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Europe
Mujahedin fighters return to Spain from Iraq
2006-12-18
MADRID - Mujahedin fighters have returned to bases in Spain after gaining combat experience in Iraq and are now a potential threat to European security, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on Sunday. According to El Pais the fighters worked alongside cells controlled by late Al Qaeda senior leader and Jordanian extremist Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, killed in June.

‘They are the new Trojan horse of Al Qaeda and its satellites on our territory and they are already preparing themselves,’ deputy director of the European police network Europol, Mariano Simancas, told El Pais. ‘They represent a serious threat for the countries of the European Union,’ Simancas added.

El Pais quoted anti-terrorist sources as saying that an unspecified number of formerly Spanish-based Algerians and Moroccans who had gained experience in handling arms and explosives in Iraq had now returned. ‘But they are doing nothing for the moment. They are biding their time, which complicates things when it comes to making arrests,’ one unnamed expert told El Pais.
I believe the Spanish security forces will work on this; they're as competent as the rest of the Euro security apparatus (that is to say, darned good). The question is whether the government will unleash the hounds and let the security teams do their job. I suspect Zappie wants to sweep this under the rug.
They could start with the staff of El Pais, methinks. Don't spare the #9 truncheon gents, we have spares.
On general principles or for reporting this? I don't mind this reporting; it's keeping us informed. Not surprising at all that the mooks are returning to Y'Urp; it's safter there for them and they can plot the return of Andalusia.
So, how do they know? ESP(aña)? Lol. I'm just sayin...
Posted by:Steve White

#11  But let's not fight to win, let's wait till all the PC liberals come to the final reality.
Allan's Snackbar or off with yer head. You decide.
I don't care, I'm ready to come out of the mountains under cover of a snow storm and murder muzzies in the streets of Brooklyn or wherever. We real Americans will do whatever must be done.
Posted by: wxjames   2006-12-18 13:24  

#10  There is that, too, Dr. Steve. I often miss those little subtleties, not being at all subtle myself.
Posted by: trailing wife   2006-12-18 14:09  

#9  TW, thanks for the correction. My response to Icerigger was predicated on the fact that whether it's Spain or the U.S., his response is the same.
Posted by: Steve White   2006-12-18 14:00  

#8  Until the moonbats truly understand that the jihadis intend to kill all the LLL men and turn the LLL women into baby making machines...you are talking to deaf ears. It will take another 9/11...or worse to actually wake them up.
Posted by: anymouse   2006-12-18 13:49  

#7  
Redacted by moderator. Comments may be redacted for trolling, violation of standards of good manners, or plain stupidity. Please correct the condition that applies and try again. Contents may be viewed in the sinktrap. Further violations may result in banning.
Posted by: wxjames   2006-12-18 13:24  

#6  No Trailing the answer is simple, close down every freaking mosque, ban the porKoran and be done with it.

It might well come to that, Icerigger. But Spain will never get to that point if they don't first grow enough spine to do the hard work I suggested. And I think I used to be a Scoop Jackson liberal, before 9/11, as much as I fit any label. Dr. Steve, it's Spain. I don't believe they live under the American constitution nowadays. ;-)

Seafarious dear, thank you for a beautiful and evocative word picture. I look forward to the mixed pleasure of reading your trip report. Yikes, indeed.
Posted by: trailing wife   2006-12-18 12:32  

#5  When I was in Spain this summer (still owe you the damn writeup and a few pix), I toured the Seville Cathedral. It was built upon the former Almohad Mosque after the Reconquista. Most of the mosque was torn down (fairly standard 'we conquered you' protocol), but the builders preserved the "Courtyard of Orange Trees" and the freestanding minaret, which was converted into the bell tower now known as "La Giralda".

I toured the (enormously huge, and extremely Gothic) cathedral first, and then began my ascension of La Giralda. The tower is accessed by a sloping, elegantly bricked walkway that winds around and around the inside of the tower; there are regular portals and small balconies intercut on all four sides from which the muezzins would call al-Andalus to its knees each day. I pictured the curly toed slippers and soft padded shoes of the Almohadis climbing this path, then I pictured the hard leather boots of the Spaniards as they hauled up the machinery of the bell tower and reclaimed Spain for Christianity.

I finally rounded the 26th turn in the tower and gazed with satisfaction over the medieval center of Seville...and took note of the ring of gleaming new minarets encircling the outskirts of the city. Yikes.
Posted by: Seafarious   2006-12-18 11:32  

#4  what winds me up is , they go off fighting to Iraq or wherever, then come back to Europe , re-new their state benefits whilst indoctinating misguided gullible youth , then go off again . Rinse and repeat
Posted by: MacNails   2006-12-18 11:24  

#3  Put a sock on it, Icerigger. TW has the right approach. I'm not going to violate the Constitution to get these guys.
Posted by: Steve White   2006-12-18 10:09  

#2  No Trailing the answer is simple, close down every freaking mosque, ban the porKoran and be done with it.

Unless you're a liberal (not you) then you call for the burning of the American flag and support Flying Imams.

Cowboy up!
Posted by: Icerigger   2006-12-18 08:47  

#1  They are biding their time, which complicates things when it comes to making arrests

Arrest them for participating in foreign wars. Check their cell phones and ransack their laptops -- I'm sure some of the phone numbers will match our lists, or the calls will have been made from quite an unacceptable location (the back garden of the former #3, two iterations ago, f'r instance), and there'll be bomb-making instructions from master bombmaker #2, three iterations ago.
Posted by: trailing wife   2006-12-18 02:26  

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