International news agency Reuters reports that a van, containing Arabic language tapes and detonators, has been searched close to the scene of today’s mass murders in Spain. So far, the authorities have maintained that the atrocities were the handiwork of terror group ETA, but there could be a possibility that Islamo-fascists had a hand in this affair, possibly even to the point of directing the operations.
The truth is that no-one can be certain for sure, and we must be mindful about jumping to conclusions. But given Spain’s support for the U.S.-led liberation of Iraq, and Spain’s proximity to north Africa, there is a serious possibility that Islamists may have played a part in this.
There is also the worrying thought that terror groups, who have come under growing pressure from law enforcement agencies and the military since 9/11, are becoming more desperate and hence willing to co-operate with those they would have previously ignored.
If true, it makes the sneering article by Simon Jenkins in today’s Spectator, in which he mocks Blair’s concerns over global terror networks and their access to WMDs, not only wrongheaded, but frivolous in the extreme. London, Paris, Berlin or Rome could be next. Nothing to worry about eh, Simple Simon?
A black day for Spain. My heart goes out to the people of that wonderful country.
Al Qaeda of course has a tendency to include statements like “The Andalusian catastrophe must not be repeated” and things like that amongst its rants, so they have issues with Spain. And it would be naive to to think that Al Qaeda doesn’t include Spain in its list of potential targets. And the simultaneous bombs in different places tactic is certainly one Al Qaeda favours.
Plus, ETA has not traditionally mounted terrorism on this scale before, and one wonders what they were trying to achieve precisely. (Presumably the conservatives will win the election, there will be a brutal and bloody crackdown on ETA in the Basque country, and ETA will lose what sympathy it has from most of the Basque people. This has been the pattern in the past, although often a certain amount of sympathy has come back due to the brutality of the Guardia Civil’s response to ETA. Nothing has ever happened on this scale before though). While this could conceivably be Al Qaeda, I still think it is ETA. Perhaps it is an act of desperation from an organisation that was in decline. One way or another though, I think we will know who is responsible before long. There will be evidence left behind from that big an attack.
Spain is just about my favourite country to visit in Europe. I have been to various parts of it, including the Basque country (where I had one of the most enjoyable holidays of my life, to be truthful). It saddens and horrifies me to see something like this happen. Whover is responsible, it is an unspeakably evil act.
A black day for Spain. My heart goes out to the people of that wonderful country.
Quite so.
How does Jenkins have the reputation that he does, given that he is so profoundly ignorant on most of the subjects he writes about, anyway? A year ago, he was telling us that Baghdad would be Stalingrad.
I have to say I thought of al-Qaeda first. Synchronized bombs, high body count. I always associated ETA with kidnappings, killings of officials and car bombings. Nothing of this magnitude.
If it turned out to be Islamic in origin, it will be quite interesting to watch the usual intellectuals conspicuously avoiding the loud questioning they naturally inflicted on the US : “What have they done to deserve this ?”
The estimable Sylvain Gallineau wrote:
I stand corrected. Since the majority opposed it, that made it wrong and therefore, Spain had it coming. I’m afraid I need to take a class in Moral Stupidity 101. A subscription to The Guardian maybe ?
I suspect that al-Quaeda understands very little about the Spanish if they think this sort of thing will make them run away.
Matthew, I would argue they understand European intellectuals pretty well.
The Reconquista still sticks in the arab craw, I mean, how dare the infidel spaniard kick us out of what we have rightfully conquered…
At the risk of being seen as a knuckle-dragging throwback (that’d be a feature, not a bug, to me) I’d just like to remind that the Crusades were counterattacks in the face of islamic conquest that, by the way, failed in their aim over the long term. Bet we could do them much better now.
While this could conceivably be Al Qaeda, I still think it is ETA
I am not very qued up on the ETA modus operandi, but it doesn’t make sense that a terrorist organisation would carry out an attack and then not want to claim responsibility for it. If it was ETA then there must have been an agreement beforehand that Al Qaeda would claim responsibility. Otherwise the latter would simply place its own credibility at risk, since the real perpetrator might want to own up.
The rationale for an agreement between the two organisations might be that it would be politically more damaging to the government if Al Qaeda claimed responsibility. I can see no other reason why the ETA would want to carry out an attack that does nothing to advance its cause in a military sense and has no propaganda spinoff.
Christopher Allbriton wrote a good article titled Who’s to blame?
It’s Stephen Pollard, I think, who has a useful rule-of-thumb: anything Simon Jenkins writes is total, unmitigated cobblers and can safely be ignored.
An update. In its editorial, Le Monde writes : “Nothing, no cause, no context, no so-called political objective, can justify any form of terrorism”.
Well, no shit. Quite disgustingly, the song was rather different after 9/11, when the victims were Americans. Or maybe it’s part of the ritual. A few days of saying the right things, which will be followed by sanctimonious lecturing on the consequences of following mad George W. Bush in his imperial conquests.
The editorial concludes : “If it didn’t know it, it knows it now : Europe is part of the hyper-terrorism battlefield”. I am sure the families of the victims will be glad to know it took this slaughter for Le Monde to figure this one out.
Mr Galineau –
Please enlighten me as to what Le Monde said after 9-11.