TA-ATTACKS: Terrorist Rail Bombings in Madrid, Al Qaeda Claims Responsibility, Threatens US Attacks

No, and i don't intend to go into one either.

The human rights records are appalling but with a standing army of over 1 million i think we could use them on our side, especially as they effectively block europe from the middle east.

John Nada:

My leaning is towards ETA with indirect or direct aid from Al-Qaeda.


regards
seekerof

The collaboration angle is being overplayed in the media.

It was either ETA or Al Qaeda.

Yeh sure groups like ETA had close links with other groups like the IRA and Palestinian groups in the past but they had ideological similarities.They were all separatists.

Al Qaeda is a totally different animal.It might make common cause with other Islamic groups mainly because they share the same recruitment base but it's aims are really nothing short of a restructuring of the world as we know it and not it's compatable to the aims of ETA which is just a separate homeland.

ETA may have possibly learnt lessons from Al Qaeda that in todays world big impact draws more attention but I really doubt they are in cahoots.

Here is some interesting bits on ETA and maybe this disproves that 'they-ETA' is or was behind this?

"Madrid bombings carry al-Qaida hallmark"
www.upi.com...

Excerpt:

"For starters the Brussels-based World Observatory of Terrorism, an independent think tank affiliated with the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center, points to five major reasons that cast doubt on the involvement of ETA.

First, ETA generally warns Spanish authorities moments before launching their attacks in which civilians are likely to be harmed. This, obviously, was not the case on Thursday.

Second, ETA traditionally targets representatives of the government or the administration, such as policemen, the military, magistrates or even journalists who oppose them.

Third, ETA customarily selects "symbolic" targets, such as military barracks and administrative buildings. Although ETA's largest attack to date was in 1987 against a supermarket in Barcelona that killed 21 people, this was the exception rather than the norm.

Fourth, ETA always claims its attacks. Following any ETA bombing, ETA militants call in a claim to Spanish authorities. This failed to happen this time.

Fifth, ETA has never in the past carried out multiple attacks. According to some sources, at least 10 bombs were detonated almost simultaneously on Thursday.

On the other hand, these murderous attacks bear the traditional hallmark of al-Qaida: multiple bombs detonating a few seconds apart and programmed to cause the largest possible number of human casualties.

Again, according to the World Observatory of Terrorism, several elements seem to point to the "International Jihad Movement."

So, in essence, maybe the reverse of what I mentioned happened: Al-Qaeda aided indirectly or indirectly by ETA?
And yes, I am aware that Al-Qaeda has and had claimed responsibility previously.
I do think there is no 100% to Al-Qaeda doing this yet though.



regards
seekerof

[Edited on 11-3-2004 by Seekerof]

ETA is denying they were involved in the attacks:

Arnaldo Otegi (leader of Basque political party): What we want to make absolutely clear is that the Basque nationalist left do not even contemplate the possibility that ETA was behind what happened today in Madrid.
What we can make absolutely clear is that in neither the objective nor the modus operandi can it be said that ETA was behind this.
We want to show without any shadow of a doubt our full solidarity with all the victims and their families, and with the people and the workers of Madrid.
We also want to clearly demonstrate our full and absolute rejection of what has happened today.

What the # is going on in the world, I can't even imagine how and why someone would become a terrorist and kill that many innocent humans.

I'm from Denmark and yesterday I was driving home from a funeral (Sadly everyone dies around the world at the time, even my family, just not from terror) Well I heard it at the radio.

So many deaths, so many wounden, babies and children. Can it get more sad ? (Beside from WTC).

Actually all I wanted was to give out my sympatie to the families and all the people involved down there in Spain.

So sad someone is so f*cked up, that they do this s**t. Why not send out assasins to kill those bastards...

So sad... If all this terror continues then I think it could be real for the world to end in 2012 like the Mayans calender COULD be meaning... If not before...

-Quane

This brigade has in the past claimed responsibility for the US power outages and numerous bombings later proved to be the work of others. I can't find a single instance of them being the chief suspects in a terrorist attack, and it seems very possible that this brigade is just some palestinian kid with a hotmail account.

OTOH, as ETA's core [old] membership are depleted, persecuted and prosecuted, this kind of indiscriminate bombing becomes much more likely, especially in the light of recent ETA videos showing a lot of young blood. A splinter cell would be my first and best guestimate.

"Cars of death" and "operation death train"; anyone with a familiarity of arabic tell me whether these phrases can be/are interchangeable?

this stinks of cia ten co-ordinated blasts, the van with koranic teachings found near the scene the letter to an arab based news network saying a large attack on america soon remember they are having elections soon and what did their general in the pentagon say if there is another large attack in america they will declare martial law this stinks also if i remember correctly was not the french checking every bit of their railway last week after they issued a warning regardiing an attack on their rail network , sorry something not right, the staged appearance of the king on spanish tv then the prime minister in the uk looking like he did on sept 11th lying through his teeth he knew this was coming they all did i wonder what draconin measures the spanish will have implemented on then come to think of it what will our givernment in england do to gain political favour out of this
al queda= cia = new world order = usa,uk,france,germany,holland,belgium,spain,portugal,italy,russia need i go on

go back to sleep world your gevernment will protect you.

By the way the time between the american attack and the spain attack (accounting for time zones) is 911 days.

what about a link between the recent bomb threats to french rail networks(10 bombs) by a group called AZF, same name as a chemical plant in france that exploded 10 days after sept 11, french locals think it was a terrorist attack....?

www.guardian.co.uk...

www.100megsfree4.com...

this was definatly not eta it was the bush blair cabal up to their old tricks again did u know it has been 911 days since the world trade centre con this has esoteric skull and bones freemasonary all over it

go back to sleep world your government will protect you

I've posted this elsewhere in the forum but I'll post it again here.

news.bbc.co.uk...

"Two suspected members of Basque separatist group Eta have been arrested as they headed to Madrid in a truck laden with explosives.
Spanish police said they were arrested early on Sunday about 140km outside the Spanish capital, with 500kg of explosives hidden in the vehicle.
Government officials believe the men were planning an attack in the lead-up to Spain's general election"


And then the evidence that Al Qaeda had nothing to do with this attack.

"At Christmas, Spanish authorities foiled a plot to blow up trains at a Madrid rail station.
Two bombs, including a 25-kilo (50 lb) device, were intercepted and two men arrested before they reached the capital."

This was the work of ETA.

Originally posted by Britman
GanjaGoddess, Good spot

I never took that into account.

Now I'm thinking that it'll be Germany tomorrow 12th, London Saturday 13th, France Sunday 14th and then New York 15th.
Nevermind just a wondering mind and no real theory behind this.

Britman,
I guess it wasnt such a good spot afterall. I shouldnt trust those pesky date calculators.. after seeing someone else on the site work this out.. it does seem kosher.

Congrats on being the first one to spot this.

As to my theories, as mentioned above, found this rather old article, while doing some 'digging' this morning dated October 2001, that may bear relevance to this discussion:

"In Spain: ETA and Al-Qaeda Forge New Anti-EU Alliance"
www.ncmonline.com...

Excerpt:

"The Basque terrorist organization ETA and bin Laden's al-Qaeda cells have joined forces. Their shared goal: to organize and carry out an attack on the EU meeting scheduled for March 2002 in Barcelona, according to two Spanish publications, Tiempo and El Mundo.

According to the reports, which have been confirmed by Italian and French media, representatives of the two terrorist organizations have already met together three times in Brussels in December 2000; in Malaga, Spain in February 2001; and in Barcelona last July.

According to the European reports, the terrorists have planned a suicide attack on the meeting that would entail the use of five car bombs provided by ETA, and delivered by five al-Qaeda suicide drivers. European authorities consider this news credible, and have disclosed that Mohammed Atta--one of the terrorists responsible for the early September attack on the World Trade Center--may have also attended the July meeting between ETA and al-Qaeda in Barcelona.

In its report, Tiempo revealed that, thanks to a tip-off by US Navy intelligence, Spanish authorities were able to prevent another al-Qaeda attack last December. This one would have involved striking American aircraft carriers with suicide vessels filled with the deadly explosive C-4. The attack--like the assault on the USS Cole in a Yemeni port--was scheduled to take place as the two aircraft carriers would have readied to moor at NATO's Rota navy base near Cadiz. The suicide motor boats would have departed from the nearby coast of Morocco, a country with a significant Muslim population."


Connection? Circumstantial, as those who say that the evidence 'connecting' Saddam and Al-Qaeda is likewise?
Nonetheless, the article is a very good read.



regards
seekerof

Good find Seekerof.
But I find it far more plausible that Eta would work with European terrorist groups.

www.rte.ie...

There is also the possibility that Eta has contacts with FARC. Not such a massive step of logic when you consider history.

www.guardian.co.uk...


I think it highly unlikely for Eta to have teamed up with Al Qaeda. For one, Al Qaeda do not like working with non-Muslim organisations. I understand the comparisons with Saddam but he was a Mulim.
Secondly, the adverse propaganda this pairing would generate for Eta would alienate them from their own Basque powerbase.

Foxnews is reporting that the analysis of the unexploded bombs shows it is not typical for ETA. It seems most of the reporting is saying no ETA, not sure about Al Queda as the group that claimed on their behalf has limited credibility.

We may never know for sure, remember the Croatians claimed the 93 WTC bombing, turned out to be wrong...

If Eta has been hit as hard as the Spanish government and media reports have stated recently, thier supply lines may also have suffered. Their usual types of detonator may be unobtainable from their old sources. They may have had to look elsewhere for thier hardware.

Linking up with other terrorist organisations may also give another avenue to new materials.
Interestingly, Eta has thought to have recently started obtaining weapons from the Eastern European market which could explain the different type of detonator found.

Spanish sources state that the explosive used was one that Eta has used before though.

Finally, another point.
Al Qaeda have only struck targets using suicide bombers. This was not the case with the Madrid bombings.

Ran a search on Abu Hafs al-Masri...
Came on this:

"Profile: Abu Hafs al-Masri"
english.aljazeera.net...

Interesting that Abu Hafs daughter is married to Bin Ladin's son. This group is also supposedly responsible for the Turkish synagogue attacks/bombings.

You don't think that Al-Qaeda has begun 'out-sourcing', eh? Maybe as indicated by this article:

"What we have seen.....represents the likely future of "al Qaeda" operations; some attacks will continue to be planned by the terrorist organization itself; other attacks will be carried out by affiliate groups acting in the name of al Qaeda, and additional operations will be executed by local jihadists who have little or no connection to al Qaeda except in terms of ideology. The latter is perhaps the most worrying development because it suggests that al Qaeda has successfully turned itself from an organization into a mass movement, a movement that has been energized by the war in Iraq."
www.peterbergen.com...

Thoughts?



regards
seekerof

I don't know wether you could actually call it outsourcing but there have been instances where groups have committed atrocities and claimed them in Al Qaeda'a name. The group that conducted the Bali bombing is just one example of this. I would say that this was a case of "insourcing" rather than outsourcing.

I believe that the organisational structure of Al Qaeda leaves a very broad interpretation of wether or not an attack is carried out in their name. For example, the Indonesian group which carried out the Bali bombing was already fighting it's own government and just happened to be Muslims. The target was one that was mutually pleasing to both itself and Al Qaeda. By claiming Al Qaeda involvement they also managed to gain worldwide publicity for their cause and this, after all, is what one of the chief aims of terrorism is.
Apart from the 9/11 attacks, nearly everything else that has been carried out in Al Qaeda's name has been perpetrated by groups which are already formed and which are already involved in terrorist acts elsewhere.
There are exceptions - the Kenyan hotel bombings come to mind, but these seem to have been carried out by directly affiliated Al Qaeda members. All groups so far have Muslim origins.

Al Qaeda does specify targets it wants attacking but so far we haven't really seen anything come of those requests. Most of the terrorist groups under it's umbrella already have more important targets on their agendas and unless there is a mutual aim that over-rides the domestic aim I think all major Al Qaeda attacks have to be carried out by core members.

I'm highly skeptical that the Islamic extremist group claiming responsibility for the Madrid bombings is involved in any way. This is the same group that denied the recent bomb attacks in Iraq, which in my view, it was involved in, and claims responsibility for attacks on the West - one of which was proven to not even be a terrorist incident at all.

Abu Hafs al-Masri is definitely a threat but I believe that it is tied up with the situation in Iraq and does not have the resources to be able to mount such an operation in the West at this time. It's claim to this atrocity has already been widely dismissed.

Couple of points:

1. I heard somewhere this was the same explosives ETA operatives had been busted with recently. Apparently there is some kind of forensic fingerprint where this could be confirmed. Now obviously domestic terrorist groups like ETA, IRA etc sit on a stockpile of arms so could this be a case of them just supplying the explosives to an Al Quaeda cell?

2. This just seems way over the normal level of violence for ETA, No warning, rush hour, simultaneous attacks all designed for maximum deaths. Also its seems like a larger attack than, judging from previous bombings their capabilities might be (especially if we presume this might be a more extreme splinter group).

3. Hmmm the van with koran and detonators, they sure are careless these islamic fundamentalists.

It all seems VERY suspicous to me, ive got a feeling this is going to stink like the Oklahoma city bombing.

What would be a great outcome of this for the NWO agenda is a joint operation between ETA and Al Quaeda (foreign even better) for the reason of introducing EU wide patriot act style legislation, possibly even setting up an EU homeland defence organisation.
I reckon in the near future we'll be hearing about Al Quaeda cells from UK/France/Germany working with ETA to carry out these attacks.
Multiple ruthless organisations from different countries would of course require an omni-potent multi-lateral force to fight it. [/paranoidspeculation]