Fernando Reinares- The Madrid Bombings and Global Jihadism

8/3/2019 Fernando Reinares- The Madrid Bombings and Global Jihadism

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The Madrid Bombings and Global Jihadism

By Fernando Reinares*

First published in:

Survival | vol. 52 no. 2 | AprilMay 2010 | pp. 83104 DOI 10.1080/00396331003764629

Since the attacks of 11 September 2001 on New York and Washington DC there has been an

ongoing controversy about whether the real threat of global terrorism is posed by al-Qaeda, its

territorial extensions and affiliated organisations, or by decentralised groups inspired by, but

unconnected to, such entities. The 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings are often held up as

the archetype of an independent local cell at work, and the perpetrators depicted as self-

recruited, leaderless terrorists. Six years after the blasts, however, new evidence connectingsome of the most notorious members of the Madrid bombing network with al- Qaedas seniorleadership, along with features of the terrorist network itself and distinctive elements of the

likely strategy behind the blasts, suggest that these assumptions are misleading. Judicialdocumentation now fully accessible at Spains National Court and other relevant primary or

secondary sources can help us better understand what the attacks can tell us about al-Qaeda

and a global terrorism in transition, as well as about the changing nature of the threat to opensocieties.

911 days after

Two-and-a-half years, or exactly 911 days, after 9/11, another spectacular act of mass-

casualty terrorism took place on the other side of the Atlantic, and against a much softer

target: commuter trains on the railway line connecting the historical town of Alcal de

Henares with Madrids downtown Atocha station. Thirteen bombs, each containing no lessthan 10 kilograms of dynamite and about 650 grams of ironmongery, were placed inside

plastic bags and backpacks in 12 different carriages on four trains filled to rush-hour capacity.

Some of the 10 to perhaps 13 terrorists who placed the bombs arrived in two vehicles. One, a

van, was found by the national police on the morning of the attacks and the other, a car, was

discovered three months later. In the former, detonators and traces of explosives were found

next to audio cassettes with recordings of Koranic recitations, while in the latter there was asuitcase with more tapes exalting a bellicose notion of jihad. Ten of the bombs exploded

almost simultaneously, between 7:37 and 7:41am. They were detonated by means of cellular

phones synchronised in the alarm function (the same brand and model of cellular phone hadbeen used in a similar way in the November 2002 bombings in Bali). Another two devices

placed in the rail carriages, as well as an additional bomb left on a flag-stop platform, failed toexplode. Disposal experts successfully defused ne of these bombs in the early hours of 12

March, providing crucial evidence to further the police investigation of the attacks.

As a result of the blasts in the commuter trains, however, 191 people were killed and 1,841injured. Though the attacks caused immediate material damages of17.62 million, theminimum direct economic cost has been estimated at more than211.58m. The Madrid train

bombings were thus not only the most devastating act of insurgent terrorism in modern Spain,

but in Western Europe. In lethality, moreover, they were second only to the mid-air bombing

of Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988 that killed the259 passengers and crew on board and 11 people on the ground. But the Madrid bombings


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were not the only attacks intended by their perpetrators. On 2 April, making use of similar

explosive substances and detonators, individuals belonging to the same terrorist cell prepared

to derail a Seville-bound high-speed train in transit through the province of Toledo. The

subsequent police investigation found that they had accumulated information on new targets

in and around Madrid, such as a Jewish recreational facility for children and young people, aJewish school, British educational centres and national public institutions. The terrorists had

stored weapons and explosives in abundance. They had formally rented their rural operationalbase in the municipality of Chinchn, in use by cell members since October 2002, on 28

January 2004. On 4 March, they had rented a safe house close to the city of Granada, in

southern Spain, and from 8 March a hideout in the metropolitan dormitory city of Legans,

near Madrid. They also retained a financial reserve of almost1.5m. By comparison, the

overall cost of the 11 March train attacks was estimated by the authorities at no less than

105,000, although not all possible expenses are included in this calculation. The Madrid

bombing network was mainly financed through trafficking in illicit drugs, which were also

traded for industrial explosives stolen from a mine in Asturias, in northern Spain, by a

criminal band of native Spaniards.

Further terrorist plans were disrupted not so much by the initial arrests on 13 March, but on 3

April, when experts from the then rather small national police intelligence unit devoted tointernational terrorism discovered the cells hideout in Legans. Of the eight terrorists present,one managed to escape on foot, while the remaining seven, all cornered in the same flat, first

fired shots and shouted Islamic slogans, then blew themselves up minutes after 9:00pm. A

special-operations agent was killed and several others injured by the explosion, and acomplete apartment complex (evacuated by the security forces) was destroyed. This may well

have been the first suicide explosion in Western Europe related to the current web of global

terrorism. Even if this was a reactive incident prompted by the terrorists perception of an

ongoing police operation against them, among those who perpetrated the commuter-trainblasts were individuals willing to become suicide bombers at any time, as suggested by the

farewell letters left behind, at least one of which had been written prior to the Madrid attacks.

The bombings of 11 March 2004 had other serious domestic consequences, both political and

social. They occurred three days before the Spanish general elections on Sunday 14 March.

Prime Minister Jos Mara Aznars incumbent liberal-conservative Partido Popular (Popular

Party, PP) had every reason to believe it would retain its majority in Spains bicameralparliament and control over the central government. Reliable surveys conducted in the weeks

before polling day, however, registered a gradually narrowing gap and indicated that the PPssupport was statistically very close to that of the moderate left-wing Partido Socialista Obrero

Espaol (Spanish Socialist Workers Party, PSOE). Regardless of other considerations

(including the governments counterproductive insistence that the Basque terrorist group ETAwas behind the attacks, when emerging evidence clearly pointed towards jihadist terrorism)there is little doubt that the mobilisation of a significant additional segment of the electorate

spurred by the terrorist massacre and its contentious aftermath secured the Socialists victory.

After the election, Spanish society became deeply divided over who was to blame for the train

blasts.

Yet, on the same day of the bombings, at around 7:30pm local time in London and 8:30pm in

Madrid, Al Quds al Arabi, a well-known Arabiclanguage daily published in the British capitalreceived an e-mail claiming responsibility for the attacks. Earlier that evening the editor had

been told over the phone by someone in a country in the Gulf to expect this special e-mail.

Like other messages sent by Osama bin Ladens organisation to the newspaper since the late


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1990s, it was seen as a genuine al-Qaeda communiqu, and immediately made public. It was

signed by the Abu Hafs al Masri Brigade/al-Qaeda. This same designation, referring to

Mohamed Atef, a former head of al-Qaedas military committee who was killed in 2001 in

Afghanistan, had been used before to claim responsibility for attacks such as those of

November 2003 in Nasiriya and Istanbul. Moreover, two days later, on 13 March, at around7:30pm, an individual, speaking in Spanish but with a noticeable Arab accent, called the

regional broadcasting corporation Telemadrid to let its executives know of a video cassetteleft inside a litter bin near the so-called M-30 mosque, Madrids largest Islamic place of

worship and community centre. On the tape, recorded minutes after 5:00pm that same day by

the train bombers themselves, a hooded terrorist, dressed in white and holding a Sterling

assault rifle, read a statement claiming responsibility for the train attacks on behalf of Abu

Dujan al Afghani, presented as the spokesman of the military wing of Ansar al-Qaeda in

Europe.

Outside Spain, the issue is certainly not whether the Madrid bombings were an expression of

jihadist terrorism or the indiscriminate manifestation of Basque ethno-nationalist terrorism.There is an overwhelming consensus broadly attributing the commuter-train blasts to

individuals associated with a radical Islamist orientation. The issue is rather the characteristics

of those individuals and whether they are to be conceived as part of an amorphous andleaderless phenomenon or as part of a polymorphous and still more-often-than-not centrallyled web of global terrorism. Were the Madrid bombings a case of home-grown, al-Qaeda-

inspired terrorism or did those who prepared and executed the blasts have international

connections with al-Qaeda or any of its affiliated organisations? Analysis of the Madridbombing network, new evidence available about its ties with al- Qaedas command structuresin North Waziristan, and an assessment of the strategy behind the commuter-trains blast

support the second of these propositions.

Analysing the network

The network behind the 2004 Madrid train bombings came together between September 2002

and November 2003. First the desire and then the decision to perpetrate a terrorist attack in

Spain led to the coalescing of four relatively small clusters of people. Two of these clusters

were particularly interconnected, as they evolved from the remnants of an important al-Qaedacell established in Spain around the middle of the 1990s. This jihadist cell was substantially,

but not completely, dismantled during the months following 11 September 2001, when it was

led by the Syrian-born Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, better known as Abu Dahdah. A thirdcluster was linked to the structure established that same decade by the Moroccan Islamist

Combatant Group (MICG) across Western Europe, particularly in France and Belgium. Thefourth cluster initially consisted of a gang of delinquents active throughout Spain who

specialised in the trafficking of illicit drugs and stolen vehicles.

Although the number of people directly or indirectly connected to the network may be larger,

there are 27 individuals about whom there is both empirical evidence and legal grounds toimplicate them in the preparation or execution of the 11 March attacks. These individuals

comprise the 16 already tried and convicted (13 in Spain, two in Morocco and one in Italy) in

relation to the blasts on the commuter trains; the seven who committed suicide on 3 April

2004; and four known fugitives, one of whom was handedbover to the Moroccan authorities

after being arrested in Syria in 2007 and finally convicted in Rabat in January 2009 for


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involvement in the Madrid bombings. Not unexpectedly, all were men, born between 1960

and 1983. More than half were aged between 23 and 33 at the time of the train bombings.

Most were native Moroccans, except for three Algerians, an Egyptian, a Tunisian and a

Lebanese national. All but three were living in Spain, most of them in or around Madrid,

when the attacks took place. Two, however, lived in Brussels and one in Milan. Typically,although not exclusively, they were economic migrants, some residing legally and others

illegally. Many were single, although a significant number were married and a few even hadchildren. Although their sociological profiles were quite diverse, they tended to show low

levels of both formal education and occupational status. But those mobilised in the Madrid

bombing network (which can hardly be considered a case of homegrown terrorism) did not all

adopt jihadist ideology, become radicalised and be recruited in the same place, at the same

time or through the same processes.

Three of the 27 individuals implicated in the Madrid bombings were involved in the earlier al-

Qaeda cell in Spain: Sarhane ben Abdelmajid Fakhet (better known as The Tunisian because

of his country of origin) and Jamal Zougam, both of whom played key roles in the attacks,and Said Berraj, also a prominent member of the network. The owner of the property in

Chinchn rented by the terrorists as their base of operations was Mohamed Needel Acaid, a

Syrian detained in November 2001 for his involvement in that same al-Qaeda cell and

convicted in 2005. Allekema Lamari, one of the Legans suicides, had indirect ties with thesame cell. Initially arrested in Valencia in 1997 for membership in the Armed Islamic Group

of Algeria (GIA) and later convicted, he was released from prison due to a judicial error in

2002. His GIA cell was led by Salaheddin Benyaich, also known as Abu Mugen, who wasclose to Abu Dahdah in those years. A classified report from the Centro Nacional de

Inteligencia (CNI, the Spanish National Intelligence Centre) dated 6 November 2003

mentioned Lamaris suspicious behaviour and mentioned reliable informants who considered

he was likely to organise and execute an imminent act of terrorism in the country. A furtherclassified CNI note, dated 15 March 2004, commented that after his release from the

penitentiary he had sworn that Spain would pay very dearly for his arrest and that he even

declared that he would commit acts involving arson or derailment. The note also stressed that

he knew well Valencia, Tudela, Madrid and Alcal de Henares. Hassan el Haski andYoussef Belhadj, two prominent members of the MICG based in Belgium, were also among

the 27 individuals involved in the Madrid bombing network. The former was very close to

Abdelkader Hakimi, head of the MICG in Europe, well aware of the terrorist plans in Spain

and an acquaintance of Jamal Zougam. Youssef Belhadj was also, according to the declarationof his nephew during the judicial investigation of the train attacks, a member of al-Qaeda. He

frequently travelled to Madrid to meet his associates who had joined the local jihadist cell. On

3 March 2004 at 8:35pm, just eight days before the attacks, he flew back to Brussels fromMadrid, where he had been for the previous month. Indeed, when the Belgian police arrested

Belhadj they found two cellular phones in his Brussels bedroom. The one he regularly usedoperated with a pre-paid card acquired on 19 October 2003, the day after Osama bin Laden

threatened Spain in a message aired on the Qatari-based television channel al-Jazeera,

although it had been obtained with a false identity, with a fake 11 March 1921 date of birth.

The second phone found in Belhadjs bedroom, commonly used by his brother Mimoun, used

another pre-paid card purchased shortly after the first and again obtained using a false

identity, this time with 16 May as the fictitious date of birth. It may not have been coincidence

that 16 May and 11 March were the dates of the 2003 Casablanca attackswhen a Spanish

restaurant was targetedand the planned date for the Madrid bombings, respectively.

Similarly, 1921 may have been chosen as a reference to Sura 21 of the Koran, which alludes


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to the time when unbelievers will not be able to ward off the fire from their faces, nor yet

from their backs, and no help can reach them!.

Another individual involved in the Madrid bombing network was Rabei Osman el Sayed

Ahmed (known as Mohamed the Egyptian), a former member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad(merged with al-Qaeda in 2001). He spent at least five years in the Egyptian army and servedin a brigade based in Port Said specialising in explosives. Confidential sources indicated to

the Spanish authorities that Rabei Osman had been interned in the maximumsecurity

penitentiary of Abu Zaa Abal, where those suspected or convicted of terrorist activities were

usually imprisoned. He was an active al-Qaeda recruiter in Western Europe of people likely to

become suicide terrorists. The Italian security forces secretly taped and filmed him doing just

that in the flat where he lived in Milan before he was arrested in June 2004 because of his

close links with some of the commuter-train bombers detained in Spain. Rabe Osman lived inSpain from 2002 to February 2003, during which, together with Fakhet, he was active in

radicalising youngsters in and around mosques. As one of the Italian films clearly shows, in

the course of indoctrinating a potential new recruit he claimed involvement in the Madridbombings. Indeed, he opened and activated an e-mail account in a Yahoo server, inserting

fictitious personal data, including 11 March 1970 as date of birth. Rabei Osman also knew in

advance about the 11 March date. On 4 February 2004, following his return to Italy from alast trip to Spain before the attacks, In addition to the individuals already mentioned, and theirassociates, the Madrid bombing network also included several former delinquents, individuals

who had been part of a gang regularly engaged in trafficking drugs and stolen cars before

joining the jihadist network in summer 2003. Their boss Jamal Ahmidan (also known as The

Chinese), however, was not a newcomer to jihadist circles. He had become radicalised by1996, following four years of internment under a false identity in the Spanish penitentiary of

Valdemoro, near Madrid, convicted of drug offences. His attitudes became even more

extreme during a further period of imprisonment in Morocco between 2000 and June 2003.Prior to this, in 1999, Ahmidan met with Abu Dahdah, then leader of Spains al-Qaeda cell, in

the Netherlands and expressed the desire to go and fight in Chechnya. Loyalty towards The

Chinese, as the bands lynchpin, seems to have been the key factor in the involvement in the

commuter-train plot of this group of petty criminals.

An al-Qaeda connection

The clue that connects the Madrid bombing network to the al-Qaeda hierarchy appeared more

than four years ago, although it was only confirmed over the last two months of 2009. It cameto light in a remote mountainous location in northwestern Pakistan, not far from the Afghan

border. In the early hours of 1 December 2005, a Hellfire missile hit a compound in thevillage of Haisori, close to Miran Shah, the administrative capital of Northern Waziristan, one

of the seven agencies which form the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The core

of al-Qaedas leadership, most of its commanders as well as many of its members and those of

affiliated groups, relocated in FATA and the adjacent North West Frontier Province between

late 2001 and the beginning of 2002. Al-Qaeda also relocated a large number of its active

militants and most of its training infrastructure to North Waziristan between the middle of2004 and the beginning of 2005, and has benefited from the protection afforded by

Talibanised sectors of the indigenous Pashtun communities. The Hellfire, launched by one of

the unmanned Predator drones used by the US Central Intelligence Agency to target al-Qaeda

leaders and commanders detected along the frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan, killed

five people. Among them was Egyptian Hamza Rabia, then head of al-Qaedas external


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operations command and the man responsible for the organisations plots in North Americaand Western Europe. At the time of his death, Rabia was regarded as one of the top five

(possibly top three) people at al-Qaedas core. Early in 2002, Osama bin Laden had split al-

Qaedas operational structure into two commands. The internal operations command was

assigned to Mustafa al Uzayti (also known as Abu Faraj al Libi), focusing on Afghanistan andPakistan. Leadership of the external operations command was initially assigned to Khalid

Sheik Mohamed, who masterminded the 11 September attacks in the United States. WhenKhalid Sheik Mohamed was arrested in Rawalpindi on March 2003, al Libi likewise became

engaged in external operations, although command was assumed by Rabia.

One of the four men who died with Rabia was identified by US intelligence, some weeks

later, as Amer Azizi. A Moroccan, Azizi gained prominence as a member of the al-Qaeda cell

established in Spain during the 1990s. Abu Dahdah, the leader of that cell after 1995,recruited Azizi and sent him to a training camp in Afghanistan perhaps as early as 2000, but

certainly before mid-2001. Azizi was formally prosecuted in absentia by Spains National

Court for terrorist offences attributed to that cell after he managed to escape from Spainfollowing the police operation which substantially dismantled the cell in November 2001.

While active in Spains al-Qaeda cell, Azizi forged close ties to individuals who later became

key members of the Madrid bombing network. These included the network initiator, MustafaMaymouni, now imprisoned in Morocco for the Casablanca attacks, as well as TheTunisian, Zougam and Berraj.

In the past there has been speculation that Azizi was the instigator of the attacks. But it was

only in December 2008, when a Crown Court in Manchester convicted two British citizens of

Pakistani extraction (under surveillance since 2005 and arrested in 2006), of being an

important member of al-Qaeda and his acolyte, that indications that a terrorist with Azizis

background was a key associate of Rabia emerged. This individual, called Ilyas, wasmistakenly believed to be Mamoun Darkazanli. A British expert commented during the

Manchester trial that Darkazanli was wanted in Spain for the Madrid bombings, which wasnot the case. Darkazanli, moreover, continues to live in Hamburg, Germany. Ilyas, however,

is also one of the aliases used by Azizi. When Rabia was killed, his likely right-hand man

Azizi died alongside him. According to senior American officials, information on the death of

Azizi, as Rabias adjutant, was forwarded to the Spanish authorities informally in September2006 and through a printed report in September 2007. Azizi is repeatedly mentioned in no lessthan 141 of the 241 volumes on the Madrid bombings compiled by the National Court in

Spain. His name is also referred to in eight of the 30 supplementary volumes completing the

vast judicial documentation on the case. Taken together, these documents, the result of

specialised law-enforcement investigations and international police exchanges, reveal on theone hand the close ties between Azizi and the individuals who played pivotal roles in the

formation and subsequent development of the local terrorist cell that prepared and placed the

11 March bombs, and on the other hand his links with individuals and groups from North

Africa involved in the web of global terrorism. It was through these links that he ended up in

positions of importance within al-Qaedas senior leadership. In fact, before becoming a key

associate of Rabia, Azizi operated alongside Abd al Hadi al Iraqi and was already linked to

Said al Masri and Khalid Habib, all senior al-Qaeda leaders. Back from his trip to Afghanistan

in early summer 2001, Azizi coopted Maymouni, also a Moroccan, who became his closestcollaborator. In 2002 Maymouni, at the instigation of Abdulatif Mourafik (also known as

Malek el-Andalusi), a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) who allegedly

became an associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (later head of al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia),


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initiated the network that perpetrated the Madrid bombings, and first rented the Chinchn

base of operations in October of that year. Maymouni was investigated by the Spanish police

in 2003 following the Casablanca attacks. After he was detained and imprisoned in Morocco

in May 2003, other members of the local cell rented the property again in January 2004.

Another Moroccan, Driss Chebli, and The Tunisian came to lead the network whenMaymouni was arrested. Chebli himself was incarcerated in Spain four months later, after

being implicated in the Abu Dahdah cell case, and The Tunisian became the local ringleaderof the terrorist network. As the criminal proceedings on the Madrid bombings have shown,

The Tunisian was also radicalised and recruited by Azizi. Azizi and The Tunisian had

frequent contacts and communicated by e-mail in 2002 and 2003. A 2005 report from

Spains central police intelligence unit stated that it is true that Amer Azizi was a friend of

Sarhane ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, and it is possible that he provided advice through the

Internet and even interceded in favour of the terrorist project being prepared in Madrid. The

court records show close links between Azizi and other perpetrators of the train bombings

such as Zougam and the still-fugitive Berraj.

Following a formal request from the French authorities concerning Zougam, already

suspected of jihadist terrorism activities in 2000, the Spanish police searched his home in

Madrid in June 2001 and found written contact details for Azizi. Berraj was with Azizi inTurkey in 2000, possibly on their way to Afghanistan, when both took part in a meeting withother known jihadists such as Salahedin Benyaich and former Guatnamo inmate Lahcen

Ikasrien, all of whom were arrested by the Turkish authorities. Azizis ties to al-Qaedas

affiliated North African organisations were consolidated during his stay in Afghanistan. TheMartyr Abu Yahyia camp where he trained, around 30km north of Kabul, was run by the

LIFG. Members of the MICG were indoctrinated and trained there as well. Indeed, leaders of

both organisations agreed, towards the end of the 1990s, to coordinate their activities. It was

in the Martyr Abu Yahyia camp that Azizi met el-Andalusi and a fellow Moroccan, Karim el-Mejjati, an important al-Qaeda operative and terrorist organiser later killed by Saudi security

forces. Indeed, el-Mejjati visited Spain in 2001 and met with Azizi. Thus, as a result of his

stay in the camp, Azizi became attached to the LIFG while retaining strong links with, if not a

kind of dual membership in, the MICG. The MICG became affiliated to, and supported by, al-Qaeda from the beginning of 2001, when its founder Nafia Noureddine met first with Osama

bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, and then with Mohammed Atef (Abu Hafs al Masri). At a

training facility established by the MICG near Jalalabad, in Afghanistan, militants acquired

expertise in constructing remote-control detonators and in how to use cellular phones toactivate improvised explosive devices. A meeting that delegates of the LIFG, the MICG and

the analogous Tunisian organisation held in Istanbul is of the utmost significance to make full

sense of the Madrid train bombings. The Istanbul meeting was held in February 2002, theCasablanca attacks were perpetrated in May 2003 and the Madrid train bombings occurred inMarch 2004. It was at the Istanbul meeting that it was decided the jihad should not be limited

to conflict zones but should be carried into the countries from which members of the groups

originated or in which they were residing. The identical argument had been disseminated

within the emerging Madrid bombing network since at least autumn 2002. Several of the

individuals implicated in the Casablanca attacks were also involved in the Madrid bombings.

Moreover, before el- Andalusi instructed Maymouni to form a terrorist cell in Madrid, he had

ordered him to set up another one, also in 2002, in Kenitra, Morocco. A Spanish police report

prepared with contributions from some foreign security services, moreover, substantiatesinformation on cell-phone exchanges between The Tunisian and Abu Abdullah al-Sadeq,


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emir of the LIFG, then temporarily in East Asia, a few months prior to the attacks. Al-Sadeq

was later arrested in Bangkok and handed over to the Libyan authorities.

An underlying strategy?

The will to perpetrate an act of jihadist terrorism in Spain dates to late 2001 and early 2002. It

was initially motivated by revenge following a major police operation which dismantled and

incarcerated most of the members of the al-Qaeda cell led by Abu Dahdah. It is no

coincidence that three prominent members of the Madrid bombing network were tied to that

cell. Soon afterwards, the desire to attack was enhanced by the determination expressed by the

joint strategic decision adopted at the meeting in Istanbul in February 2002. The invasion of

Iraq added a further motivation and provided an opportunity for those wishing to perpetrate a

terrorist attack to converge. A good starting point for assessing the strategy underlying the2004 Madrid bombings is the audio recording by Osama bin Laden aired by al-Jazeera in

October 2003, in which he threatened Spain and five other countries (in addition to the United

States), for having deployed soldiers in Iraq. On 26 October, an e-mail sent to the London-based al-Majallah weekly by Abu Muhammad al Ablaj (referred to by the paper as an

important al- Qaeda figure) announced: We are preparing for a great day in a place in the

Western countries mentioned by Osama bin Laden in his message, excluding the UnitedStates. A number of observers have been inclined to view the commuter-train blasts as

inspired by two jihadist documents. One, Jihad in Iraq: Hopes and Dangers, contains a

sophisticated argument on how to induce the United States coalition partners, in particularSpain, then a major European contributor, to pull their troops out of Iraq by striking at their

soldiers, so that other countries might be expected to follow. The other document, A Message

to the Spanish People, hinted at the possibility of an attack within Spain. However, by the

time the former was promulgated in September 2003 and both were published on the Global

Islamic Media Centre website in December, the Madrid bombing network was nearlycomplete and the decision to perpetrate a major attack already made. There are, moreover, no

traces of either document having been viewed or downloaded through any of the computersused by the terrorists. The timing, sequence and contents of the communiqus claiming

responsibility for the attacks are also interesting. Besides those issued on 11 and 13 March, a

communiqu from the Abu Hafs al Masri Brigades/al-Qaeda appeared on 15 March (the day

after the general election) and a second message from the local terrorist cell, whose members

also recorded some unreleased videos on 27 March, was broadcast on 3 April. The 11 Marchcommuniqu by the Abu Hafs al Masri Brigades/al-Qaeda was sent by e-mail to the editor of

Al Quds al Arabi who, on the basis of previous experience with other al-Qaeda claims

received by the same newspaper, considered it authentic. The Spanish national police, which

rated the communiqu as relatively trustworthy, corroborated how the e-mail was forwardedfrom Iran, though it could have technically originated in Yemen, Egypt or Libya. The text,

written in Arabic, said among other things that: The death squad has managed to penetrate the

bowels of Crusading Europe, striking one of the pillars of the Crusader alliance, Spain, with a

painful blow. This is part of the settling of old scores with the Crusading Spain, the ally of

America in its war against Islam. Where is America, Aznar? Who will protect you, Great

Britain, Italy, Japan and other agents? When we struck against the Italian troops in Nasiriya

we already sent a warning to Americas agents: withdraw from the alliance against Islam. It

thus claimed responsibility for the attacks and justified them by referring to Spain both as anally of the United States and as a country with which there was a score to settle. This might

well allude to the Muslim territory on the Iberian Peninsula lost to the Christians in the

fifteenth century, to the persecution and imprisonment of many al-Qaeda members and


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followers in Spain since autumn 2001, or both. The issue of Iraq is framed in the broader

terms of armed religious confrontation, and the Spanish prime minister is mentioned as the

personification of that policy. The Nasiriya attacks of 12 November 2003 were also attributed

to al-Qaeda by Abu Muhammad al Ablaj in an e-mail sent nine days later to al-Majallah. One

of the bombers in those attacks was recruited and travelled to Iraq through the sametransnational network that helped some of those implicated in the Madrid blasts to escape

from Spain. However, there appeared to be no implicit or explicit allusion in this initialcommuniqu to the general elections to be held on 14 March. The message does include a

clear demand, reiterating the notion of a clash between religions, to citizens of the West as

opposed to their ruling elites: The people of the allies of the United States should force theirgovernments to end this alliance in the war against terrorism, which means the war against

Islam. If you stop the war, we shall stop ours. Although the invasion and occupation of Iraq

were overwhelmingly unpopular in Spain and had became a major electoral issue, the

terrorists might have been seeking to affect Spanish public opinion in general, to influence

governmental foreign-policy decisions, rather than voting behaviour in particular. The

videotape released on 13 March by the local cell included statements such as we declare ourresponsibility for what happened in Madrid exactly two and a half years after the attacks on

New York and Washington and we swear by the Almighty that if you do not halt in yourinjustice and in the deaths of Moslems with the excuse of combating terrorism, we shall blow

your houses up in the air and spill your blood as if it were a river. We are prepared for whatwill fill your hearts with terror. Although the terrorists did not refer to the general elections,

the tape was hurriedly recorded at around 5:00pm on the eve of election day and delivered in

time for nationwide release by the media. After the 14 March election, the extent to which thelocal cell in Madrid followed the directives issued by Abu Hafs al Masri Brigades/al-Qaeda

from the Gulf became clear. On 17 March, a fax signed by the latter organisation and dated 15

March was received in another London-based Arabic-language newspaper, Al Hayat, and also

sent by e-mail to Al Quds al Arabiya. This communiqu mentioned both the elections and theelectoral outcome when explaining why the initial claim of responsibility had appeared with

unusual speed: In the case of the battle of Madrid, the time factor was very important to

finish with the government of the contemptible Aznar, and added that we have given the

Spanish people the choice between war and peace, and they have chosen peace by voting for

the party that stood up against the American alliance in its war against Islam. Clearly

alluding to Spains Islamic past, as well as to the incoming government, it announced that ourleadership has decided to halt all operations on the soil of Al Andalus against what are known

as civilian targets until we are sure of the direction the new government will take, that haspromised to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq, and thereby make sure that there is no

interference by the new executive in matters concerning Moslems. For this reason we reiterate

the decision to all battalions on European soil to cease operations.

This communiqu was posted on the Global Islamic Media Centre website on 18 March, as

Notification for the Nation regarding the suspension of operations in the land of Al Andalus.It was downloaded the following morning at 10:16am to a portable computer found by the

Spanish police in the home ofJamal Ahmidan, The Chinese. This explains the second

message from the local cell (once more presented as coming from Abu Dujan al-Afgani) on 3

April, hours before the suicide explosion in Legans. This message was hand-written by The

Tunisian and faxed to the national newspaper ABC in Madrid, with the warning that we, the

Death Battalion, announce the annulment of our previous truce, threatening Spaniards with

making your country an inferno and making your blood flow like rivers unless certain

demands, including the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, were met within 24


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hours by the people and Government of Spain. But it was not the local cell but rather the

Abu Hafs al Masri Brigades/al-Qaeda that had declared the truce this message was now

terminating. The local cell in Madrid seems always to have accepted the premises transmitted

in advance by the Abu Hafs al Masri Brigade/al-Qaeda from the Gulf. Whether they directed

the local cell to end the truce or the decision was adopted autonomously (though in line withthe 15 March communiqu) is uncertain. However, in the message faxed 3 April, the local cell

leader established a 24-hour deadline, whereas in a video he and other terrorists recorded on27 March that was never released, the deadline was fixed at eight days. So at least as early as

27 March, days after the new government expressed its intention to withdraw Spanish troops

from Iraq but increase the number of soldiers in Afghanistan, the Madrid bombers clearly had

it in mind to perpetrate a new act of terrorism on or after 4 April. Al-Qaedas leaders seem to

have been more restrained than other global terrorists in exploiting the 2004 Madrid bombings

for propaganda purposes. Osama bin Laden first mentioned them a month later in an audio

recording broadcast by Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya on 15 April in which he offered a peace

treaty to the Europeans. In this message, the commuter-train blasts were interpreted from a

Muslim defence angle: There is a lesson regarding what happens in occupied Palestine andwhat happened on September 11 and March 11. These are your goods returned to you. On 16

November 2005, top al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri alluded to the 11 March attacks in a

video praising the suicide bombings of 7 July 2005 in London as the blessed raid which, like

its illustrious predecessors in New York, Washington and Madrid, took the battle to theenemys own soil. Not until 19 January 2006, when a new video recording was aired by Al

Jazeera, did bin Laden again refer to the case, this time indirectly and in conjunction with the

London bombings: The war against America and its allies has not remained limited to Iraq,as Bush claims. Evidence of this is the explosions you have witnessed in the capitals of the

most important European countries that are members of this hostile coalition. Since

September 2008, al-Qaeda has frequently introduced graphic material from the commuter-

train blasts to illustrate the actions of its global jihad. These images are now being reproducedin propaganda videos by al- Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb as well. It is no accident that the

sentence in the Madrid bombing case refers to all those individuals prosecuted and convicted

for the attacks as members of terrorist cells and groups of jihadist type. In contrast to the

conventional wisdom, in this important judicial document there is not a single mention of

local cells, independent cells, independent local cells or similar concepts. Indeed, whatthe commuter-train bombings revealed about al-Qaeda and global terrorism two-and-a-half

years after the 11 September attacks in the United States, is far more dynamic and complex.

In the broadest sense, what happened in Madrid was telling about al-Qaedas continuedactivity in instigating, approving and probably facilitating spectacular acts of terrorism in the

West, particularly in Europe. This activity continues, even if there has been a noticeable

change in the scope and limitations of al-Qaedas capabilities. The commuter-train blasts alsoshed light on the re-orientation from 2002 onwards of al-Qaedas affiliated North African

organisations, leading to the recent constitution of an al-Qaeda regional extension in theMaghreb. In a more detailed sense, the attacks spoke volumes about the mobilisation, within

open societies, of firstgeneration Muslim immigrants as terrorists. This adds to the

radicalisation and recruitment of second- and third-generation immigrants elsewhere. Overall,

the Madrid train bombings revealed much about global terrorism as a polymorphous

phenomenon, with diverse and heterogeneous interacting components whose leaders

recognise a top-down hierarchy of command and control, but which is flexible and adapted to

specific circumstances, producing extraordinary combinations when necessary and allowing

the strategies of international actors and the aspirations of local activists to converge at the

operational level.


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But the attacks of 11 March 2004 illuminate not just jihadist terrorism in transition. They also

shed light on the changing nature of the threat. They were not planned, prepared or executed

by al-Qaeda alone. Neither were they the product of autonomous self-constituted cells. The

Madrid bombing network speaks for itself as a complex, composite source of threat, where

individuals from different groups and organisations converge. The blasts also point to theterrorists lasting predilection for public-transport systems as soft targets, their preference for

the use of improvised explosive devices and their suicidal determination. Finally, the Madridattacks reveal much about terrorist strategy. Al-Qaedas broad guidelines, decisions adoptedby associated organisations and the subordinate vision of local cells can converge to make the

best of favourable opportunities.

*Fernando Reinares is Professor of Political Science and Security Studies at Universidad Rey

Juan Carlos in Madrid, and Co-Director of the Program on Global Security and Senior

Analyst on International Terrorism at Real Instituto Elcano.

Documents

Fernando Reinares- The Madrid Bombings and Global Jihadism