What Spain's Arrests of Al Zarqawi Associates and Madrid Bombing Suspects Portend for Europe & U.S.
By Andrew Cochran
Walid Phares and I discussed the arrests of 11 Al Zarqawi associates and 5 Madrid bombing suspects yesterday on MSNBC - you can read the interview transcript and see the video on the MSNBC site. The stories on the Spanish Interior Ministry's statement on the arrests reveal the links between the arrests and how the Al Zarqawi group in Iraq and African jihadists are operating in a coordinated fashion, as has been discussed by Contributing Experts Doug Farah, Evan Kohlmann, and Lorenzo Vidino, and also discussed openly this week by a senior military official. Thirteen of the 16 suspects were Moroccans, and at least two of the other suspects were Algerians. This is consistent with the makeup of the core Madrid bombing group of Moroccans and Algerians. The prime suspect among the 5 arrested Madrid suspects, Mohamed Larbi Ben Sellam, was arrested in the same town as one of the Al Zarqawi suspects. Most of the 11 Al Zarqawi suspects were involved in funding operations through street crime (i.e., drugs and robberies), which is consistent not only with the Madrid bombers but also with the activities of three Al Zarqawi associates arrested in Germany this week. Remember that the Algerian GSPC terrorist group has longtime ties to Al Qaeda, has attempted numerous terrorist attacks in Europe and the U.S. (including the Millenium plot), and expressed solidarity with Al Zarqawi months ago. So the arrests in Spain reveal further coordination of Al Zarqawi's network with African-centered terrorist groups with plenty of recruits and operational experience - a recipe for future terrorist hell for Europe and the U.S. The arrests in Spain and Germany also further highlight that Islamic terrorists use under-the-radar mechanisms, outside of banking channels, to finance their operations, and further highlights, as Victor Comras notes below, the U.N.'s current failure as a effective counterterrorism forum. UPDATE: Rusty Shackleford reminds me that Al Zarqawi congratulated the GSPC yesterday for their Mauritania attacks.
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