Extracted from a longer article. The guy quoted here, named as Saad al-Fagui, is actually Saad al-Faqih, the head of the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia, an al-Qaeda front organization. He’s also been remarkably up-front about the group’s alliance with Iran and Saudi backing in recent interviews.
Mr Acebes yesterday cast doubt on a letter purporting to come from al-Qaeda that claimed responsibility for the train bombings. "I myself have talked today with the British interior minister [David Blunkett] and [others, and] they all call very much into question the credibility of that communique and therefore we have to be very cautious about it," he said. But some Muslims who closely follow the terrorist network said the statement was authentic.
Closely following should be understood in the literal sense in the case of al-Faqih.
"The strategy of al-Qaeda is to punish anybody who has helped America," said Saad al-Fagui, a London-based Saudi dissident who has detailed knowledge of Islamist groups. He said al-Qaeda probably launched the attacks, and that the wording of the statement suggested it was genuine and that al-Qaeda was responsible for the attacks. But he rejected the suggestion made by some US officials that al-Qaeda may have allied itself with Eta. "For ideological, tactical and security reasons al-Qaeda never works with anybody else, because they fear they might be infiltrated by security services. They don’t like to relax their ideology, which is why they never dealt with Saddam Hussein," he said. Al-Qaeda and its affiliates had become increasingly adept at concealing their intentions from security services, he added.
| That's an interesting collection of half, quarter, third, and other fraction truths... |
European intelligence officials also reject the idea of a link between al-Qaeda and Eta. "It’s lunacy to think along those lines. It would be the death-knell of Eta, and there is absolutely no evidence of linkage between them," said an intelligence officer with extensive knowledge of Spain. He said no evidence had emerged linking Eta in the past with the Algerian Islamic group the GIA, some of whose supporters later joined al-Qaeda. |