The Al Qaeda cell in Spain is old and well established. Mo-hamed Atta, the commander of the September 11 attacks, came to Spain twice in 2001. The second time was in July, for a meeting in the coastal resort of Salou, which appears to have been arranged as a final go-ahead for the attacks. After September 11, Spanish police estimated that there were three hundred Islamic radicals in the country who might be affiliated with Al Qaeda. Even before then, members of the Spanish cell had been monitored by police agencies, as is evident from the abundant use of wiretaps and surveillance information in indictments that were issued in November 2001, when eleven suspects were charged with being Al Qaeda members-the first of several terrorist roundups. And yet, according to Spanish police officials, at the time of the Madrid attacks there was not a single Arabic-speaking intelligence agent in the country. Al Qaeda was simply not seen as a threat to Spain. "We never believed we were a real target," a senior police official said. "That's the reality."
At four o'clock on Saturday afternoon, sixty hours after the attacks and the day before the elections, Interior Minister Acebes announced the arrest of Jamal Zougam and two other Moroccans.
Still, he continued to point at ETA. But by now the Socialists were publicly accusing the government of lying about the investigation in order to stay in power.
Polls opened the next morning at nine. Thirty-five million people voted, more than 77 percent of the electorate, 8 percent more than expected. Many were young, first-time voters, and their votes put the Socialists over the top. As Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero declared victory, he again condemned the war in Iraq and reiterated his intention to withdraw troops.
Four days later, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, a group claiming affiliation with Al Qaeda, sent a bombastic message to the London newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi, avowing responsibility for the train bombings. "Whose turn will it be next?" the authors taunt. "Is it Japan, America, Italy, Britain, Saudi Arabia, or Australia?" The message also addressed the speculation that the terrorists would try to replicate their political success in Spain by disrupting the November U.S. elections. "We are very keen that Bush does not lose the upcoming elections," the authors write. Bush's "idiocy and religious fanaticism" are useful, the authors contend, for they stir the Islamic world to action.
On April 2, two weeks after the election, a security guard for the AVE, Spain's high-speed train line, discovered a blue plastic bag beside the tracks forty miles south of Madrid. Inside the bag were twenty-six pounds of Goma-2. Four hundred and fifty feet of cable had been draped across the security fence and attached, incorrectly, to the detonator. Had the bomb gone off when the AVE passed by-at a hundred and eighty m.p.h., carrying twelve hundred passengers- the results could have been far more catastrophic than those of March 11. Spanish citizens asked themselves: If the bombings of March 11 had accomplished the goals set by Al Qaeda, what was the point of April 2?
Gustavo de Aristegui is one of the leaders of the Popular Party in Spain's Basque country. For years, he represented Donostio-San Sebastian, the region's capital, in the Spanish congress. A lawyer and former diplomat, Aristegui has been preoccupied for many years with the rise of Islamic terror. His father was Spain's Ambassador to Lebanon and was killed in Beirut in 1989, when Syrian forces shelled his diplomatic residence.
"Al Qaeda has four different networks," Aristegui told me in Madrid, the day after the Socialists took power. "First, there is the original network, the one that committed 9/11, which uses its own resources and people it has recruited and trained. Then, there is the ad-hoc terrorist network, consisting of franchise organizations that Al Qaeda created-often to replace ones that weren't bloody enough- in countries such as the Philippines, Jordan, and Algeria." The third network, Aristegui said, is more subtle, "a strategic union of like-minded companies." Since February 1998, when Osama bin Laden announced the creation of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Crusaders and Jews-an umbrella organization for Islamist groups from Morocco to China-Al Qaeda has expanded its dominion by making alliances and offering funds. "Hamas is in, or almost in," Aristegui said. "Bin Laden is trying to tempt Hezbollah to join, but they are Shia, and many Sunnis are opposed to them." Finally, there is the fourth network-"imitators, emulators," who are ideologically aligned with Al Qaeda but are less tied to it financially. "These are the ones who committed Madrid," Aristegui said.
Until the Madrid attacks, the Al Qaeda operations-in Dhahran, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Aden, New York, Washington, Jerba, Karachi, Bali, Mombasa, Riyadh, Casablanca, Jakarta, and Istanbul- had been political failures. These massacres committed in the name of jihad had achieved little except anger, grief, and the deaths of thousands. Soon after September 11, Al Qaeda lost its base in Afghanistan and, along with that, its singular role in the coordination of international terror. New groups, such as the bombers in
Madrid, were acting in the name of Al Qaeda, and although they may well have had the blessings of its leaders, they did not have the training, resources, or international contacts that had bolstered the previous generation of terrorists. Some operations, such as the 2003 attack on Western compounds in Riyadh, which killed mainly Muslims, were such fiascos that it appeared that Al Qaeda was no longer able to exercise control.
"Al Qaeda is not a hierarchical organization, and never was," Marc Sageman, a psychiatrist, a former CIA case officer, and the author of UnderstandingTerror Networks, told me. "It was always a social movement." The latest converts to the cause didn't train in Afghanistan, and they approach jihad differently. "These local guys are reckless and less well trained, but they are willing to kill themselves, whereas the previous leaders were not," Sageman said. Moreover, as the Spanish attacks showed, the new generation was more interested in committing violence for the sake of immediate political gain.
The kind of short-term tactical thinking displayed in the "Jihadi Iraq" document and the March 11 bombings is decidedly out of step with Al Qaeda's traditional world view, in which history is seen as an endless struggle between believers and infidels. It is the mind-set of fundamentalists of all religions. This war is eternal, and is never finally won until the longed-for Day of Judgment. In this contest, the first goal is to provoke conflict. Bold, violent deeds draw the lines and arouse ancient resentments, and are useful even if they have unsought consequences. Polarization is to be encouraged, radical simplicity being essential for religious warfare. An Al Qaeda statement posted on the Internet after the March 11 bombings declared, "Being targeted by an enemy is what will wake us from our slumber." Seen in this light, terrorism plays a sacramental role, dramatizing a religious conflict by giving it an apocalyptic backdrop. And Madrid was just another step in the relentless march of radical Islam against the modern, secular world.
Had the Madrid cell rested on its accomplishment after March 11,
Al Qaeda would properly be seen as an organization now being guided by political strategists-as an entity closer in spirit to ETA, with clear tactical objectives. April 2 throws doubt on that perspective. There was little to be gained politically from striking an opponent who was complying with the stated demand: the government had agreed to withdraw troops from Iraq. If the point was merely humiliation or revenge, then April 2 makes more sense; the terrorists wanted more blood, even if a second attack backfired politically. (The Socialists could hardly continue to follow the terrorist agenda with a thousand new corpses along the tracks.) April 2 is comprehensible only if the real goal of the bombers was not Iraq but Spain, where the Islamic empire began its retreat five hundred years ago. "Spain is a target because we are the historic turning point," Aristegui said. "After this, they are going to try to hit Rome, London, Paris, and the United States harder than they did before."