| Submit your comments on this article |
| Europe |
| Spanish mall was a terrorist target |
| 2004-04-08 |
| TERRORISTS who blew themselves up last weekend as rather than be arrested in connection with the Madrid train bombings had been plotting an attack on a sprawling shopping centre outside Madrid. Police combing through the apartment found evidence that included maps of Parquesur, a retail and leisure complex less than a mile (1.6km) from the apartment in the town of Leganes, El Mundo newspaper said, quoting police. The police also found at least two backpacks and a belt, all packed with dynamite and wired to detonators, the paper said. Interior Ministry officials were not available to comment on the report. El Mundo said the attack was to have been staged on Sunday - the day after the police raid that prompted up to seven terrorists to take their own lives - or during the week before Easter, when millions of Spaniards are on vacation and schools are out, making the crowds that normally pack Parquesur even larger. The facility has 193 stores, a hotel and a 2500-seat multi-cinema. Another newspaper, El Pais, said four days before the March 11 attacks, police acting on a tip-off from neighbours visited the rural house 30km south-east of Madrid where officials say the bombs used in the railway attacks were assembled. But police did not go into the house because they lacked a court order, and instead just jotted down the license plate numbers of cars parked outside, the paper said. Neighbours had called the police because a heavily overloaded car arrived at the house and they thought it might be carrying drugs or stolen goods, El Pais said. Key suspects still at large include Amer Azizi, a Moroccan charged with terrorism in the indictment handed by Judge Baltasar Garzon last September against members of an alleged Spain-based al-Qaeda cell that he says helped prepare the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. Garzon describes Azizi as the right-hand man of reputed cell leader Imad Yarkis in their campaign to recruit young Muslim men and send them to training camps in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Indonesia. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #4 Figuring there was a WalMart there. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-04-08 7:32:47 PM |
| #3 If you want to look at causes, look to mainly Saudi money. They are the ones that financed Binny, the madrassas, the Charities from Hell™, the enablers of aimless youth in a corrupt society. I hope that the Spanish finally get a clue. It seems that once the terrorists get on step, they don't stop. Appeasement will not work. Until we dry up the Saudi money stream, we are treating the symptoms and not the disease. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-04-08 11:14:44 AM |
| #2 pay me $3 million dollars and I'll tell you what causes it. It's spoiled children who believe they are entitled to privilige, but either can't make it or don't feel they should have to work within the existing system to achieve the position in life they feel they deserve. So rather than attempt and fail, they create their own little world in which they are "the man". Usually they only command a little band of followers, but every now and then, the stars align and you get a bin Laden. |
| Posted by: B 2004-04-08 10:57:33 AM |
| #1 Ibernian notes links a column in which they think 7 dopes splodied. They can ID 4, but not the other 3. Some are getting it, from an article John posted: ..."Reality also frequently dismantles the image of the Islamic terrorist as a hopeless pariah. Just look at the list of suspects from 3/11: the boss of the group, the sadly notorious Tunisian, had been at the university, like another of those the police are looking for; one of those in jail has a degree in chemistry; another is the owner of a phone shop; "El Chino" and his family had a clothing wholesale business, as did other suspects now in jail. This profile does not correspond to that of unfortunate individuals, just the opposite of the many thousands of immigrants, whether Muslims or not, who have to make their own way every day working at the hardest and worst-paid jobs without for one moment thinking of violence. If we're looking for the causes, we should look at what causes the fanaticism which moves all terrorists and, in particular, the Islamist ones. Probably sectarian indoctrination is a lot more important than the intervention in Iraq. When we look for the roots of this situation, we should pay attention to Professor Fernando Reinares, an expert in the study of violence: "It's important not to confuse causes with pretexts." For now we know a lot about the pretexts but very little about the causes." |
| Posted by: Anonymous2U 2004-04-08 10:32:21 AM |