It's not easy to catch up with the story today.

A correction to my previous post (#13) in Part 2. The testimony published today comes from the Group chief, a subordinate of Sanchez-Manzano and unlike him, an expert in explosives.

He was coordinating the four groups, one for each train, and ordered to search for unexploded devices "twice, from head to end". No other bomb was found.

What seemed to be pretty clear from the beginning to this expert is that it was high explosive, such as C3 or C4, not dynamite, on how the metal was pierced.

These news are coming today so, I know the same that you do. I believe that he distinguishes the explosive by its detonation velocity. Googling a bit I've found this:

From globasecurity.org

Denser explosives usually give higher detonation velocities and pressures. A dense explosive may be desirable for difficult blasting conditions or where fine fragmentation is required. Low-density explosives will suffice in easily fragmented or closely jointed rocks and are preferred for quarrying coarse material.

The dynamite is an industrial explosive used in mines and construction. That might be the point, military explosives have higher detonation velocities, thus higher pressures, therefore cause different damage on metal.

ETA or Al Qaeda? None

Titadine or Goma-2 ECO? None

It is unbelievable how these guys have deceived us all.

Maybe, just maybe, dynamite mixed with metenamine has a similar effect. If it is not so, I'm afraid that all the Plot of the Explosives in Asturias and much of the Madrid investigation is just a smoke screen and Kalaji might be the only one that has some clues.

My Godness...

Sorry, the link about today's news is here, credits for opening our eyes to Libertad Digital, City FM radio and Luis del Pino.

Kalaji arrived to Spain in 1980 as a political refugee, fleeing from the Civil War in Syria. He had served in the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (FDLP) in Lebanon, and it appears that he reached the rank of second commander of a missile base there. He also took the anti-government side in Syria, during that country’s repression of the Muslim Brotherhood, resulting in Kalaji knocking on Spanish Immigration’s door in order to keep his head on his shoulders... might even have been trained in the Soviet Union.

Bingo

See Mitch P.'s comments here

That busted Hezbollah cell in 1989 is very interesting.

There are some distrubing parallels between 3/11 and the 7/7 bombings... especially the conclusions (or not) to those first bombs, with the secondary escapades. In both Spain and Britian there was but a tenous connection between the actors in the first event and the second. In both Spain and Britain there remains some controversy regarding the explosives used in the first attack, but the official story on the explosives was confirmed in the second attack.

In my opinion, the US gov't is covering up much about the 9-11 attack, the British gov't covering up about the 7-7 attack, and Spanish gov't covering up things on 3-11. But government coverup is not necessarily an indicator of involvement in the act itself.

It's more difficult to analyze the 3-11 attack because of the election complication. Keep in mind that there are many layers to this story. Some of this disinformation may be directly connected to the election, some not.

In my opinion, the US gov't is covering up much about the 9-11 attack, the British gov't covering up about the 7-7 attack

Facts, evidence, please.
The article about 3/11 is so long because it is a bit chaotic list of evidence and testimonies confirmed by, at least, two sources. It's up to you to get your own conclusions.

I've heard things about 9/11, but I've also seen some evidence (and here) published in a Spanish website against those rumours. If you argue for a cover up in 9/11 and 7/7, let us know the evidence on which your argument is based, please. Note that involving the 3/11 with theories not founded on facts, you are downgrading my work.

and Spanish gov't covering up things on 3-11. But government coverup is not necessarily an indicator of involvement in the act itself.

Coverup? Coverup is to hide evidence. Yesterday's information confirms again that the bomb #13 was fabricated evidence, which is not the same.

There are some distrubing parallels between 3/11 and the 7/7 bombings...

We might start listing them in the fact that in 7/7 there were suicide bombers, in 3/11 not; the explosive used in 7/7 was home made, in 3/11 was a military one, the 7/7 suspects had travelled to Pakistan; in 3/11 bombs exploded at 7:38 and far away from the Madrid business center, around 9:00 in London; in the 3/11 the attacks were carried out three days before a National Election, in London the terrorists waited until the G8 summit after the elections; in Madrid all the plots were infiltrated by police informers, from Zouhier to Cartagena, in London the cell was compact; in Madrid the TEDAX boss deceived the public opinion and the judge...
... I was going to agree with you with the fact that in both cases trains were targeted, but in London a bomb went off in a bus.

Facts, evidence, please.
The article about 3/11 is so long because it is a bit chaotic list of evidence and testimonies confirmed by, at least, two sources.

My post would have to be about three times as long, and that's if I cram three or more links into each sentance. I could do that, but not now because I should've been to sleep a few hours ago.

Note that involving the 3/11 with theories not founded on facts, you are downgrading my work.

Perhaps. But I think I can fit the 3/11 weirdness in with the same kind of weirdness I see in those two attacks.

Coverup is to hide evidence. Yesterday's information confirms again that the bomb #13 was fabricated evidence, which is not the same.

You're right. I was not precise in my language here. However, fabricated evidence necessarily stems from a cover up in an instance such as this.

We might start listing them in the fact that etc. etc.

No, you might start with investigating the examples I cited: the type of explosives and the tenuous links to the secondary attacks.

Read the link I made I Mitch Porter's comment. The ties between Iraq's Baathists and the Syrian Ikwan are serious and longstanding. You'll find Syrian Brothers in the middle of 9/11, 3/11 and 7/7. That's the main connection.

However, fabricated evidence necessarily stems from a cover up in an instance such as this.

Not in this case, Rory. The evidence had to be fabricated before the attacks. That's a very serious charge involving police officers. Moreover, that evidence was used to decieve the public opinion in a National Election, turning the result, which was the real objective of 3/11. That is, they worked together with the same aim. That's a charge on necessary collaboration in a crime involving the death of 192 people, not coverup. Very different things.

No, you might start with investigating the examples I cited: the type of explosives and the tenuous links to the secondary attacks.

The official version on the explosives regarding 3/11 hasn't been confirmed. Moreover, now, one year and a half later, we still don't know what was used and why the dynamite found differ in composition. The only thing I have heard that had some ground is the yesterday's testimony about the use of military, high velocity, explosive, according to the damage in the trains, damage that anyone, I say, anyone, can see as characteristic, as did a comentator of The Economist ("A round hole indeed" written under a picture of a train). And the links between the attacks were pretty clear, the SIM card found in the fake bomb came from the same batch that the ones that were using the members of El Chino group.

It has nothing to do with the 7/7 attacks!

Rory, by definition, what has happened in Spain cannot occur in the USA or UK because the Third Branch, the judiciary, is far more independent. The system simply does not admit such an abuse. Don't asume that the legal system works so well anywhere, that's a fallacy. So please, don't put at the same level all the facts because it comes close to manipulation.

You might think whatever you want about Kalaji but, taking into account his last 25 years in Spain, I can't believe he is an extremist, only that he had to know that the mobile phones were meant to be use in a terrorist attack.

Who ordered him to attach the wires? "I've been deceived" [join the club] said he in a short telephone interview with EL MUNDO journalist Carlos Rubio. Deceived by whom, Mr Kalaji?

Joe A #6 wrote:

The [unexploded 13th bomb] had to be fabricated before the [3/11] attacks [that killed 192]. That's a very serious charge [I'm making against the police and the intelligence services]. Moreover, that evidence was used to deceive public opinion in the National Election [a few days after 3/11], turning the result, which was the real objective of 3/11.

The assertion that the unexploded bomb was planted evidence seems to be central point of your look back at 3/11. The story unfolds from there.

Here are the general inquiries I come up with. Most are addressed in the course of the three posts; I'm trying to organize them in my own mind. Made harder by the unsurprising fact that most of the key links are to material written in Spanish.

• What is the physical evidence that bomb 13 is a plant?
• In terms of lead and support agencies and personnel, what was the Standard Operating Procedure for a murder/terror investigation of the scale of 3/11 that took place in the city and surrounding jurisdictions? How does this compare to how the actual investigation took place? Who instituted any deviations from SOP, and how credible are their explanations?
• Why was the second unexploded device destroyed? Is the reasoning credible to legal and forensics investigators?
• "Walking back the dog:" If the central assertion turns out to be true, does it necessarily follow that law-enforcement/intelligence agents and agencies had foreknowledge of the attacks?
• Who are the various people who had motive, means, and opportunity to participate in the plot and in the subsequent cover-up?
• Who are the reporters, judges, prosecutors, and witnesses who can be relied on for truthfulness--where can one start to get a sense of the truth?

I suspect many readers are like me, left with feeling of skepticism and unease, but flummoxed when it comes to putting together a coherent narrative of events.

What is the physical evidence that bomb 13 is a plant?

1) It was not found in the trains, but in Vallecas police station, among the bags transported from the trains.

2) Its description clearly does not match with the one provided by a local policeman found in El Pozo.

3) The wires from the mobile phone used as a timer and the detonator were not joined together, as it is proved by a X-ray. There was not even a piece of insulating tape on the ends.

4) The alarm of the mobile phone was set to activate it at 7:40 AM, the explosions went off at 7:38 within seconds one of another.

5) The device #13 was clean. Not a single DNA sample. The device that El Chino group tried to set under the tracks of the high speed train had a lot of DNA evidence.

6) It is not necessary to use a mobile phone with a SIM card as a timer. For instance, Siemens mobile phones work without it.

7) The SIM card that was in the mobile phone of the bomb #13 was sold in Zougam's store and came from the same batch of SIM cards that were using he and El Chino group to talk. They acted as a beacon atracting the security corps.

In terms of lead and support agencies and personnel, what was the Standard Operating Procedure for a murder/terror investigation of the scale of 3/11 that took place in the city and surrounding jurisdictions? How does this compare to how the actual investigation took place? Who instituted any deviations from SOP, and how credible are their explanations?

The leads in the bomb #13 were, it seems, so obvious, that the same TEDAX deactivation group supplied them to the security forces: the number of the SIM card and, undisclosely by Sanchez-Manzano, that the dynamite came from Asturias.

The central unit of information of the Civil Guard took over the investigation the next week, preventing Sanchez-Manzano from going to Asturias. Those Civil Guards are the ones that found the telephone of his TEDAX unit in Carmen Toro's phone book next to the name of "Manzano", according to what we know now.

Why was the second unexploded device destroyed? Is the reasoning credible to legal and forensics investigators?

According to my latest information (yesterday's), it is. The provincial TEDAX chief clearly identified the explosive used as military, high detonation velocity, taking into account the damage in the trains. However, when the unexploded devices where found, one in Atocha and the one the local policeman saw in EL Pozo, a protocol to deactivate high explosive was enacted, but it failed and the bombs went off.

The latest information I have (yesterday's), suggest that both judgements were correct: the damage was provoked by high explosive but the bags found contained another. Judge Del Olmo wanted to carry out controlled explosions on a similiar train to solve the matter, but Sanchez-Manzano opposed.

"Walking back the dog:" If the central assertion turns out to be true, does it necessarily follow that law-enforcement/intelligence agents and agencies had foreknowledge of the attacks?

I had foreknowledge of the attacks. It was a well known rumour. The government leaders, obviously, knew too that something was going to happen. What did each security corps high rank officer exactly know before the attacks? I have no idea.

Who are the various people who had motive, means, and opportunity to participate in the plot and in the subsequent cover-up?

Read the last paragraph of Part 3 and blame Aznar for the right thing.

Who are the reporters, judges, prosecutors, and witnesses who can be relied on for truthfulness--where can one start to get a sense of the truth?

This is by far the most difficult question, AMac. Reporters? The ones in the COPE, Catholic Church radio, one of them a Evangelist formed in America. Thou shalt not lie, I think they take it seriously. Judges? Not Garzon, evidently. Prosecutors?? None. There are no elected prosecutors here. No Jim Garrison. They are all directed by the government. No independence in the judiciary. Witnesses?? A few. Never trust a visual witness, trust only evidence. Evidence does not lie.

Joe A, thanks for the detailed response.

I am preparing a lengthy, well-sourced reply, which may take me until Monday to finish. I will compare the 3-11 and 7-7 bombings, and offer my commentary on what happened, and why.

First, though, I would like to I am on the same page about the bombs. In the 3-11 attacks, we are talking about a total of 13 bombs. There was another bombing attempt on 3 April, which led the police straight back to the Leganes flat.

Bombs 1,2,3 exploded 7:39 on train 17305 500 meters short of Atocha Station.

Bombs 4,5,6,7 explode in the same minute on train 21431 inside Atocha Station

Bombs 8,9 explode 7:41 on train 21435 inside El Pozo Tio Raimundo Station

Bomb 10 explodes 7:42 on train 21713 inside Santa Eugenia Station

Bombs 11,12 do not explode. These bombs were on train 17305. They were destroyed in place. A local police officer described one of these bombs to the media.

He found in a black rucksack a mobile phone wired to a round Tupper-ware container. The detonator’s wires were black and blue. This does not match any of such devices made in Spain. The container was either orange or contained what it seemed to be an orange substance. By the way, that is Titadine’s color.

Bomb 13 was allegedly found at El Pozo station, and later brought to Vallecas police station. The explosives in this bomb were in a plastic bag, not in a tupperware container. It was not wired correctly. It could never have detonated. The explosives in bomb 13 were Goma-2 ECO.

Then there is the van. The van contained cell phones, detonators, and the Koran tape. This passage passage from Part 2 confuses me:

bq.Finally, more than one year after the attacks, Sanchez-Manzano has acknowledged that the explosive found in the bomb #13 contains no Metenamine, thus being different from the one located in a van near the Alcala de Henares station, where the bombs were loaded in the trains. In this van, whose theft is even stranger, was found a tape on Koranic teachings for beginners, triggering during the Islamist lead on the evening of March 11th.

Was there a bomb found in the van, too? Or was the metenamine in one of the detonators?

AMac (#9)

Joe A, thanks for the detailed response.

No, no, no, AMac. I must thank you because you made me think about the differences in the bomb #13. Now I got a theory (just a theory) that fits the evidence. Thank you very much.

I'm afraid the device #13 had two sisters and when they accidentally failed to sink Aznar government, this Improvised Fabricated Evidence was rapidly assembled.

Rory (#10)

Casimiro García-Abadillo, in his book, says:

"Just a minute before the trains of Atocha and Tellez exploded, at 7:38 went off two devices in the commuter train 21435 when it was starting to move from Del Pozo station"

Luis del Pino summary insists in that point: 7:38 for the Vallecas.

The last explosion was at 7:39 in the train waiting to enter in Atocha.

Rory, the terrorist had to set the devices within seconds, otherwise some of the trains could have been evacuated.

From where comes your data and why are you so interested in 3/11?

AMac,

I've found a piece in English about the mass media in Spain. It is about the comments of a former COPE journalist, who later left the radio channel, worked in TV and finally joined the Popular Party as European MP:

Polanco makes Berlusconi look like a beggar

It might help you to put into context the role of the mass media after the attacks: Polanco himself owns half the Spanish radio market, Direct TV satellite television, and he has even got a taylored Polanco law approved by the Socialist on TV media.

A payment for his services?

From where comes your data and

From this wikipedia entry. Not the best of sources, I know, but I thought they had the basics down.

why are you so interested in 3/11?

Because of this and this

The same people were involved in the 9-11, 3-11, and 7-7 attacks. Find the answers to one, and we might find the answers to all.

OK Rory, I see

Thank you for sharing your point of view with us. It's been useful.

Some remarks:

Don't belive in everything it is said about Al Qaeda, especially in Spain. For instance, the trial of many of the alleged members here is failing on lack of reliable evidence, which is not strange taking into account who was the instructing judge.

The unexploded devices were found in the train at Atocha and the one in El Pozo station. The roof of Atocha station is high enough to be affected unless the entire building is demolished.

The metenamine was where has to be in order to be found next a Koranic tape and bring down Aznar government. Luckily, the terrorists knew a lot about explosives but not the protocols to deactivate them and their first fabricated evidence went off. The second contained no metenamine.

One quick point -

The fact that terrorism trials are collapsing due to lack of evidence in Europe isn't terribly surprising, but I don't think it necessarily discredits the authorities initial claims. If you look at the number of people who have been arrested, tried, and loudly exonerated only to be rearrested later and convicted later, I think you'll start to see my point.

The reason for lack of evidence in many cases is due to jurisdictional and/or legal barriers to sharing information, not the flimsiness of the accusations themselves.

Interestingly enough, in my experience it is Spanish intelligence who are apt to downplay the connection between al-Qaeda and 3/11, possibly for political reasons in my opinion. The law enforcement and the judiciary is far less reluctant in this regard, which may have something to do with the fact that one of bin Laden's acolytes tried to kill all of them.

ho ho ho, you really love Garzon. Please keep him at that side of the pond!

Lack of reliable evidence, Dan. An instructing judge should know what evidence is really useful to indict someone and what won't stand on trial, that is his job.

And in the plot whose aim was to attack with a truck loaded with 500 kg of dynamite the National High Court (a suicide attack at last, with up to four bombers, three more than necessary, would it be this time really Al Qaeda?) is involved Abdelkrim Benesmail, the GIA chat partner of Socialist high rank officer Fernando Huarte, alleged intelligence services member. Did he downplay anything about 3/11?