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OliverFA
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Leeds, UK
Sep 2002
time: 06:34
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Al-Qaeda 1 - Spanish democracy 0
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europ...0700/index.html
quote:
BOMBS 'TO SPLIT SPAIN FROM ALLIES'
MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- A document published months before national elections
reveals al Qaeda planned to separate Spain from its allies by carrying out
terror attacks.
A December posting on a Internet message board used by al Qaeda and its
sympathizers and obtained by CNN, spells out a plan to topple the pro-U.S.
government.
"We think the Spanish government will not stand more than two blows, or
three at the most, before it will be forced to withdraw because of the
public pressure on it," the al Qaeda document says.
"If its forces remain after these blows, the victory of the Socialist Party
will be almost guaranteed -- and the withdrawal of Spanish forces will be on
its campaign manifesto."
That prediction came to fruition in elections Sunday, with the Socialists
unseating the Popular Party three days after near-simultaneous bombings of
four trains killed 200 and shocked the nation.
Ninety percent of Spaniards had opposed Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's
staunch support for the U.S.-led war against Iraq, and some have blamed his
government's policies for the train bombings.
Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Monday he wants the
1,300 Spanish troops in Iraq to return home by June 30 if the United Nations
"doesn't take control of Iraq."
"I think Spain's participation in the war has been a total error," he said.
(Full story)
Meanwhile, one of the five men arrested in connection with the bombings has
links to the plotters of an al Qaeda-linked bombing in Casablanca last year,
CNN has learned.
The May 2003 suicide attacks in Casablanca killed nearly three dozen people.
Spanish authorities have arrested three Moroccans and two Indians in
connection with the Madrid bombings.
One of the men, Jamal Zougam, 30, has ties to two brothers who have been
charged in connection with the Casablanca bomb plot, according to a Moroccan
government official.
Zougam is also believed to be a follower of Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, the
alleged ringleader of al Qaeda in Spain, according to a Spanish court
document.
All five are being held incommunicado under Spain's anti-terrorism law,
which requires they be charged within five days of their detention.
Authorities said investigators tracked the men through a cellular telephone
and a pre-paid telephone card discovered in a backpack containing explosives
found shortly after Thursday's attacks.
Helping the investigation is a videotape in which a man claiming to be a
military spokesman for al Qaeda in Europe says the terrorist network was
behind the bombings.
In the United States, Asa Hutchinson, the undersecretary for the Department
of Homeland Security, said they thought the Madrid bombings had the
fingerprints of al Qaeda.
"We do know that there is a connection to al Qaeda. We have verified that,"
he told CNN.
"At this point, there clearly is some link and we're going to continue to
see the depth of that."
However, another administration official would only say Islamic
fundamentalists remain high on the list of suspects.
"Things are slightly leaning towards Islamic fundamentalist responsibility,
as opposed to pure ETA or al Qaeda," one senior administration official
said.
ETA is a Basque separatist group that has been fighting for more than three
decades for an independent state. The group is designated a terrorist
organization by the United States and the European Union.
The U.S. intelligence community is considering the possibility the bombings
may have been carried out by a number of people with various ties to
terrorist groups, the senior administration official said, adding theories
include the following possibilities:
Islamic fundamentalists with support from ETA;
Islamic fundamentalists with close ties to al Qaeda, although not
necessarily "card-carrying members of al Qaeda"; or,
Members of ETA or al Qaeda.
In the wake of the bombings, Spanish Interior Minister Angel Acebes
announced Monday that a European Union anti-terrorist conference will be
held Friday in Madrid. (Full story)
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said he was confident Spain would
continue to play a significant role in the war on terrorism.
"Terrorism has to be defeated," he said.
"I don't think the Spanish people are any more inclined to give any
encouragement to terrorists or to give terrorists the slightest impression
that they are not going to be engaged fully by the Spanish government -- no
matter who is prime minister."
Powell added that he was not sure if the Madrid bombings affected the
outcome of Sunday's elections: "But the one thing I'm quite sure of is that
Spanish people remain committed in the war against terrorists." |
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Comrade Tassadar
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No, such idiots need to realize that the terrorists are WINNING, as indicated by the USAmericans so deseperately trying to distance themselves away from their allies.
Thats what Al Qaeda wants really: For the US to lose its power, and for the west to become fragmented with disunity.
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yavoon
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quote:
Originally posted by Spiffor
You'd better get used to it, Yaroslav.
Americans have the annoying tendency to call "cowards" pretty much anybody who doesn't feel like fighting their war. |
its not so malevolent as u think. this involves all of us. yet most of us just feel like talking. why don't u pass a resolution asking the US to stop calling u cowards?
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OliverFA
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Leeds, UK
Sep 2002
time: 06:34
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quote:
Originally posted by yaroslav
That is your pratiotism, Oliver? When your party lost the goverment, you abandon our flag... |
Iīm not a patriot. Iīve never been. Whatīs a country? Some quantity of land inside some borders. Should you feel proud just because you have been born at some place? Of course not. The important thing are the ideas. Past week the Spanish flag represented some ideas. This week represents the opposite ones. Consequently, I donīt feel represented by that flag. It would be stupid to feel loyal to a country that has changed completely its point of view. I can feel loyal to a friend, but I can only feel loyal to a group (is it a company, a country or a party) as long as this groups reminds loyal to my ideas. Thatīs all.
I could ask you the same. Why were you using a white avatar with the black lace instead of the Spanish flag? Of course thatīs because you didnīt feel represented by that flag.
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OliverFA
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Leeds, UK
Sep 2002
time: 06:34
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quote:
Originally posted by molly bloom
Following the murders in Madrid, you therefore want the Spanish who were going to vote P.S.O.E. for reasons of conscience or politics, to vote for the Conservatives instead. |
I want them to vote what they want. My opinion is that they should vote right (remember, PP has both family of rights, liberal and conservative) but if they want to vote PSOE... well... Spain has what it deserves.
quote:
How that would not be a victory for terrorism, I'm not sure. |
Easy, because the results would have been the same than without the terrorist acts.
quote:
The thinking in some posts in this and other threads about the bombings resembles what Colin Wilson describes as 'magical thinking'- the harnessing together of two separate facts or events by wishful thinking or dream logic, and the assumption or production of an outcome based on that linkage. |
Or what USSR used to manipulate during 70 years: Say a lie one hundred times and it will become true.
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OliverFA
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Leeds, UK
Sep 2002
time: 06:34
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quote:
Originally posted by yaroslav
Oliver, I retire my statement. I believed that you stated elsewhere that you were a pratiot, anti-nationalist guy (not it means that all anti-nationalist are pratiots and the other way). |
Thanks. Itīs good to see someone who defends its positions in a moderate way between so much radical people here.
quote:
becuase I don't see that there has been such a huge change. PSOE is in a economic way a lot like the PP, and it's only moderately pro-autonomy, when the PP was a little more centralist.
It's in the foreign politics where they differ more... and of couse, in style. |
Well... you are right. We disagree about that. And time will tell who is right.
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All times are GMT. The time now is 05:34.
Apolyton Time is 00:34. |
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