Zitat:Moroccan Extremists Named in Madrid Probe
Tue Mar 30, 5:37 PM ET

By MAR ROMAN, Associated Press Writer

MADRID, Spain - The Spanish government named a Moroccan extremist group linked to al-Qaida as the main focus of the Madrid bombing probe and said Tuesday that investigators were making swift progress
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Zitat:Judge Charges Two More Madrid Suspects
Mon Mar 29, 9:32 PM ET Add Top Stories - AP to My Yahoo!

By MARIA JESUS PRADES

MADRID, Spain - A Spanish judge charged two more suspects in the Madrid bombings early Tuesday as the incoming Socialist government, facing international pressure over plans to withdraw troops from Iraq (news - web sites), doubled its deployment to Afghanistan (news - web sites).
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Zitat:Madrid Names Suspected Terrorist Leader
1 hour, 13 minutes ago

By MARIA JESUS PRADES, Associated Press Writer

MADRID, Spain - Investigators believe that a Tunisian being sought under an international arrest warrant is the leader of the group suspected in the March 11 railway bombings in Madrid, according to court documents released Thursday.
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Zitat:Bomb Found on Rail Line in Spain
2 hours, 51 minutes ago

By DANIEL WOOLLS, Associated Press Writer

MADRID, Spain - Police found a bomb Friday under the tracks of Spain's bullet train line between Madrid and Seville, the interior minister said, less than a month after a deadly commuter rail attack. Bomb-disposal experts alerted by a railway employee found the 26-pound bomb about 40 miles south of Madrid, Interior Minister Angel Acebes said.
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Zitat:TERROR

Al-Qaida droht Spanien mit neuen Anschlägen

Das Terrornetzwerk al-Qaida droht Spanien angeblich mit neuen Anschlägen. Die spanischen Zeitungen berichten heute von einem Brief an die Botschaft des Landes in Kairo, in dem weitere Attentate angekündigt werden. US-Behörden fürchten ähnliche Anschläge wie jüngst in Madrid auch in ihrem Land.
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Zitat:Bei der Explosion einer Bombe während einer Großrazzia gegen mutmaßliche islamische Terroristen sind am Samstag in einem Vorort von Madrid vier Menschen getötet worden. Bei den Opfern handele es sich um einen Polizisten sowie drei mutmaßliche Extremisten, die sich selbst in die Luft gesprengt hätten, teilte Innenminister Angel Acebes am Abend mit. (...)

Zitat:RAZZIA IN MADRID

Tunesischer Terror-Planer starb bei der Explosion

Sie schrien "Allah ist groß", dann explodierte die Bombe: Vier mutmaßliche Terroristen starben, als Spezialeinheiten in der Nacht ein Haus bei Madrid stürmen wollten. Unter den Toten sei der Rädelsführer der Attacken vom 11. März, sagt Spaniens Innenminister.
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Zitat:Tiger postete
Hoffen wir, daß durch diesen Vorfall weitere Terroranschläge in Spanien, und wenn auch nur vorerste, abgewendet wurden. Es spricht sehr viel dafür, daß die Terroristen noch weitere Anschläge in Spanien geplant hatten.

Zitat:Spanish railway bomb linked to Madrid blasts
Railway bomb made of same explosives used in Madrid attack, minister says

MADRID, Spain (AP) - Interior Minister Angel Acebes confirmed today that the bomb found at a high-speed rail line a day earlier was made of the same type of explosives used in the Madrid terror bombings.
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Zitat:Terrorists can't be bought off - as Spain discovers
(Filed: 03/04/2004)


It is worth taking a moment to consider what might have happened but for the attentiveness of Spain's Civil Guards, who yesterday removed a bomb from an AVE train between Madrid and Seville. Today's newspapers might have been filled with the story of a new carnage, photographs of more weeping relatives, renewed commitments by politicians that such things must never happen again.
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This is a grim conclusion to reach and, not surprisingly, people are periodically tempted to think that they can somehow remove the threat. Spain collectively made such a decision 72 hours after the Madrid bombs, when it voted, in effect, to pull out of the coalition in Iraq.

It would not be entirely fair to say that Spain voted for appeasement - many Spaniards wanted a change anyway, others were angry at what they thought was a government cover-up - but at least some had made the calculation that, by turfing out Jose Maria Aznar's Atlanticist regime, they would make themselves less of a target.

Such an attitude, as has been widely observed inside and outside Spain, is morally wrong. Equally, though, it is intellectually wrong.
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As Kipling put it nearly a hundred years ago: And that is called paying the Dane-geld; But we've proved it again and again, That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld You never get rid of the Dane.
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But governments do not need to respond this way. The Italians did not seek to negotiate with the Red Brigades, nor the Germans with the Baader-Meinhof gang. Indeed, to their credit, the Spanish had traditionally insisted on finding a security rather than a political solution to Eta violence. Though it pains us to say so, the election of March 14 is as much an encouragement to Eta as to al-Qa'eda: they have seen, as have republican and loyalist paramilitaries in this country, that terrorism sometimes works.
Better by far to have replied, with Kipling: "We never pay anyone Dane-geld, no matter how trifling the cost; for the end of that game is oppression and shame, and the nation that plays it is lost!"

Zitat:Spain 'was warned of more attacks'
By Tony Jeffries in Seville
(Filed: 04/04/2004)


An Islamic terror group linked to al-Qa'eda warned Spain after the Madrid train bombings that it would come under fresh attack unless its troops were withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan within four weeks.

A Spanish diplomat confirmed last night that a letter signed by the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, warning of further attacks on Spanish interests in North Africa and the southern Mediterranean, was sent to the country's embassy in Cairo.
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Zitat:Shahab3 posteteSiehe Spanien ! Diese Terrorgruppe hat heute gesagt, daß sie Spanien in Ruhe lassen werden, weil sie ihre Soldaten abgezogen haben. Krieg vorbei !

Zitat:Terror group warns Spain on U.S. support
MADRID, Spain (AP) — Police patrolled subway and bus stations Monday in the Spanish capital, and a newspaper said an Islamic group that claimed responsibility for the March 11 bombings had threatened to turn Spain into "an inferno."
Court officials said two additional suspects were arrested Saturday in a Madrid suburb and the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on the Moroccan coast in connection with the commuter train attacks in which 191 people were killed.
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Zitat:Spaniards say war makes them a target
Katrin Bennhold/IHT IHT

Many want nothing to do with Iraq

MADRID Still shaken by the March 11 train bombings and the discovery of further plots to bomb the city since then, people here increasingly blame the American-led war in Iraq, fought with the support of the outgoing center-right government, for making Spain the focus of Islamist militants.
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But now, many in Spain say they do not think about a UN mandate when they talk about the need to withdraw troops. They say they think about avoiding more terrorist attacks, leaving the new government's motive for a possible pullout uncomfortably out of line with views on the street. It also makes it more vulnerable to criticism from abroad, notably from some Americans, that Spaniards are appeasing terrorists by demanding a troop withdrawal.
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