Regnum Crucis Blog - Zarqawi was the pivot man for 3/11
No surprise here, though he may be a little saddened to learn that half of the people involved in planning the 3/11 attacks have been arrested in a matter of less than a month. I for one certainly hope so ...
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Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian linked to al-Qaida and suspected of heading a terrorist network in Iraq (news - web sites), is now believed to have been the brains behind the deadly Madrid railway attacks, a French private investigator told The Associated Press on Friday.
Perhaps he is linked to al-Qaeda precisely because he's leading the terrorist network in Iraq, but it is best not to quibble with such matters with regard to the AP.
Investigator Jean-Charles Brisard said Spanish officials told him some suspects held in the March 11 attacks were in contact with al-Zarqawi as recently as a month or two before the bombings, which killed 190 people and wounded more than 1,800.
Really? Be interesting to learn how he was communicating and whether it was from Iraq or Iran, though they'll likely figure that much out as they continue to interrogate the cannon fodder.
"They believe today he was the mastermind," Brisard, who is probing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, said in a telephone interview from Geneva, Switzerland.
Forgive my ignorance, but why is he in Geneva if he's a French investigator looking into a Spanish terrorist attack?
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The Spanish Interior Ministry declined to comment on his assertions. "The investigation is at a critical stage," a ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
It's critical because it seems that at least half the Tangiers cell that carried out that atrocity is still in the process of taking to the wind. They busted one member in Belgium and another one is in the UK, which implies at the very least these guys are looking to leave the Continent. The authorities aren't going to go public with anything until all of the immediate perpetrators are either accounted for, dead, or incarcerated, at which point they can start working their way up the food chain.
Late Friday, a Spanish radio station reported that police believe they have located the house where the bombs were built. Investigators found detonators and traces of dynamite inside the house near Alcala de Henares, 20 miles northeast of Madrid, radio network Cadena SER reported.
It said the attackers were believed to have used the building to prepare the explosives and stuff them into knapsacks. The investigators found the house a week ago, according to the report.
I'm not at all familiar with area, but it'd be interesting to learn whether or not it was in an immigrant section of town, as that could point to whether or not the Tangiers mob had ties within the local Muslim community and/or were using them as a shield to blend in and stay away from the cops.
staging ground for the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
German police raided an apartment in Darmstadt where a Moroccan suspect arrested Wednesday in the Madrid train bombings stayed briefly last year. The 28-year-old man is suspected of membership in a foreign terrorist organization, a prosecutor said.
My guess is that the Moroccan is either Salafi Jihad, al-Tawhid, al-Qaeda, or some combination of the three. He's probably one of those folks the German government erroneously labeled as "non-aligned" mujahideen who changes their affiliation depending on who Zarqawi wants him to work with.
But German officials said they had no evidence that the Madrid attacks were planned or prepared in Germany.
I concur. The on-scene controller, Zougam, was in Madrid and came there after Casablanca. The Tangiers mob would also have probably found it easier even among fellow Arabs in Spain than in Germany.
Spanish investigators believe six or seven of the 18 people now in custody in Spain helped plan the Madrid attacks and that al-Zarqawi was behind the plot, Brisard said.
In just two weeks, Spanish police say they have put together most of the pieces of the puzzle behind the bombings, according to Brisard, who is not a part of the investigation. "The picture is almost complete now," Brisard said.
"They are basically telling me that several of these people are talking a lot," Brisard said, referring to suspects he did not name.
The cannon fodder selling out the higher-ups in hopes of a plea bargain would seem to be the standard formula in these cases. Zougam's toast regardless, which is why he's claiming to be innocent of this whole mess despite the fact that all the evidence says otherwise.
Zarqawi being behind the plot is a no-brainer as well. In addition to being al-Qaeda's point man in Europe, he also helped to set the Salafi Jihad up to begin with:
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A French newspaper reported Monday that Jordanian terror suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi personally asked Osama bin Laden to help finance a Moroccan group suspected in the Madrid bombings and the attacks last May in Casablanca, Morocco that killed 45 people including 12 terrorists.
Bin Laden was at first reluctant but eventually gave al-Zarqawi $70,000, Le Figaro said, quoting a senior Moroccan official. This was the genesis of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, which may have had a supervisory role over the attacks in Casablanca and Madrid, Le Figaro said.
The Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group is, of course, another name for Salafi Jihad. Maybe, just maybe, Spikey and Hosenball might want to retract that story about Zarqawi not being part of al-Qaeda. Nah ...
The French investigator said the Garzon dossier showed that from 1996 to 2001, the Spanish al-Qaida cell's alleged financier, Muhammed Galeb Kalaje Zouaydi, wired $100,000 to an operative in Denmark named Abu Khalet, who produced some 30 fake passports for al-Zarqawi and people close to him.
The passports were completed in late 2002 but it is not clear if al-Zarqawi received them, Brisard said.
There's yet another link between Zarqawi and al-Qaeda, incidentally ...
In any case, the passports were designed to help Zarqawi and Co get to where they needed to go from Iran. Zarqawi, for reasons that they involve his ties to the Iraqi Mukhabarat, didn't want to stick around in Iran after they deported his nephew. I wonder what Abu Khalet (a definite nom de guerre) is doing these days?
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posted by Dan Darling @ 12:54 AM |
