11 Convicted in Spain For Planning Subway Bombings

Keep in mind, this is after the Spanish elected Zapatero and withdrew their soldiers from Iraq following the 2005 Madrid bombings. I thought that was supposed to satisfy the terrorists?

From CAN:

The court set up by the Spanish government to try terrorism suspects has convicted 11 Asians, ten from Pakistan and one from India, for plotting to carry out subway bombings in Barcelona, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

The terrorists were sentenced to between 8 and 14 years in jail.

Ten of the terrorists were arrested in January 2008, and the final one was arrested later in the Netherlands. The authorities were able to foil the plot due to information provided by an informant.

The plotters were connected with Tehrik-e-Taliban, a group led by Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani branch of the Taliban that was killed by an airstrike from an American unmanned aerial vehicle in August.

Mehsud’s group said that it hatched the plot against Spain due to that country’s military contributions to the war in Afghanistan.

Robert Spencer of JihadWatch.org used the report’s omission of the terrorists’ faith to criticize the media’s reporting on this and other similar incidents.

“Eight paragraphs in, we learn it was a’ suspected Islamist cell.’ Until then, one might almost have gotten the impression that Pakistan had declared war on Spain,” Spencer wrote on his blog.

“And that is the problem with this kind of coverage, which is, of course, thoroughly ordinary. It is not because they are ‘men,’ or ‘Asians,’ or ‘Pakistanis’ that they are waging war on Spain. So these reports are essentially misleading.”

This isn’t the first time terrorists have targeted Spain and specifically Barcelona.

On March 11, 2004, terrorists loyal to Al-Qaeda detonated backpack bombs on several buses, killing 191 people. Eleven Pakistanis were also arrested and later acquitted of planning attacks in Barcelona in 2007, although five were found guilty of other charges, reports The Sydney Morning Herald.

The suspects found guilty in Spain are appealing their verdict, Newstrack India reports.

World Threats

Seven Indicted for Allegedly Helping Madrid Train Bombers Flee

MADRID — A Spanish judge has indicted seven people for allegedly helping the suspected Madrid train bombers flee after the 2004 terror attacks.

National Court Judge Eloy Velasco is charging six of the seven with belonging to a terrorist group, while one is accused of collaboration.

Velasco says the seven provided money, cover and information to help six men who are suspected of having participated in the March 11, 2004, bombings to evade justice.

The morning rush hour attacks on commuter trains headed for the capital's main southern station killed 191 people and wounded about 1,800.

Four of the seven indicted are free, one is in custody and the whereabouts of two others are unknown.

Source: FoxNews

FBI unit set for more anti-terror raids in Queens: Colorado home raided

The elite FBI Hostage Rescue Team is poised to make more anti-terror raids in Queens, sources told the Daily News.

The discovery of cell phones and back packs raised fears that terrorists were planning a Madrid-style subway bombing plot, sources said.

Source: NY Daily News

Spain arrests 12 over Madrid bombings

October 17, 2008

MADRID: Spanish police have arrested 12 north Africans suspected of links to the 2004 Madrid bombings in which 191 people died.

The arrests broke up an “Islamist terrorist cell” that was supporting al-Qa'ida, the Interior Ministry said.

Eight of the suspects, all Moroccans, were detained in raids carried out overnight in the northeastern province of Catalonia, around Madrid, and in Andalucia in the south.

The suspects are believed to have helped five people implicated in the Madrid bombings to escape.

The raids were ordered by Spain's top anti-terrorist judge, Baltasar Garzon, a judicial source said.

Later in the day, four more people - three Moroccans and an Algerian - were arrested in their prison cells over possible links to some of the eight other suspects.

The incidents add to a string of terrorism-related arrests and incarcerations.

Spanish courts last year ordered 21 people jailed for life in connection to the bombs left on Madrid commuter trains on March 11, 2004. Four have since been acquitted after appeals.

In January, Spanish police broke up what they said was a group of mainly Pakistani Islamist extremists suspected of planning attacks in Barcelona and arrested 15 people.

On June 5, Spain's anti-terrorist court charged 11 of those arrested, most of them Pakistanis, with belonging to a terrorist group.

Overall last year, 52 people were detained in Spain over alleged links to Islamist extremism, the attorney general's office said in a report last month.

Spain's proximity to Algeria and Morocco, where extremist groups have stepped up their activity, and the presence of terrorist training camps in the Sahara desert, were cited as factors putting the country at risk.

Source: The Australian