You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Europe
Aznar Denies Madrid Bombs Were Linked to Iraq War
2004-11-30
Former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar said yesterday that Islamic militants had tried to use the Madrid train bombings to oust the pro-US ruling party from power, but not because of its support for the Iraq war. "These attacks were being prepared long before the Iraq war. They were not the result of the Iraq war even though many people said so," Aznar said in combative testimony to a parliamentary commission probing the attacks. The March 11 bombings aboard four packed commuter trains killed 191 people and wounded 1,900 three days before a general election, and Aznar's mistaken placing of blame on the Basque separatist movement ETA was widely believed to have helped the anti-war Socialist opposition on polling day. Had ETA been responsible, it could have helped Aznar in the election by seeming to justify his hard line against the group. The Madrid bombers — mostly North Africans who investigators say were waging a holy war against the West — made videotapes claiming the attacks in the name of Al-Qaeda in Europe and said they were seeking revenge for Spain's dispatch of troops to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Posted by:Fred

#13  Why not? The IRA had close ties to Colombian rebels, trained if I'm not mistaken in Libya as well. Make no mistake: terrorists are political whores. Their political agenda is always secondary to the agenda of hatred and violence.
Posted by: lex   2004-11-30 6:01:19 PM  

#12  I forgot to mention that many leads point towards a joint operation between ETA and Islamists. Testimonies of prison guards also point towards
friendly contacts between ETA and Islamist immates.
Posted by: JFM   2004-11-30 5:44:12 PM  

#11  Many thanks indeed, JFM. This looks like it's developing into a very hot topic.

Barcepundit links to this Guardian piece I missed last Sunday. Categorises the claimed ETA-links as a 'right-wing conspiracy theory' but does at least cover the story.
Posted by: Bulldog   2004-11-30 2:54:24 PM  

#10  merci beaucoup, JFM
Posted by: lex   2004-11-30 2:33:44 PM  

#9  You can find an English relation of the disturbing facts related to 3/11 at http://barcepundit-english.blogspot.com/2004/11/former-prime-minister-jose-maria-aznar.html
and at
ttp://barcepundit-english.blogspot.com/2004/09/march-11-commission-will-have-extended.html


For those you who can read Spanish, the better source is at http://elmundo.es (Main stream newspaper, who is not specially conservative) but
you will have to dig in the site. Also in Spanish you have http://libertaddigital.com (conservative pro-US and pro-Bush) but it is second hand and in fact it bases its articles about 3-11 on the papers published by El Mundo.

Ah, use the Spanish tell 11-M when referring to that day so use this string when searching in the El Mundo or Libertad Digital sites.
Posted by: JFM   2004-11-30 2:30:39 PM  

#8  John in Tokyo: John in Barcelona has some interesting information along those lines, mostly from Aznar's testimony.
Posted by: Angie Schultz   2004-11-30 1:44:37 PM  

#7  JFM, are you aware of any Spanish or other journalists pursuing this line of investigation? Any links to same?

If not, this yet another reason that bloggers need to develop their own sourcing and reporting capabilities.
Posted by: lex   2004-11-30 1:25:59 PM  

#6  To people who don't speak Spanish. Here are some things who are generally not known out of Spain
To summarize it: Aznar didn't lie, Socialists and MSM did and manipulated public opinion. It also appears that elements of Spanish spolice knew before hand something was going on.


1) EVERYONE in Spain thought initially it was ETA. Even its closest sympathisers. BTW: ETA has made several tries at mass terrorism. One of them involved the sinking of a ferry with 1400 persons on it. Until now it has ever failed but not for lack of trying.

2) The police fed the government pointing towards ETA. One of them being the kind of explosives (Titadyine used by ETA who has several tons of it) later it told it was Goma-2 (no longer used by ETA). Problem. It seems they smell completely different so it is very strange the explosive experts didn't make the differnece

3) The government told the press about the islamist clues less than three hours after discovered by police.it.

4) The Cadena SER (a radio and TV network linked
to the socialist party) got important informations from the police well before the government.

5) I told about islamist clues. It was a white van with explosives in it and tapes of "Initiation to Coran". But the van had been already been searched by town police (ie not state police), sniffed by a trained dog and nothing had been found

6) The Cadena SER hammered and hammered that one of the bodies showed the marks of a suicide bombing. It was false. But it was repeated continuously.

7) The Cadena SER made a special about "spontaneous" demonstrarions in front of the Popular Party building. They weren't spontaneous of course but the off voice repeated and repeated and repeated it was. Until it convnced the Spnaih people.

8) The guy who provided the explosives (a non-Muslim common criminal) and most people involved in the bombing were police informants.
It is known that several of these informants had told their controllers about having provided important quantities of explosives and a big bombing in preparation. Now the interesting part is that their controllers were close to the Socialist party, had been involved in the GAL (illegal assassinations of people vclose to ETA during a precedent socialist government) and had been promoted since 3-11

9) In the afternoon of 3-11, two very important members of the socialist party (I think they are ministers now) travelled 100 miles out of Madrid to meet the former director of the Guardia Civil who is serving aprison time for corruption and involvement in the GAL. With the elections three days away and jsu a few hours after the bombings they spent severla hours in a trip to visit a prisonner, a very special prisoner who has been involved in black operations.
Posted by: JFM   2004-11-30 1:17:18 PM  

#5  Whatever happened to Bambi's promise to withdraw Spanish troops "unless power is transferred to the Iraqis"? Seems we upheld our part of the deal in July. So where's the parliamentary investigation into Bambi's patent breach of faith?
Posted by: lex   2004-11-30 12:11:15 PM  

#4  The question isn't whether it had to do with Iraq. It did.

AFAICR, the planning for the Madrid murders began LONG before Iraq. I suspect the bombing had much, much more to do with the "occupation" of Andalucia than Iraq.
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2004-11-30 8:26:02 AM  

#3  The article goes on to say:

"He defended his decision initially to blame the train bombings on ETA and said his political opponents had yet to turn up a “smoking gun” to prove that his government lied. Aznar testified repeatedly that police commanders all believed ETA was the prime suspect until the election eve. “My conscience is clear...we told the truth about what we knew,” he said."

According to the Telegraph, Aznar still believes there may have been ETA participation:

"When asked if he still believed Eta was connected to those responsible for the attack, Mr Aznar replied: 'I am not the only one who thinks it from what I hear and read. Today we know enough for me to say in this commission: I ask for this connection to be investigated.'"

And apparently in Spain you can rock the Government by merely stating the blindingly obvious:

"The claim of a link between the bombings and the election outcome was an attempt by Mr Aznar to 'destabilise' the new government, the Socialist deputy, Diego Lopez Garrido, said. 'That's an enormously serious accusation.'"
Posted by: Bulldog   2004-11-30 6:10:00 AM  

#2  In the immediate aftermath of the Madrid bombings EVERYONE was saying it was ETA. I recall it well because I (and I recall Barbara S.) got attacked at RB (by several prominent contributors) for pointing out it was a jihadist MO.
Posted by: phil_b   2004-11-30 5:13:12 AM  

#1  I'm generally very pro-Aznar but I think he's not being as forthright as he ought to be. He bumbled the Atocha bombing by claiming publically in the aftermath that it was probably ETA when it had all the hallmarks of a Jihadist operation.

The question isn't whether it had to do with Iraq. It did. The question is whether that means that backing out of Iraq is a good way to appease the terrorists and whether appeasing terrorists is a good thing to do in Iraq or in the larger scheme of things. The answer is obviously not but nobody seems willing to admit that this is the issue.
Posted by: John in Tokyo   2004-11-30 2:38:58 AM  

00:00