You are in:
- Archives » 2007 » March 2007
The Pain In Spain
Yesterday was the third anniversary of Europe's worst terror attack by Islamists. King Juan Carlos, Queen Sofia and Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero attended a memorial service at Madrid's Atocha station, where the four bombed trains were headed on the morning of March 11 2004.
A memorial was unveiled in the shape of an 11 metre glass tower. The interior of the tower is inscribed with messages of condolences that arrived in the days following the atrocity. 191 people died and nearly 1700 were injured.
29 people accused of planning the slaughter went on trial last month. Authorities blame the blast on a local al-Qaeda cell: Some observers said al-Qaeda had identified Spain as a weak link in the "coalition of the willing" that invaded Iraq. The mass murder was designed to drive Spain out of the coalition and Iraq. If that was the case, it succeeded beyond its planners' wildest imaginings. Spain's Prime Minister Aznar, who had led polls before the attacks, was defeated by Zapatero's Socialists and Spanish troops were out of Iraq by summer.
Others noted that under al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's crazed vision, Spain was once Islamic territory and the Spanish had committed the political equivalent of apostasy by driving the Muslim Moors out over five centuries ago. "The tragedy of al-Andalus", bin Laden called it - and he dreams of returning the nation to the "caliphate" one day.
There's evidence that the bombers planned an extended campaign in Spain, not necessarily related to any withdrawl or otherwise from Iraq.
Less than a month after the March 11 atrocity, five terrorists killed themselves during a police raid of a Madrid appartment. The suspected organiser of the Madrid atrocity, Sarhane Ben Abdelmajid, died in the raid.
Over 200 detonators of the type used in the Madrid bombing were found. A few days prior to that, another bomb had been discovered on the high speed Madrid-Sevilla line. Plans were also uncovered pointing to attacks on a shopping mall, an English school and a Jewish centre.
Iberian Notes, which was indispensible on the day of the attack and on the days that followed, publishes a succinct memorial of its own:
"The West is at war with Al Qaeda and Islamist terrorists, in New York, London, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Spain too, a war we did not start. Zapatero does not recognize this. He honestly believes that if the West does not meet the Islamists' demands, some of which he considers legitimate, then the consequent struggle is our fault. And, twenty years ago, he believed that if the West did not meet the Soviets' demands, some of which he considered more than legitimate, then the consequent struggle was our fault.
"Fortunately, Zapatero has little international power or influence, except among the Another World Is Possible crowd. After he loses the next election, which he probably will despite the PP's incompetence, he will be no more than the answer to a trivia question. Twenty years from now, he will be remembered vaguely as a figure of appeasement, much like Neville Chamberlain."
