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The Madrid Bombings and Global Jihadism

Fernando Reinares
Online publication date: 25 March 2010
To cite this Article Reinares, Fernando(2010) 'The Madrid Bombings and Global Jihadism', Survival, 52: 2, 83 — 104
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The Madrid Bombings and
Global Jihadism
Fernando Reinares
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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 perpetra-
tors depicted as self-recruited, leaderless terrorists. Six years after the blasts,
however, new evidence connecting some of the most notorious members of
the Madrid bombing network with al-Qaeda’s senior leadership, along with
features of the terrorist network itself and distinctive elements of the likely
strategy behind the blasts, suggest that these assumptions are misleading.
Judicial documentation now fully accessible at Spain’s 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 transi-
tion, as well as about the changing nature of the threat to open societies.1
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 Alcalá de Henares with Madrid’s downtown Atocha
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.
Survival | vol. 52 no. 2 | April–May 2010 | pp. 83–104 DOI 10.1080/00396331003764629

84 | Fernando Reinares
station. Thirteen bombs, each containing no less than 10 kilograms of dyna-

mite 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.2 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 a suitcase with more tapes exalting a bellicose notion of jihad.3
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 had been
used in a similar way in the November 2002 bombings in Bali).4 Another two
devices placed in the rail carriages, as well as an additional bomb left on a
flag-stop platform, failed to explode. Disposal experts successfully defused
one of these bombs in the early hours of 12 March, providing crucial evi-
dence to further the police investigation of the attacks.
As a result of the blasts in the commuter trains, however, 191 people
were killed and 1,841 injured.5 Though the attacks caused immediate
material damages of €17.62 million, the minimum direct economic cost has
been estimated at more than €211.58m.6 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 the 259 passengers and crew on
board and 11 people on the ground.
But the Madrid bombings 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 accumu-
lated information on new targets in and around Madrid, such as a Jewish
recreational facility for children and young people, a Jewish school, British
educational centres and national public institutions.7 The terrorists had also
The Madrid Bombings and Global Jihadism | 85
stored weapons and explosives in abundance. They had formally rented

their rural operational base in the municipality of Chinchón, 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 Leganés, near
Madrid.8 They also retained a financial reserve of almost €1.5m. By com-
parison, 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.9 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 The Madrid
Spaniards. 10
Further terrorist plans were disrupted not so much by

bombing
the initial arrests on 13 March, but on 3 April, when experts network was
from the then rather small national police intelligence unit
devoted to international terrorism discovered the cell’s
financed
hideout in Leganés. Of the eight terrorists present, one through
managed to escape on foot, while the remaining seven,
all cornered in the same flat, first fired shots and shouted
illicit drugs
Islamic slogans, then blew themselves up minutes after
9:00pm. A special-operations agent was killed and several others injured by
the explosion, and a complete 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.11 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-train blasts 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.12
The bombings of 11 March 2004 had other serious domestic conse-
quences, both political and social. They occurred three days before the
Spanish general elections on Sunday 14 March. Prime Minister José María
Aznar’s incumbent liberal-conservative Partido Popular (Popular Party,
PP) had every reason to believe it would retain its majority in Spain’s bi-
cameral parliament 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 PP’s support was statisti-
cally very close to that of the moderate left-wing Partido Socialista Obrero
Español (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, PSOE). Regardless of other con-
siderations (including the government’s counterproductive insistence that
the Basque terrorist group ETA was behind the attacks, when emerging evi-
dence 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.13 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 Arabic-
language daily published in the British capital received 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 Laden’s organisation to the
newspaper since the late 1990s, it was seen as a genuine al-Qaeda commu-
niqué, and immediately made public.14 It was signed by the Abu Hafs al
Masri Brigade/al-Qaeda. This same designation, referring to Mohamed Atef,
a former head of al-Qaeda’s 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 around 7:30pm, an individual, speaking in Spanish
but with a noticeable Arab accent, called the regional broadcasting corpora-
tion Telemadrid to let its executives know of a video cassette left inside a
litter bin near the so-called M-30 mosque, Madrid’s 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, pre-
sented 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 consen-
sus 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 and leaderless phenomenon or as part of a polymorphous and
still more-often-than-not centrally led 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 connec-
tions with al-Qaeda or any of its affiliated organisations? Analysis of the
Madrid bombing network, new evidence available about its ties with al-
Qaeda’s command structures in 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 2003.15 First the desire and then the deci-
sion 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-Qaeda
cell established in Spain around the middle of the 1990s. This jihadist cell
was substantially, but not completely, dismantled during the months fol-
lowing 11 September 2001, when it was led by the Syrian-born Imad Eddin
Barakat Yarkas, better known as Abu Dahdah.16 A third cluster was linked
to the structure established that same decade by the Moroccan Islamist
Combatant Group (MICG) across Western Europe, particularly in France
and Belgium.17 The fourth cluster initially consisted of a gang of delinquents
active throughout Spain who specialised in the trafficking of illicit drugs
and stolen vehicles.18
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 to implicate them in the preparation
or execution of the 11 March attacks.19 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 handed
over to the Moroccan authorities after being arrested in Syria in 2007 and
finally convicted in Rabat in January 2009 for 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 bomb-
ings. Most were native Moroccans, except for three Algerians, an Egyptian,
a Tunisian and a Lebanese national.20
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 had children.
Although their sociological profiles were quite diverse, they
The tended to show low levels of both formal education and occu-
pational status. But those mobilised in the Madrid bombing
bombers’ network (which can hardly be considered a case of home-
profiles grown terrorism) did not all adopt jihadist ideology, become
radicalised and be recruited in the same place, at the same time
were quite or through the same processes.21
diverse 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.22
The owner of the property in Chinchón 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 2005.23
Allekema Lamari, one of the Leganés suicides, had indirect ties with the
same 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 was close 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 Lamari’s suspicious behaviour and mentioned reliable inform-
ants who considered he was likely to organise and execute an imminent
act of terrorism in the country.24 A further classified 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 Alcalá
de Henares’.25
Hassan el Haski and Youssef 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.26 Youssef Belhadj was also,
according to the declaration of his nephew during the judicial investiga-
tion of the train attacks, a member of al-Qaeda.27 He frequently travelled
to Madrid to meet his associates who had joined the local jihadist cell.28 On
3 March 2004 at 8:35pm, just eight days before the attacks, he flew back to
Brussels from Madrid, where he had been for the previous month.29 Indeed,
when the Belgian police arrested Belhadj they found two cellular phones in
his Brussels bedroom. The one he regularly used operated 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.30 The second phone found in Belhadj’s bedroom, com-
monly 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 attacks
– when a Spanish restaurant was targeted – and the planned date for the
Madrid bombings, respectively.31 Similarly, 1921 may have been chosen as a
reference to Sura 21 of the Koran, which alludes to the time when unbeliev-
ers ‘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 served in a brigade based
in Port Said specialising in explosives. Confidential sources indicated to the
Spanish authorities that Rabei Osman had been interned in the maximum-
security 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 in Spain from 2002 to February 2003, during which, together with
Fakhet, he was active in radicalising youngsters in and around mosques.32 As
one of the Italian films clearly shows, in the course of indoctrinating a poten-
tial new recruit he claimed involvement in the Madrid bombings.33 Indeed,
Rabei Osman also knew in advance about the 11 March date. On 4 February
2004, following his return to Italy from a last trip to Spain before the attacks,
he opened and activated an e-mail account in a Yahoo server, inserting ficti-
tious personal data, including 11 March 1970 as date of birth.34
In addition to the individuals already mentioned, and their associates,
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 by 1996, 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 2003.35 Prior to this, in 1999, Ahmidan met with
Abu Dahdah, then leader of Spain’s al-Qaeda cell, in the Netherlands and
expressed the desire to go and fight in Chechnya.36 Loyalty towards ‘The
Chinese’, as the band’s 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 hier-
archy appeared more than four years ago, although it was only confirmed
over the last two months of 2009. It came to light in a remote mountain-
ous 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

the village 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-Qaeda’s 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 of 2004 and the beginning of 2005,37
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-Qaeda’s
external operations command and the man responsible for the organisa-
tion’s plots in North America and Western Europe. At the time of his death,
Rabia was regarded as one of the top five (possibly top three) people at
al-Qaeda’s core. Early in 2002, Osama bin Laden had split al-Qaeda’s opera-
tional structure into two commands. The internal operations command was
assigned to Mustafa al Uzayti (also known as Abu Faraj al Libi), focusing on
Afghanistan and Pakistan. Leadership of the external operations command
was initially assigned to Khalid Sheik Mohamed, who masterminded the 11
September attacks in the United States. When Khalid Sheik Mohamed was
arrested in Rawalpindi on March 2003, al Libi likewise became engaged in
external operations, although command was assumed by Rabia.38
One of the four men who died with Rabia was identified by US intel-
ligence, 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 cer-
tainly before mid-2001. Azizi was formally prosecuted in absentia by Spain’s
National Court for terrorist offences attributed to that cell after he managed
to escape from Spain following the police operation which substantially dis-
mantled the cell in November 2001. While active in Spain’s al-Qaeda cell,
Azizi forged close ties to individuals who later became key members of the
Madrid bombing network. These included the network initiator, Mustafa
Maymouni, now imprisoned in Morocco for the Casablanca attacks, as well
as ‘The Tunisian’, 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 sur-
veillance since 2005 and arrested in 2006), of being an important member of
al-Qaeda and his acolyte, that indications that a terrorist with Azizi’s back-
ground was a key associate of Rabia emerged. This individual, called Ilyas,
was mistakenly believed to be Mamoun Darkazanli. A British expert com-
mented during the Manchester trial that Darkazanli was wanted in Spain
for the Madrid bombings, which was not 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.39 According to senior American officials, informa-
tion on the death of Azizi, as Rabia’s adjutant, was forwarded to the Spanish
authorities informally in September 2006 and through a printed report in
September 2007.40
Azizi is repeatedly mentioned in no less than 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 the one 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-Qaeda’s 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.41
Back from his trip to Afghanistan in early summer 2001, Azizi co-
opted Maymouni, also a Moroccan, who became his closest collaborator.
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 asso-
ciate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (later head of al-Qaeda Azizi was
in Mesopotamia), initiated the network that perpetrated
the Madrid bombings, and first rented the Chinchón base
already linked
of operations in October of that year.42 Maymouni was to senior
investigated by the Spanish police in 2003 following the
Casablanca attacks.43 After he was detained and impris-
al-Qaeda
oned in Morocco in May 2003, other members of the local leaders
cell rented the property again in January 2004.44 Another
Moroccan, Driss Chebli, and ‘The Tunisian’ came to lead the network when
Maymouni 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 ringleader of the terrorist network. As the crimi-
nal proceedings on the Madrid bombings have shown, ‘The Tunisian’ was
also radicalised and recruited by Azizi.45 Azizi and ‘The Tunisian’ had ‘fre-
quent contacts’ and communicated by e-mail in 2002 and 2003.46
A 2005 report from Spain’s 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’.47
The court records show close links between Azizi and other perpetrators of
the train bombings such as Zougam and the still-fugitive Berraj.48 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.49 Berraj was with Azizi in Turkey in 2000, possibly on their way to
Afghanistan, when both took part in a meeting with other known jihadists
such as Salahedin Benyaich and former Guatánamo inmate Lahcen Ikasrien,
all of whom were arrested by the Turkish authorities.50
Azizi’s ties to al-Qaeda’s affiliated North African organisations were con-
solidated during his stay in Afghanistan. The Martyr 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.51 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.52 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).53 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 to activate improvised explosive devices.54
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, the Casablanca attacks were perpetrated in May 2003 and
the Madrid train bombings occurred in March 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.55 The identical argument had
been disseminated within the emerging Madrid bombing network since at
least autumn 2002.56 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.57 A
Spanish police report prepared with contributions from some foreign secu-
rity services, moreover, substantiates information on cell-phone exchanges
between ‘The Tunisian’ and Abu Abdullah al-Sadeq, emir of the LIFG, then
temporarily in East Asia, a few months prior to the attacks.58 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 2002.59 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 promi-
nent 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 oppor-
tunity for those wishing to perpetrate a terrorist attack to converge.
A good starting point for assessing the strategy underlying the 2004
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.60 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 United States.
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 particular Spain, 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.61 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 nearly complete 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 computers used by the terrorists.
The timing, sequence and contents of the communiqués claiming respon-
sibility for the attacks are also interesting. Besides those issued on 11 and
13 March, a communiqué 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 March communiqué 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 news-
paper, considered it authentic. The Spanish national police, which rated the
communiqué as ‘relatively trustworthy’, corroborated how the e-mail was
forwarded from Iran, though it could have technically originated in Yemen,
Egypt or Libya.62 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 America’s agents: withdraw from the alliance against Islam.
It thus claimed responsibility for the attacks and justified them by referring to
Spain both as an ally 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 perse-
cution and imprisonment of many al-Qaeda members and 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 same transnational network that
helped some of those implicated in the Madrid blasts to escape from Spain.63
However, there appeared to be no implicit or explicit allusion in this initial
communiqué to the general elections to be held on 14 March. The message

does include a clear demand, reiterating the notion of a clash between reli-
gions, to citizens of the West as opposed to their ruling elites: ‘The people
of the allies of the United States should force their governments 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 deci-
sions, rather than voting behaviour in particular.
The videotape released on 13 March by the local cell included statements
such as ‘we declare our responsibility 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 your injustice 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
what will 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 the local 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
communiqué mentioned both the elections and the electoral 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 impor-
tant 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 Spain’s
Islamic past, as well as to the incoming government, it announced that
our leadership 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 has promised 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 communiqué 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 of Jamal Ahmidan, ‘The Chinese’.64 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 Leganés.
This message was hand-written by ‘The Tunisian’65 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 hours by the ‘people and Government
of Spain’.66 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 termi-
nating. 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.67 Whether they directed the local cell to end the truce or the decision
was adopted autonomously (though in line with the 15 March communiqué)
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 on 27 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-Qaeda’s leaders seem to have been more restrained than other global
terrorists in exploiting the 2004 Madrid bombings for propaganda purposes.68
Osama bin Laden first mentioned them a month later in an audio record-
ing 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 and what happened on September 11 and
March 11. These are your goods returned to you.’69 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 the enemy’s own soil’.70 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 coa-
lition.’71 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 reproduced in 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’.72 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 con-

cepts. Indeed, what the 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-Qaeda’s continued activity in instigating, approving and probably facili-
tating 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-Qaeda’s capabilities. The commuter-train blasts also

shed light on the re-orientation from 2002 onwards of al-Qaeda’s affili-
ated North African organisations, leading to the recent constitution of an
al-Qaeda regional extension in the Maghreb. In a more detailed sense, the
attacks spoke volumes about the mobilisation, within open societies, of first-
generation 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 interact-
ing 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 con-
verge at the operational level.
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 the terrorists’ lasting predilection for public-transport systems
as soft targets, their preference for the use of improvised explosive devices
and their suicidal determination. Finally, the Madrid attacks reveal much
about terrorist strategy. Al-Qaeda’s broad guidelines, decisions adopted by
associated organisations and the subordinate vision of local cells can con-
verge to make the best of favourable opportunities.
Notes
1 The criminal proceedings over the 10 On the financing of the Madrid train
Madrid train bombings accumulated bombings, see Sumario 20/2004, sepa-
241 volumes and 30 separate pieces, rate piece 10.
including previously secret records 11 Rogelio Alonso and Fernando
and reserved documents, comprising Reinares, ‘Maghreb Immigrants
a total of 93,226 pages of files (Sumario becoming Suicide Terrorists. A Case
20/2004). In addition, available docu- Study of Religious Radicalization
mentation includes sentences handed Processes in Spain’, in Ami Pedahzur
down by the National Court and the (ed.), Root Causes of Suicide Terrorism:
Supreme Court, as well as data from The Globalization of Martyrdom
related criminal proceedings and sen- (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 179–97.
tences delivered in Milan, Italy and 12 ‘This is my testament’, wrote a
Salé, Morocco. member of the local cell, before the
2 Audiencia Nacional, Juzgado Central attacks, to his close relatives. In the
de Instrucción no. 6, Sumario 20/2004, letter, he insists on jihad as ‘an obliga-
vol. 161, pp. 60,764 and 60,771. tion for the faithful’, adding first that
3 Sumario 20/2004, vol. 68, p. 20,629 and ‘I cannot live in this world, humili-
vol. 161, p. 60,767. ated and weakened before the eyes of
4 Ibid., vol. 161, p. 60,858. infidels and tyrants’, and then a wish
5 Audiencia Nacional, Sala de lo Penal, for his sons and daughters: ‘My wish
Sección Segunda, Sentencia 65/2007, is for them to be religiously wise and
pp. 229–422. mujahedeen’. He concludes: ‘I have
6 On the immediate material dam- chosen death as the path for life’.
ages, see Sumario 20/2004, vol. 216, p. Sumario 20/2004, vol. 61, p. 18,591; vol.
84,062. On the direct economic costs, 81, pp. 18,634 and 25,176; and vol. 162,
see Mikel Buesa, Aurelia Vilariño, pp. 61,529–30, 61,556–8.
Joost Heijs, Thomas Baumert and 13 Ignacio Lago and José R. Montero,
Javier González, ‘The Economic The 2004 Election in Spain: Terrorism,
Cost of March 11: Measuring the Accountability, and Voting, working
Direct Economic Cost of the Terrorist paper no. 253 (Barcelona: Institut de
Attack on March 11, 2004 in Madrid’, Ciències Polítiques i Socials, 2006).
Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 19, 14 Abdel Bari Atwan, The Secret History of
no. 4, Winter 2007, pp. 489–509. Al-Qa’ida (London: Abacus, 2007), p.
7 Sumario 20/2004, vol. 162, pp. 61,522–4. 116.
8 Ibid., separate piece 29, annex II, docu- 15 Sumario 20/2004, vol. 97, p. 31,840.
ment 8, and annex IV, document 2. 16 This cell was detected by the police
It should be noted that the terrorists at the end of 1994. Among its found-
always made rental arrangements ing members were Anwar Adnan
using falsified identity documents. Mohamed Saleh, also known as Chej
9 Ibid., separate piece 29, annex II, docu- Salah, who moved from Madrid
ments 15 and 16. to Peshawar in October 1995, and
Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, better Ahmidan. The Algerians are Allekema

known as Abu Musab al Suri, who Lamari, Daoud Ouhnane and
relocated to London four months ear- Nasreddine Bousbaa. The Egyptian
lier and then settled close to Osama is Rabei Osman el Sayed Ahmed.
bin Laden in Afghanistan. The cell was The one Tunisian is Serhane ben
connected to the Hamburg cell that Abdelmajid Fakhet and the one
spawned the 11 September attacks. Lebanese is Mahmoud Slimane Aoun.
Abu Dahdah had been in contact with 21 Fernando Reinares, ‘Jihadist
Mohammed Atta since the early 1990s. Radicalization and the 2004 Madrid
Abu Dahdah and 17 other individuals Bombing Network’, CTC Sentinel. vol.
were convicted of terrorism-related 2, Issue 11, 2009, pp. 16–19.
offences by the National Court on 22 Fakhet, Zougam and Berraj were all
26 September 2005. Fifteen of these investigated by the National Court over
convictions were confirmed by the the al-Qaeda cell led by Abu Dahdah.
Supreme Court on 31 May 2006. See Sumario 20/2004, vol. 163, pp.
17 On the MICG and its links with the 61,694–700, 61,735–44 and 61,781–801.
Madrid train bombings, see the com- 23 The real estate was registered under
prehensive police report in Sumario the name of his wife. See Sumario
20/2004, vol. 97, pp. 31,838–72. 20/2004, vol. 161, p. 60,823.
18 Sumario 20/2004, vol. 17, pp. 4,426–7 24 Sumario 20/2004, separate piece 11, pp.
and vol. 191, pp. 74,612–13. 790–93.
19 For legal and ethical reasons no men- 25 Ibid., pp. 793–4.
tion is made here of persons who 26 Ibid., vol. 97, pp. 31,898–9, and vol.
were detained following the attacks 163, pp. 61,580–608. The Madrid
but never charged, or prosecuted bombing sentencing document refers
but absolved of all charges. Others, to Hassan el Haski as a ‘leader of the
convicted for dealing with stolen Moroccan Islamic Combattant Group’.
explosives that ended up in the hands See Sentencia 65/2007, pp. 217 and 218.
of the terrorists, were not part of See also Tribunal de grande Instance
the jihadist network as such and are de Paris, 16eme chamber/1, no. d’affaire
excluded from this analysis. 0313739016, jugement of 11 July 2007,
20 The Moroccans include Hassan el p.p 55 and 73.
Haski, Youssef Belhadj, Mohamed 27 Sumario 20/2004, vol. 163, p. 61,627.
Larbi ben Sellam, Jamal Ahmidan, Youssef Belhadj is defined in one
Said Berraj, Mohamed Afalah, Jamal document as a ‘member of one of the
Zougam, Othman el Gnaoui, Fouad groups which form the al-Qaeda net-
el Morabit Anghar, Saed el Harrak, work’. Sentencia 65/2007, p. 215.
Mohamed Bouharrat, Rachid Aglif, 28 Sumario 20/2004, vol. 106, pp. 35,601–
Abdelmajid Bouchar, Rifaat Anouar 14; vol. 115, pp. 39,970–73; vol. 133, p.
Asrih, Abdenabi Kounjaa, Mohamed 48,728–33, and vol. 163, pp. 61,608–24.
Oulad Akcha, Rachid Oulad Akcha, 29 Ibid., vol. 180, p. 69,863.
Abdelilah Hriz, Mohamed Belhadj, 30 Ibid., vol. 163, pp. 61,622–3; see also
Hamid Ahmidan and Hicham Sentencia 65/2007, pp. 216–17.
31 Sumario 20/2004, vol. 163, pp. 61,621–2. 40 Confirmed by personal oral com-
32 Rabei Osman es Sayed Ahmed had munication from a senior CIA official
been investigated by the national on 23 December 2009 and in writing
police’s antiterrorism branch in 2002 from Spain’s national police central
(Sumario 20/2004, vol. no. 17, p. 4,412; counter-terrorism branch on 2 March
vol. 79, p. 24,154; vol. 81, p. 25,039, 2010.
and vol. 163, pp. 61,643–63. 41 Written communication from Spain’s
33 On 26 May 2004, while indoctrinating national police intelligence chief, 26
a young acolyte in his Milan apart- November 2009.
ment, he was taped as saying: ‘Listen, 42 When Azizi escaped, Maymouni

Yahya, be careful and do not speak. was ordered by Mourafik to go to
The whole Madrid operation was an Morocco, where Azizi’s wife, Raquel
idea of mine. They were among my Burgos (a Spanish convert) had moved
most loved friends, fallen as martyrs, shortly after the disappearance of her
may Allah have mercy on them … husband, and help her to rejoin him,
This operation required many les- first in Turkey and then in Pakistan.
sons and lots of patience over two See Sumario 20/2004, pp. 74,600–01.
and a half years.’ During the same During its autumn 2009 offensive in
radicalising speech, Ahmed asserted: South Waziristan, the Pakistani Army
‘You have to join the al-Qaeda ranks. found and exhibited to the interna-
This is the solution, since the doors of tional press a passport belonging to
al-Qaeda are open.’ Sumario 20/2004, Raquel Burgos, next to the passport
vol. 163, pp. 61,650. Also Corte of Said Bahaji, a German citizen and
d’Assise di Milano, Sentenza 10/2006, associate of the lead 9/11 hijacker
p. 44. Mohammed Atta. See http://afpak.
34 Ibid., vol. 79, p. 24,191; vol. 163, p. foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/10/30/
61,654. Also Corte d’Assise di Milano, daily_brief_passports_linked_to_911_
Sentenza 10/2006, pp. 21–22. found_in_northwest_pakistan_mili-
35 Ibid., vol. 14, p. 3,632. tary_operations.
36 Audiencia Nacional, Sala de lo Penal, 43 Investigated under Sumario 9/2003. See
Sección Segunda, Sentencia 65/2007, p. Sumario 20/2004, vol. 17, p. 4,423 and
201. vol. 21, p. 5,583.
37 Rohan Gunaratna and Anders 44 Sumario 20/2004, vol. 161, p. 60,823
Nielsen, ‘Al Qaeda in the Tribal Areas and vol. 163, p. 61,726.
of Pakistan and Beyond’, Studies in 45 Ibid., vol. 163, pp. 61,740.
Conflict and Terrorism, vol. 31, no. 9, 46 Testimony of a protected witness
September 2008, pp. 786–8. during the Madrid bombing trials
38 Ibid., pp. 780, 783. at Spain’s National Court, Sumario
39 Oral confirmation to author by CIA 20/2004, vol. 114, p. 39514, and vol.
sources present in Pakistan during the 163, pp. 61,923-4.
Haisori strike, and written confirma- 47 Sumario 20/2004, vol. 161, p. 60,875.
tion from Spain’s police intelligence in 48 Ibid., vol. 17, p. 4,414.
November and December 2009. 49 Ibid., vol. 163, pp. 61,784 and 61,679.
50 Ibid., vol. 17, p. 4,414 and vol. 193, p. Terrorism, vol. 27, no. 5, September–
61,685. October 2004, pp. 355–75.
51 Evan F. Kohlman, ‘Dossier: Libyan 62 Sumario 20/2004, vol. 17, p. 4,405.
Islamic Fighting Group’, The NEFA 63 See Audiencia Nacional, Sala de lo
Foundation, 2007, pp. 13–15, http:// Penal, Sección Primera, Sentencia
www.nefafoundation.org/miscella- 3/2010, p. 7.
neous/nefalifg1007.pdf. 64 Ibid., vol. 13, p.59,062; vol. 149, p.
52 Sumario 20/2004, vol. 97, p. 31,345. 56,763; vol. 156, p. 9,062, and vol. 161,
53 Peter L. Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I p. 61,016.
know (New York: Free Press, 2006), p. 65 Ibid., vol. 161, p. 60,872.
279. 66 It also explains the contents of several
54 See Tribunal de Grande Instance de video recordings made by the local
Paris, 16eme chamber/1, no. d’affaire cell on 27 March but not made public,
0313739016, jugement of 11 July 2007, where its ringleader announced the
p. 38, and Sumario 20/2004, vol. 191, p. ending of the truce. See ibid., vol. 161,
74,612. p. 60,873 and vol. 162, pp. 61,538–40.
55 An intelligence note of 17 December 67 In their general report on the Madrid
2004 about this meeting and the stra- bombings, the Spanish police state:
tegic decision adopted is incorporated ‘There is an assumed relationship
in the Madrid bombings criminal pro- between the Abu Hafs al Masri
ceedings. See Sumario 20/2004, vol. 97, Brigades and the terrorist commando
pp. 31,848 and 32,316 itself which acted in Madrid’, since
56 Audiencia Nacional, Juzgado Central there is an observable coincidence
de Instrucción 6, Auto of 5 July 2006, not only in ‘the form they called the
pp. 64–5. operative group’ but also because
57 Sumario 20/2004, vol. 97, p. 31,840. in ending the truce ‘the terror-
58 Ibid., vol. 233, pp. 90,742–6. ist commando of Madrid acted in
59 This idea was also stressed by the consonance’ with the 17 March com-
public prosecutor’s office during the muniqué. Sumario 20/2004, vol. 161, p.
Madrid bombings case, as reflected 60,920.
in its final report submitted on 4 68 Manuel R. Torres, ‘Spain as an Object
June 2007 by the public prosecutor of Jihadist Propaganda’, Studies in
to the Sala de lo Penal (Criminal Conflict and Terrorism, vol. 32, no. 11,
Hall) at the National Court, pp. 12 November 2009, pp. 940–41.
and 13. 69 A translation of this audio recording
60 The other five countries were United is available at http://www.memri.org/
Kingdom, Australia, Poland, Japan bin/articles.cgi?Area=sd&ID=SP69504.
and Italy. 70 See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
61 Brynjar Lia and Thomas middle_east/4443364.stm.
Hegghammer, ‘Jihadi Strategic 71 A translation of this audio recording
Studies: The Alleged Al Qaeda is available at http://memri.org/bin/
Policy Study Preceding the Madrid latestnews.cgi?ID=SD107406.
Bombings’, Studies in Conflict and 72 Sentencia 65/2007, p. 172.

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Since the attacks of 11 September 2001 on New York and Washington DC

911 days after

Survival | vol. 52 no. 2 | April–May 2010 | pp. 83–104 DOI 10.1080/00396331003764629

station. Thirteen bombs, each containing no less than 10 kilograms of dyna-

stored weapons and explosives in abundance. They had formally rented

included in this calculation.9 The Madrid bombing network was mainly

Further terrorist plans were disrupted not so much by

Madrid bombings a case of home-grown, al-Qaeda-inspired terrorism or

Analysing the network

or execution of the 11 March attacks.19 These individuals comprise the 16

declared that he would commit acts involving arson or derailment’. The

security penitentiary of Abu Zaa Abal, where those suspected or convicted

the early hours of 1 December 2005, a Hellfire missile hit a compound in

a formal request from the French authorities concerning Zougam, already

Message to the Spanish People’, hinted at the possibility of an attack within

The death squad has managed to penetrate the bowels of Crusading

communiqué to the general elections to be held on 14 March. The message

established a 24-hour deadline, whereas in a video he and other terrorists

of ‘local cells’, ‘independent cells’, ‘independent local cells’ or similar con-

and limitations of al-Qaeda’s capabilities. The commuter-train blasts also

Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, better Ahmidan. The Algerians are Allekema

ment, he was taped as saying: ‘Listen, 42 When Azizi escaped, Maymouni

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Survival | vol. 52 no. 2 | April–May 2010 | pp. 83–104 DOI 10.1080/00396331003764629