AP: Madrid Bombing, 9/11 Suspect Linked

[DoYouEverWonder]

Yahoo News

Mar 14, 2004

MADRID, Spain - One of the three Moroccans arrested in the Madrid train bombings is linked to a man jailed in Spain for allegedly helping plan the Sept. 11 attack in the United States, according to court documents reviewed by The Associated Press. It was the latest suggestion that Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al-Qaida terrorist group may have been involved in the bombings.

A Sept. 17, 2003 indictment named Jamal Zougam, 30, as a "follower" of Imad Yarkas, who was jailed for allegedly helping plan the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. Zougam has been arrested in the Madrid bombings. Yarkas, who has used the alias Abu Dahdah, remains in Spanish custody.

The indictment, led by Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon, showed police had searched Zougam's home twice. One search turned up a video of mujaheddin fighters in Dagestan, Russia.

Zougam is one of three Moroccans and two Indians arrested in the Thursday attacks, which killed 200 people and wounded 1,500. Officials said phones were apparently used as detonators on the 10 bombs that tore through four rush-hour trains.

[yardwork]

1. Good thing we whupped Saddam

or something like this might have happened. I mean, good thing we prevented any more terrorist attacks when we took out Saddam. That is, I mean to say, um......

Saddam was bad, m'kay?

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

2. Yeah, I feel safer.... lots safer now.

[Jacobin]

3. The distorted reasoning of the junta

is being writ large in blood around the world.

I'll be sooooo glad when I don't have to listen to Condisleeza, Rumfilled, Colon, Smirky, et al anymore. God I'll be happy.

November, get here FAST

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. Does anyone have a list of the major terrorist attacks

around the world since 9-11?

I bet we've had more major terroist attacks since 9-11, than in the 10 years previous. Yet Bu$hCo has the balls to claim that their foreign policy is so successful. I guess that depends on how you define success?

[JaySherman]

5. You're absolutely correct

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4524543/

A former senior counterterrorism official in the Bush administration points out that "there have been more major terror attacks in the 30 months since 9/11 than in the 30 months before. I think we may have cut off Al Qaeda's head, but the rest of the body is working fine and has spawned 10 more smaller heads."

[Roaming]

6. Perhaps that is true, but how much worse could it have been

had we done absolutely nothing? Could we have had MORE attacks than we had, or worse? I think that is something to ponder. It's impossible to stop all attacks. At least no more planes have been hijacked...

[rfkrocks]

7. One wonders if we used the resources we did in going to war with Iraq

into dealing with al queda we wpould be more secure unless you believe Sadam was somehow linked to 9/11 which is true grassy knoll stuff.

[JaySherman]

8. The phrase "Stirred up a hornet's nest" comes to mind.

Combine that with the resources that could have been put to more effective use elsewhere which will be required in the coming years to clean up that mess, and invading Iraq was the worst possible thing we could have done.

But then that was what we tried to warn people about wasn't it? Too bad the * Administration doesn't do "focus groups."

[Roaming]

10. I think the hornet's nest analogy is a good one, but the nest is already

"stirred up" -- terrorists hate, and hate is what's stirring them up. Whether we do nothing (as we did before 911) or do something (as after 911), they will still hate us and attempt terrorism. I believe they hate us much, much more for who we ARE than what we DO.

That said, probably the biggest thing we DO that they hate is support Israel, the tiniest and only democratically elected nation in the entire region. Should we cow-tow to what we think they want from us, just so they won't be mad at us anymore and stop supporting Israel? After that, what will they demand for our "safety?"

[rfkrocks]

11. Your watching way too much Fox News dude-

You talk in circles about the hate stuff without using reason and looking at things geopolitically-Iraq made this worse because we spread our military for nothing but the AWOL in chief's vanity-he of the plastic turkey that is-Israel and the US do not always have the same foreign policy desire-lets talk about a democratic Egypt -is that friendly to Israel-i don't think so-calling the Iraq war a battle against terrorism is plain wrong. Bush out the door in 04

[prodigal_green]

13. before 9-11?

Clinton did a lot to stop terrorists prior to 9-11. He was obsessed with it. I lived less than a mile from a "hornets' nest" in Brooklyn that had been planning to blow up the bridges and tunnels in NYC one fourth of July. That event never happened because resources went into finding and arresting those people after the WTC was hit in 1993 (which clinton did NOT blame on Bush I endlessly). Also, in 1999, proper resources were mobilized to avert a bombing during the millenium celebration in Seattle. I'm sure there were plenty of others that we didn't hear about as well. There were no terrorist bombing (on edit--foreign terrorism, forgot about OK City--that was a right-wing nut job) on US soil until AFTER Clinton was gone. Wonder why?

Do we have any evidence of any specific plot being averted by this administration? No, just a random roundup of muslim-looking men.

[pinto]

9. couldn't we have found and arrested al-Qaeda suspects b4 attack Iraq?

or tracked down and choked the Saudi money trail? or worked with EU authorities on their leads about al-Qaeda network? or kept the world wide support we were given after the 9/11 attacks? or ....let the sanctions work, as they were, and isolate Saddam's "regime", actually support the oil for food program and support UN efforts in Iraq.....too much to ask for, I presume. Turns out, though, takeover's pretty easy for a military of our expertise. Occupation is something different. It can make you go aggghhhh.....at least Busboy got Saddam - yeah, right.

[DoYouEverWonder]

12. Who is suggesting to do absolutely nothing?

I don't think anyone around here would ever suggest such a thing but invading other countries in a half assed fashion doesn't seem to be working and so far we lost over 700 US troops in the process.

I think I could come up with plenty of more effective way to deal with terrorism other than invading countries like Iraq that had little to do with al Qaeda and a color coded terror alert system that is a total joke.

[mallard]

15. Re: we'll never get to find out...

.... what it would have been like now if there weren't some 15,000 dead Iraqis, the streets of Baghdad were still safe and sound AND if we had saved the 120 billion or so spent on this fiasco to date.

To suggest that things could be worse if we hadn't gone and fabricated two wars over the 9/11 Attack (instead of truly solving that crime) is wildly speculative.

So - you apparently back the administration on all of this!

Let me guess: you're a Lieberman supporter.

Go ahead - tell me I'm wrong.

[teryang]

14. The Dagestan link is troubling

...because it suggests (while not proving) that perhaps extrinsic intelligence agencies seeking to exacerbate the chechnya situation could be behind these "terrorists." One of the brutal leaders involved in the senseless Dagestan invasion was reported to have been CIA sponsored.

[Moderator]

16. kick

..