important nothing that we have not learnt the past three years.
Set aside the references to Spain for a moment, si se puede, ...
It is true that many of the individual assertions in this article are not surprising to those who read the blogosphere. They probably will be new and surprising to most readers of the New Yorker, however. When combined with the recent article in Esquire by a well known liberal (in the American sense) writer, it is noteworthy that mainstream media here are beginning to take seriously the idea that there is a widespread Islamacist threat.
Most of those readers will also be surprised to see the assertion that the Madrid bombings were planned prior, even, to 9/11. That assertion directly contradicts the attitude that current jihadist attacks are in retaliation to the Coalition's presence in Iraq.
Moreover, I do read El Mundo occasionally, as well as several spanish-language blogs. It is not my impression that most Spaniards have really absorbed this fact, either. If I'm wrong on that, please post some links here ... I don't read the spanish-language press or blogs every day by any means, so may have missed the big stories to this effect.
Re: the web, the insight that the Internet (and in particular the Web) has become a virtual Ummah is an important one and gives a different emphasis to the presence of jihadist and Islamacist sites. We all know that Al Qaeda, the mullahs in Iran and elsewhere have web sites. We all have heard that Al Qaeda uses steganography and encryption to convey information and that mullahs and imams have dispensed theological rulings and fatwas online.
I'm also not sure we've all really absorbed the idea that the Web, by providing a virtual Islamic country in effect globalizes every jihadi group. Not merely in communications, but on a theological basis.
Historically and recently, Islamacist attacks have been predicated, in part, on the idea that certain lands were once Muslim and therefore are legitimately restored to sharia law and Islamic control through violence. A different mindset is emerging, one in which young Islamacists are persuading themselves that they have such a claim on all the earth. And that new mindset is heavily enabled and nurtured by the Web communities they have grown.
There is a second major point made in this article that bears hearing, namely that a young group of jihadists are implicitly rejecting the apocalyptic religious struggle of bin Laden for a more immediate political struggle. This has immediate implications, among them a willingness to spread violence indiscriminately and tactically rather than for symbolic or strategic effect. The idea that these young men have no real allegiance to the control or direction of senior terror network leaders is sobering.
Y despensame, por favor, but I must also say: so too is the fact that many of them are Moroccans with a specific political grievance centered on Spain.
Robin, estas dispensado, pero
(1) About what happened on 3/11, we don't know yet, and as a Basque, I still don't rule out ETA; unfortunately, the article is based on the assumption that we know very well what happened.
(2) About the web, it's useful only for coordination, but it's good for them and for us (after all, they didn't invent Internet, Al did it).
(3) About the Moroccans, they are not a threat (based on my experience in the Philippines, China and other places where the "Moros" are a threat, I'm ready to say that the Moroccans are a joke; the ones captured in relation to 3/11 are from a kindergarden as you can read in the Spanish press).
The only point that you may be right is about liberal writers becoming aware of a Islamacist threat, but you can bet that they will be ignored by their regular audience.
Sorry I cannot post links. I'm far away, close to Tierra del Fuego, and I don't know how to do it.
Mrs. Burke,
Thanks for pointing to this article. The takeaways for me:
1. Attacks in Spain carried out by an independent, somewhat separate Al-Queda group.
2. Attackers were convinced that Spain could be persuaded through terror to withdraw.
3. The distinction made between 4 different networks of Al-Queda.
4. Rise of the internet, and Al-Queda message boards, Islamic sites, etc.
5. The long-range planning implicit - before 9/11? That is patient planning.
I knew number 1 & 2, but the article fleshes this out more. I appreciated the distinctions in the article of the types of Al-Queda networks (number 3), and I just went and checked an Islamic site. Chilling stuff! Exactly like the apolyptic militant Christian stuff, but even more bloody-minded. I didn't know at all about 4 year lead times in planning.
The internet as a tool - even as we are using the tool now - is pretty powerful for spreading messages and coming together in a common cause, virtually.
I'm sure that there is a lot of government monitoring of these Islamist sites - but as cited in the article, the explosion from 7 to 4000 sites, the sheer amount of information makes it very difficult for investigators to sift through.
However, if you take a search engine such as Google, or Technorati, these search engines could conceivably be modified - both in the algorithms and methods - to track specific types of sites, and messages on sites.
This would really only help you deal with the open net, and wouldn't touch the darknet - but even this would help to keep tabs on recruitment.
It would probably be worthwhile to coordinate the type of program I mention above, with some part-time volunteers to monitor. (Assuming human intelligence is a good gatekeeper. Clearly, sometimes not).
I wish these type of monitoring systems/programs did not just BEG for people in authority to abuse them, and use them for political gain. The lesson of "power corrupts" screams in my head, as soon as I start contemplating these type of monitoring programs. Sigh.
At any rate, it is pointers like this that keep me checking back in with Winds of Change.
"The Mujahideen Services Center, whatever that was..."
FWIW, the precursor to Al Qaeda was an organization called the "Mujahedin Service Bureau" founded by bin Laden and Abdullah Azzam, which AFAIK gradually morphed into Al Qaeda after Azzam's assassination & the end of the Afghan war. Considering how close "bureau" and "center" are in meaning, it wouldn't surprise me if the Arabic word being used is the same, but was translated into English as slightly different words.
Edgardo, what do you make of claims that ETA and the Islamacists are beginning to work together, or at least to form ties with one another?
You know, it's interesting ... the Umayyids were booted out of Baghdad by the Abbasids, and Spain is where the former made their new base. The Abbasids came from the east, and so their movement had a kind of Shi'a flavor to it (the Abbasids also came holding black banners, a symbol used by one of the hostage-taking groups in Iraq).
It is generally said that the Umayyid period was an undistinguished time for the Caliphate -- you had the first four "rightly guided" caliphs, followed by the Umayyids, followed by the Abbasids, who represented Islam's golden age. In any case, it's interesting that the Umayyids seem to have built themselves a better reputation for what they did in Spain than for what they accomplished when they wielded far greater authority.
This ought to give a window into Islamist thinking regarding Spain:
So there you have it."When the Muslims followed the Qur’an and Sunnah, they made spectacular progress in all the fields of life."
We need to reply every lie. According to the facts of history, Islam basically "progressed" by means of warring, raping, robbing, and lying.
Everyone informed on the basic tenets (both explicit and implicit) in the Qur'an, or in the Hadith (alleged Mahoma sayings), and with enough courage to tell it like it is, will say something close to the following:
Be aware of that: Islam it's a death cult, probably worse than communism and nazism. Period.
"A different mindset is emerging, one in which young Islamacists are persuading themselves that they have such a claim on all the earth."
And this essentially means that TOTAL WAR may be inevitable. I think I'll go vomit now.