The 3/11 Madrid Bombings: 6 Years Later

This post will remain at top all day, in honor of the 191 people killed on March 11, 2004, exactly 6 years ago today. M-11 is controversial in Spain. Initial investigations ruled out a direct link to al Qaeda (see the references to the Wikipedia page), but the Wilson Center had an update last year, "The 3/11 Madrid Bombings: An Assessment After 5 Years":

The conventional wisdom that soon emerged about the 3/11 attacks was that it was a prototypical example of a local terrorist cell at work: self-recruited, leaderless jihad—a "bunch of guys," as one analyst has put it.

"The media has astonishingly contributed to this [perception of] al-Qaeda as an amorphous phenomenon," Reinares said [Fernando Reinares, of the Program on Global Terrorism in Madrid's Elcano Royal Institute].

Reinares's analysis challenges this conventional wisdom. For evidence, he draws on the judicial review conducted by the Spanish authorities, as well as the trials of terrorist defendants prosecuted in Madrid and Italy. Most of those involved in the 3/11 attacks were from Morocco; they were first-generation immigrants, not homegrown terrorists (as they were in Britain).

Two terrorists who played a key role in the bombings had been members of the al-Qaeda cell established in Spain in the 1990s. This cell had extensive international contacts, including with the Hamburg cell headed by Mohammed Atta (who visited Spain during the preparations for the 9/11 attacks in America). These members of al-Qaeda in Spain were not self-radicalized and self-recruited, Reinares said.

The leader of the Spanish al-Qaeda cell attended a key meeting of North African jihadist groups in Istanbul in February 2002. That meeting, which occurred in the aftermath of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan to topple the Taliban regime and deny al-Qaeda a safe haven, led to a strategic decision by these groups operating in the Maghreb and Spain to launch renewed attacks. Members of those cells had received terrorist training, including instruction in using cell phones to trigger simultaneous explosions, in Afghanistan during the Taliban era.

The Moroccan members of the al-Qaeda cell in Spain had been "radicalized from above," using popular opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq (which the Spanish government at the time had supported) as one recruitment tool.

At the video is Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West. (The homepage is here.) One hour long, the film is must see. If you're short for time, scroll ahead to 17:25 minutes, where radical clerics, in multiple speeches, shout "Allahu Akbar" -- "God is Great" -- while chanting "Death to America." Also, check at about 31:30 minutes, where we find out that the terrorist are not far from home, plotting murders of American citizens thousands of miles away. "They are here." Right here among us. It's absolutely chilling.

I wish all of my readers a safe and happy day, but please never forget our friends in Spain and around the world. We never forget.

And for a memorial of all those lost in Madrid 6 years ago, see José M. Guardia, " IN MEMORIAM, 6 YEARS AFTER."

Readers are invited to comment. I'd love to hear from you, especially those newer readers I've not spoken with.