June 21, 2008
Sarah Bryant was on secret mission in Afghanistan
Sarah Bryant was on secret mission in Afghanistan - Times Online
Michael Smith and Jerome Starkey in Kabul
The woman soldier killed in a bomb attack last week was an intelligence officer on a secret mission to meet an Afghan agent, a military source has revealed.
Corporal Sarah Bryant, of the Intelligence Corps, was meeting the agent for the second time deep inside Taliban territory on the border between Helmand and Kandahar provinces. “The agent had produced very good intelligence the first time around,” the source said.
She was accompanied by a four-man SAS close protection team, three of whom were also killed by the blast.
It was not clear whether the agent had been planted by the Taliban or had been unmasked and forced to reveal details of the meeting, the source said. “But it’s clear that the whole thing was compromised. There is no doubt this was an ambush.”
The team was alone on a remote desert track in an area British troops would
not normally patrol. They were in a lightly armoured snatch Land Rover
because it was less obtrusive than a heavily armoured vehicle but it offered
no protection against the 100lb bomb.
The Taliban confirmed they had planted the bomb on the track and were waiting
for Bryant and her close protection team as they approached.
Zabihullah Mujahed, the Taliban spokesman, said the bomb had been detonated by
remote control by an observer waiting for the Land Rover to pass by.
Bryant, 26, from Cotehill, Cumbria, and two of the SAS team died immediately.
One of the other two SAS soldiers managed to call in a medical emergency
response team. The commander survived but his colleague died shortly after
arriving at the British military hospital at Camp Bastion.
In official statements last week the MoD attempted to conceal Bryant’s role,
claiming that she and the SAS soldiers, from 23 SAS Regiment, were
“mentoring” Afghan police officers.
However, General Mohammed Hussein Andiwal, the Afghan police chief in the
region, denied they were working with his men. “There weren’t any police
there,” he said. “Otherwise I would know.”
The three dead SAS reservists have been named as Corporal Sean Reeve, 28, from
Staines, Surrey; Lance-Corporal Richard Larkin, 39, from Evesham,
Worcestershire; and Paul Stout, 31. They will be flown home tomorrow.
British special forces operations in Afghanistan are normally carried out by
the Special Boat Service but it is conducting cross-border operations into
Pakistan.
Bryant’s father, Des Feely, 55, said that his daughter was so good that MI6
had attempted to poach her but she had opted to stay in the army.
June 21, 2008 at 05:52 PM in Middle East, SAS, Terror groups | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
February 04, 2007
Job done: Taliban ‘are on the run’
Christina Lamb Kabul
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2583182_1,00.html
British Nato commander claims military victory even as insurgents come back fighting
“MY aim today is to convince you that we actually won the first and second Anglo-Afghan wars, contrary to popular belief,” said Colonel Dudley Giles as he showed a group of officers and diplomats inside Kabul’s Bala Hissar fort last week.
The fort is in ruins, destroyed by British troops in 1879 in retaliation for the murder of the British envoy. Giles is an accredited battlefield guide and in between heading Britain’s military police in Kabul for the past nine months, he has led a series of tours emphasising British military prowess on Afghan soil.
Down below in Kabul’s Nato headquarters, the most recent British general to attempt to tame the Afghans is engaged in a similar exercise of persuasion.
As General David Richards hands over control of all 31,000 Nato troops in Afghanistan to his American successor, General Dan McNeil, this morning, the message is very much “mission accomplished”. It is a message somewhat tarnished by the loss of the key southern town of Musa Qala to the Taliban.
Recent visitors to Richards’s office have been given a presentation entitled “2006 Achievements” that claims Nato “has gained the psychological ascendancy”. It goes on to cite statistics ranging from 6m children in school to 22m calls a month being made on the Afghan mobile phone system.
“In many respects I think we’ve been more successful than I anticipated,” Richards said last week. “At the start of the summer there was huge scepticism about Nato — could we fight, would we even still be here by now? Not only has Nato unequivocally proved it can fight but actually, militarily, it has defeated the Taliban.”
The fall of Musa Qala, where British troops had withdrawn after a much criticised peace deal with local elders, has nevertheless cast a pall over Richards’s farewells.
The attack was prompted by an airstrike near Musa Qala 10 days ago that was aimed at a Taliban commander named Mullah Ghafour but killed his family instead. He retaliated last weekend by invading the town centre but was driven out by local elders. On Friday he returned with more than 200 men and captured the town.
At Nato headquarters in Kabul yesterday, they were putting a rather desperate spin on events, saying the incursion proved to critics such as the Americans that the Musa Qala agreement had not been a peace deal with the Taliban. “We will take it back but in a manner and timing of our choosing,” said Mark Laity, a spokesman. “It’s a question of if, not when.”
Whoever ends up with their flag flying over Musa Qala, the general will not be returning home as “Richards of Afghanistan” as he clearly hoped when he arrived last April. But he has acquired widespread respect from both Afghans and diplomats as well as a nasty bout of whooping cough topped with viral pneumonia.
“General Richards has done a good job,” said President Hamid Karzai yesterday. “He’s tried hard and the situation is much better. But I don’t think we can declare victory.”
In fact he has overseen Afghanistan’s most violent year since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, with more than 4,000 Afghans and 191 coalition soldiers killed. The general, who before taking command had criticised the American forces for being “too kinetic”, ordered more than 650 airstrikes in September.
The number of strikes has now fallen to one or two a day, though this is partly because of the traditional winter lull in fighting by the Taliban.
“I am very unhappy about all this bombing and have told Nato this repeatedly,” Karzai said. “As we speak, there is a little girl of four being operated on in Germany because of Nato bombing in which 22 innocent people were killed. Rather than going in Afghan villages and sometimes bombing without really checking, making mistakes, we should go to the sources of terrorism, the places where they are trained and financed.”
Many of the casualties, including the girl, were sustained in Operation Medusa, when Nato forces battled for two weeks in September to stop Taliban forces taking the key city of Kandahar. Richards describes the battle, which left more than 500 dead, as “the turning point of the whole campaign” and insists Nato has won Kandahar. “There is very little Taliban activity there now,” he said.
Furthermore, Richards claims that had he had the extra troops he pleaded for but which are only now are being sent by Britain and the US, he could have won the war.
“I don’t really feel bitter because I’m a professional soldier,” he says with a laugh. “But I would love to have had them. During Operation Medusa if I’d had that reserve I would have prevented the Taliban getting out of the neck of the bottle (back to Pakistan) and swung them into Helmand and done the things already we’re about to do in Helmand.
“If I’d had that reserve I could have made it a more conclusive victory. I could have defeated them and accelerated progress in Helmand.”
Although Richards insists that he always expected to have to fight hard in Afghanistan, he concedes that he was surprised by the intensity. However, General Abdul Rahim Wardak, Afghanistan’s portly and genial defence minister, insists last summer’s heavy fighting could have been avoided.
“What people now call last year’s resurgence of the Taliban was the result of three or four years of preparation,” he said. “The Taliban believed the international community were not firmly committed to Afghanistan and would disengage. So from day one when the West started arming our army and police with those old weapons of the Soviet era that we’d fought with for 30 years with their barrels malfunctioning, etc, it did not give a very good message.
“The Taliban also chose a critical time to emerge — both militarily, just when there was a handover of command, and politically, when there was a lot of questioning in European capitals about the wisdom of deploying their forces here.”
This, the minister said, was what gave them the confidence to try to take Kandahar. “Militarily, it made no sense to send irregular troops against sophisticated conventional forces and compel them to engage in conventional battles. It was a big military gamble and they lost. But it stretched us to our limit.”
Not only is Nato beefing up its forces with an additional 1,000 Polish troops and 800 more British, but the US has extended the stay of 3,200 soldiers from the 10th Mountain Brigade.
There is renewed focus on doubling the Afghan National Army (ANA) to 70,000.
Just as Afghanistan started unravelling because attention had switched to Iraq, it is Iraq that is prompting a realisation in Washington that Afghanistan could go the same way. The past two weeks have seen visits to Kabul from Senator Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House. President George Bush has asked for an extra $10.6 billion (£5.3 billion) in assistance.
On Thursday a beaming Wardak took delivery of 230 Humvee armoured vehicles and 800 army trucks, part of a massive new military consignment from the US.
“Building up the ANA is far cheaper than deploying international forces,” he said. “It was a mistake not to have invested more in the ANA before.”
The big question now is whether the Taliban were dealt a mortal blow by Operation Medusa, as Richards believes, and will not be able to muster their threatened spring offensive.
A Taliban spokesman claimed last month that they have 2,000 suicide bombers. Reports from across the border in Pakistan are of active recruitment. In Quetta, where the Taliban leadership is based, posters exhort: “Come and fight the British.” In Peshawar, prayers in mosques have been followed by impassioned speeches about the infidels in Afghanistan and requests for contributions to buy explosives.
Once again, the focus is on the southern province of Helmand, the Taliban heartland. It is also the centre of the opium trade, whose profits are thought to fund terrorism. Last year Afghanistan was responsible for 92% of world opium production and a quarter of this came from Helmand. Officials believe this year’s output will be higher.
Richards admits that his biggest disappointment has been the lack of progress in Helmand, where 5,000 British troops continue to be engaged in heavy fighting. He long ago stopped talking of the “ink spots”, or areas of development, that he once planned enthusiastically. According to the recently ousted governor of Helmand, Engineer Mohammad Daoud: “Since the British arrived the province has seen far more destruction than reconstruction.”
Many locals see British forces as threatening their livelihood.
Norine MacDonald, of the Senlis Council, a European think tank, has spent the past two weeks interviewing villagers in Helmand while handing out blankets and food aid, and is convinced that Nato has lost the battle for hearts and minds.
“If you’re a 26-year-old man and you see your house destroyed or your daughter killed, you’d turn against the British,” she said. “It’s not about global jihad.”
It was the fear of further alienating the population against the troops that prompted Britain’s refusal to allow ground spraying of the poppy fields in Helmand that was due to start this week.
US officials were furious, believing this to be why Karzai changed his mind about allowing spraying, particularly as the Dutch then insisted it could not take place in Uruzgan either, where their troops are based.
“The Brits really put a spanner in the works,” said one US counter-narcotics official. “How could it go ahead if they wouldn’t allow it in the biggest poppy-growing province?” British officials argue that 10 of Karzai’s ministers spoke out against spraying. Whatever the reason, few expect manual eradication to result in more than a 5% cut. British counter-narcotics officials are reduced to talking of projects such as growing mint.
The eradication force of Afghans and their international advisers, DynCorp, drove into Helmand’s main city of Lashkar Gah on Tuesday, protected by helicopter gunships. They have come under attack every night since and have yet to leave their compound.
In Kabul, many Afghans feel there is too much focus on the south. Although the capital feels far more secure than a few months ago and has seen no suicide bombs for five months, United Nations security officials point out that much of the neighbouring provinces of Wardak and Loghar are no-go areas.
Just last week, as Richards was talking up Nato, a school was burnt down in Loghar.
From today as the British flag goes down and the US flag goes up, this is no longer his problem, though he is thought to covet a role as regional envoy for Tony Blair. Many of his officers believe they will be back soon. Britain is in discussions to take command again next year. Colonel Dudley Giles is one of many who would like to return and perhaps add another chapter to his battlefield tours. He may not convince many Afghans that Britain really did defeat them in the past but most would agree with his message. “We won the war but we lost the peace,” he said.
Copyright 2007 Times Newspapers Ltd.
February 4, 2007 at 12:10 PM in Middle East, Terror groups, UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
August 01, 2005
Paddington Green Station
London bombs terror attack The Times and Sunday Times Times Online
Graphic: Paddington Green high security police station
August 1, 2005 at 01:35 AM in Terror groups | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
July 20, 2005
Database to bar hate preachers from Britain
London bombs terror attack The Times and Sunday Times Times Online
By Philippe Naughton, Times Online
The Government is to create a global database of hate preachers accused of fomenting or promoting terrorism so they can be more easily kept out of Britain or deported.
The move was announced today by Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, as part of a raft of anti-terror measures including three new criminal offences that will be rushed through Parliament with cross-party support after the July 7 suicide bombings in London.
Mr Clarke said the database could prompt the deportation of well-known radical Muslim preachers like the Syrian-born Omar Bakri Mohammed.
In a separate developement, Tony Blair announced that the UK might host an international conference on how best to tackle the terrorist threat.
The Prime Minister also said that the Government would consult with police and security forces on whether a long-standing ban on using evidence from phone-tapping in courts could be lifted - something that the Government had previously ruled out.
Mr Clarke told the Commons that the database of those who have demonstrated "unacceptable behaviours" would include those who preached intolerance, or ran websites or wrote articles that encouraged extremism.
Anybody on the database seeking to enter the UK would have their case referred to ministers with a view to possible exclusion from the country.
Mr Clarke said he had concluded his powers to exclude people from Britain needed to be used "more widely and systematically", both for foreign visitors and people already living here. He also made clear the powers to remove people would apply to visitors, asylum applicants and those who had already won asylum.
He told MPs: "In the circumstances we now face, I’ve decided that it’s right to broaden the use of these powers to deal with those who foment terrorism or seek to provoke others to terrorist acts.
"To this end, I intend to draw up a list of unacceptable behaviours which would fall within this. For example, preaching, running a website or writing articles which are intended to foment or provoke terrorism. The list will be indicative rather than exhaustive."
There is growing anger over the comments of Omar Bakri Mohammed, who uses a website to propagate his anti-Western views and who said yesterday that the British Government and public shared some of the blame for the July 7 attacks on the capital.
In his statement to MPs, the Home Secretary said: "I will follow the approach I have set out today in the case of Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed and other individuals whose names are in the public domain."
Mr Clarke also said that anti-terror legislation, which was formulated before the London bombings, would be brought forward as soon as is practicable after Parliament returns in October. He said he hoped to proceed "by means of consensus".
At the heart of the forthcoming Counter-Terrorism Bill will be three new criminal offences: acts preparatory to terrorism; indirect incitement to terrorism - which will cover those who glorify and condone terrorist acts; and giving and receiving terrorist training.
"There is unity of purpose. The Government wants to work with other parties to make sure we have the most effective anti-terrorism legislation on our statute book," he said. "Similarly we want to work with the Muslim community to isolate and weaken dangerous extremists.
"We are all determined to take whatever steps are needed to identify, track down and bring to justice all those involved in instigating, planning, supporting these terrible crimes."
The Government is also concluding a series of agreements allowing it to deport terror suspects to their home countries, where previously they might have been expected to face cruel or inhuman treatment, or even the death penalty.
It emerged today that the first agreement in principle has now been struck with Jordan, and could see the deportation there of Abu Qatada, one of the group of foreign terror suspects held for more than two years at Belmarsh prison.
Abu Qatada is now under a control order limiting his movements and activities. He is a Jordanian-Palestinian preacher, sometimes described as Osama bin Laden's "ambassador in Europe", who has been convicted in absentia in Jordan for bomb plots there. Other agreements are being negotiated, especially with North African nations.
Announcing the possible international conference on terrorism, Mr Blair said around 26 countries had suffered from al-Qaeda and its associated networks since 1993.
He said: "There is obviously a huge well of support and understanding for the problems we have faced in this country recently. But we have to be very clear about this: though the terrorists will use all sorts of issues to justify what they do, the roots of it do go deep; they are often not to be found in this country alone. Therefore, international action is also necessary."
Mr Clarke said that 56 people are known to have died in the London bombings, all of whom have now been formally identified.
He said that the death toll could yet rise as the police investigation of the crime scenes continues - especially from the bomb blast on the Piccadilly Line between King's Cross and Russell Square. Twenty-seven people are still being treated in hospital.
Mr Clarke said that, following the removal of the bombed train, Aldgate Station should reopen by Monday and it was hoped to restore full services on the Circle Line, interrupted by the Edgware Road blast, within a couple of weeks.
July 20, 2005 at 06:49 PM in Terror groups | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
August 01, 2004
FUJIMORI-CERPA, A TEST OF WILLS
ENN Peru Hostage Incident Reports; Assault Successful
By Steve Macko, ERRI Analyst
LIMA (ENN) - Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori is described as the iron man in Peruvian politics. But in the match of wills between Fujimori and Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) leader Nestor Cerpa -- Fujimori may have met his match.
Peruvian psychologists are said to describe both men as stubborn, patient, egotistical and manipulative. In this battle of wills to determine the fate of 72 hostages that are still being held in the residence of the Japanese ambassador, neither Cerpa or Fujimori has blinked. And the copy of a recent psychological profile of Cerpa is said not to bode well for a peaceful end to the hostage crisis that is now into its fifth month.
In a confidential psychological profile that was dated 21 February, police psychologists said, "Cerpa will be a difficult person to negotiate with while he feels in control, but he would be totally unpredictable if he is ever put in a position of weakness."
Cerpa is still demanding the release of jailed MRTA comrades in exchange for the hostages. Negotiations between the terrorists and the Peruvian government have been stalled since 12 March.
Doctor Cesar Rodriguez, a prominent Peruvian psychologist said, "Fujimori has a very rigid and authoritarian character and in that way he and Cerpa are extremely similar. Neither man wants to blink first." The doctor added, "Cerpa feels he is more experienced and more prepared than Fujimori and that he has absolutely nothing to lose."
Raul Gonzalez, an expert on Peruvian guerrilla groups and who has written extensively about them, says, "He (Cerpa) knew how to get in, but he doesn't know how to get out. He doesn't know how to negotiate at the political level."
The police psychologists say that Cerpa is very aware of his place in history and is determined to come away from this situation as a hero -- preferably a live hero. But is willing to become a martyr for the cause should that become necessary. The police profile said of Cerpa: "He is not a person to take a step back for fear of losing ground. He's prepared to die for his beliefs."
With negotiations stalled and no hostages being released for quite some time now -- ERRI counterterrorism analysts say that the ingredients for an assault on the residence are there. It's only a matter of the Japanese government giving the Peruvian government the green light to go ahead. The Peruvian authorities are most likely chomping at the bit to launch an assault, but the residence, technically, is Japanese soil and it is not certain if Japanese officials have the will to give approval to an assault which would be, at best, considered highly risky under the current circumstances.
August 1, 2004 at 11:08 PM in SAS, Terror groups | Permalink | TrackBack (236) | Top of page | Blog Home
THE DAY AFTER - APRIL 23, 1997 - Japanese embassy siege - Peru
Online NewsHour: Peru Hostage Crisis Analysis-- April 23, 1997
The NewsHour analyzes the mission of Peruvian army commandos the day after they raided the Japanese embassy in Lima. The force brought out alive 71 of 72 hostages held since December. A background report is followed by a panel discussion.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Latin Americas longest hostage crisis ended violently yesterday afternoon when a 150-man Peruvian strike team stormed the Japanese ambassadors residence in Lima. Amid gunfire and explosions, all but one of the seventy-two hostages were rescued. All of the 14 Tupac Amaru rebels died in the assault. Two soldiers also died, and one hostage, a Supreme Court justice who suffered a fatal heart attack. It all began on the evening of December 17th, when the guerrillas burst into a party celebrating the Japanese emperors birthday.
They took 452 guests hostage. Among those held were President Alberto Fujimoris brother, the foreign minister, the agriculture minister, and the Japanese ambassador, plus eighteen Japanese businessmen and embassy staffers. The rebels demanded the release of some 400 guerrillas held in Peruvian prisons. And they asked that the prisoners, the rebels in the embassy, and the hostages be transported to a jungle hideout where the hostages would then be released. The Peruvian government refused to give in to the terrorist demands. The Tupac Amaru is one of several leftist guerrilla groups that President Fujimori has been waging war against.
Tupac Amaru was named for fighters who resisted Spanish colonialism. It started as an urban guerrilla group in 1984, and grew to more than 3,000 members at its peak a decade ago. Since Fujimori was elected seven years ago, he has severely weakened the Tupac Amaru, capturing its leaders and jailing thousands of its members and sympathizers. Within hours of the hostage taking in December 80 people were released, including President Fujimoris mother and sister. The next day the rebels threatened to kill a hostage if their demands werent meant, but the deadline passed with no concessions from either side. And that same day four more hostages, all diplomats, were set free. In the next few weeks 287 more people were allowed to leave, including seven Americans who had attended the party.
Early on, the International Red Cross was designated as the official mediator between the rebels and the government. Throughout the crisis the Red Cross delivered food and water and other supplies to the hostages. Catholic Archbishop Juan Luis Cipriani became an informal mediator of the standoff, appearing at the embassy on a regular basis, urging a peaceful end to the crisis. In January, nine more people were released, and the rebels invited the press corps camping out in front of the residence to come inside. President Fujimori traveled to Canada and the United States in early February, looking for support for his hard-line stance against the rebels demands. In an interview with NewsHour Correspondent Elizabeth Farnsworth, President Fujimori said that he hoped for a peaceful solution but was still unwilling to give in to the guerrillas.
PRESIDENT ALBERTO FUJIMORI: Be sure that theres not much room in this conversation for delinquency. Theres not much concession. That must be very clear. Let me say this in English.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: No concessions to delinquents, is that what youre saying?
PRESIDENT ALBERTO FUJIMORI: Not much in this case.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Official talks began February 11th. When Tupac Commander Cerpa took part in the negotiations on the site for the first time at the end of February, observers thought it was a sign the talks were proceeding well. But inside the embassy the Red Cross reported the captives were suffering from medical ailments and stress. The talks broke off abruptly on March 12th. At the time, reports surfaced, saying the Peruvian government was digging tunnels outside the embassy, sparking rumors that a raid might be imminent.
Police had blared Creole music and staged noisy tank maneuvers outside the residence, which some people speculated was covering the clamor of the tunnel construction. Still, Archbishop Cipriani continued back-channel negotiations. Hostage families gathered at the embassy, hoping for an Easter release. Several hostages inside the residence reportedly got a few minutes warning of yesterdays attack. The strike team came from three directions, blasting the front door with explosives, attacking the back side, and climbing onto the roof to shepherd out the hostages.
According to one hostage eight of the rebels, including the Tupac leader, were attacked while they played indoor soccer. Within an hour it was over, and President Fujimori, in a bulletproof vest, made a victorious entry to the compound. The President, the soldiers, and some of the hostages joined in singing the Peruvian national anthem. The freed hostages hugged and kissed each other, and shook the Presidents hand as they boarded buses for a nearby hospital. Today, one of the hostages, the Bolivian ambassador, said he was convinced that they would eventually be saved.
JORGE GUMUCIO GRANIER, Bolivian Ambassador to Peru: We were ready. We expected to be saved, but we knew that they went through some risk, and we knew that it was impossible zero victim solution.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: The mother of one of the rebels condemned the government attack.
FELICITA CARTOLINI, Mother of Rebel Leader Cerpa: (speaking through interpreter) I blame the regime of President Fujimori for mocking, lying, and deceiving the international public and the guarantor countries. I can assure you that, knowing my son, he preferred to face death before killing a prisoner, keeping his word. His courage and generosity will become an example to his country and the world. History will be the judge of what has happened.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: The end of the crisis brought both jubilation and grief in Peru. Archbishop Cipriani broke down in tears at a press conference.
ARCHBISHOP JUAN LUIS CIPRIANI: (speaking through interpreter) The death of Dr. Giusti and the death of the members of the MRTA as human beings makes me feel a great pain. I pray to God for their souls and their families.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Foreign governments, including the Japanese, were not notified of the impending raid. President Fujimori said he did not tell Japanese Prime Minister Hashimoto because that would have jeopardized the successful operation.
PRESIDENT ALBERTO FUJIMORI: (speaking through interpreter) I did not tell him because in a rescue operation of this type surprise is essential.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Today soldiers continued to surround the embassy compound.
August 1, 2004 at 10:55 PM in Terror groups | Permalink | TrackBack (146) | Top of page | Blog Home
March 12, 2004
The new axis of evil?
By Paddy Woodworth
The beleaguered Basque leadership has become a 'wounded beast'. But has it been driven into an unholy alliance with Islamic terror?
IT IS the nightmare scenario of every 21st-century counterterrorist official, indeed of every citizen of our grim new era who wants to stay alive: an indigenous terrorist group with deep roots and a long track record teaming up with an international network that can supply new training, new techniques, and anonymous operators.
Could this be the case with Thursdays bombings in Madrid? Has Eta developed links with al-Qaeda, or a similar group, to create an alternative infrastructure to the one which had apparently been virtually dismantled by police successes over the last four years?
Might such links resolve the conundrum that the attacks bear some of the hallmarks of both groups, yet do not quite fit the modus operandi of either?
This scenario is necessarily speculative, and, on the face of it, still the most unlikely given the facts to have emerged so far. But an open mind is perhaps the greatest asset in assessing the entirely new situation presented by what we may now call El 11 de M arzo, or March 11.
The hypothesis that this was a joint Eta-Islamist operation at least enables us to tease out the distinctive features of both groups, and assess a little more clearly who was most likely to be responsible for the atrocities.
Unfortunately open minds have not been on display in the highly politicised debate about the likely culprits. As late as yesterday morning, Ana Palacio, the Foreign Minister, was insisting that it crystal clear that Eta was responsible. Almost simultaneously Koldo Gorostiaga, an MEP of the Batasuna party which is Etas political wing, was telling me it was completely impossible that Eta could have carried out the attack.
Both statements are highly political. Spain votes tomorrow in a general election. If the attacks are blamed on Eta, the Spanish people are likely to swing to the ruling party, which has always presented a tough and united front against the Basque terrorists. If the bombings were carried out by an Islamist group, then the gulf between the Spanish public and the Aznar Government over its support for the Iraq war is likely to reopen.
For supporters of Basque independence such as Seor Gorostiaga, Eta involvement in the attacks would be a political disaster. Etas return to violence after the 1998-99 ceasefire cost his Batasuna party
50 per cent of its electorate. Those who do still give tacit support to Eta tend to do so reluctantly, out of old loyalties, and would certainly rather see a more selective armed struggle than Thursdays descent into indiscriminate slaughter.
But to an independent observer the only thing that is clear about the massacre is that nothing is yet certain, though the balance of evidence is swinging towards the involvement of Islamic terrorists.
The indictment sheet against Eta includes: likelihood (most bombings in Madrid are down to it); immediate precedent (it tried to bomb Madrid only ten days ago); historical precedent (it usually carries out spectacular attacks at election time); motive (a desperate attempt to show that the Spanish police had not pulled its teeth); some forensic scientific evidence (the Spanish police claim that the explosives used are similar to Etas standard issue).
The charge sheet against an Islamist group runs like this: modus operandi (simultaneous and highly co-ordinated attacks); motive (Spains support for Bushs Iraq war); scale (a large number of civilian casualties fits an apocalyptic campaign which, unlike Etas, is totally impervious to Western public opinion); forensic scientific evidence (the Koranic tapes found in a truck associated with the bombings); admission (the e -mail to al-Quds claiming to come from the al-Qaeda-associated Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, and Etas unprecedented denial of responsibility last night).
What, then, is the likelihood that the two groups were working together to produce this confusing jigsaw of evidence?
The best argument derives from what we might call the wounded beast theory, as articulated by Joel Cathala, the veteran French counter-terrorist officer, on Thursday to explain why Eta would have been prepared to cause such appalling human suffering: When the beast is wounded, that is exactly when it is at its most dangerous.
Etas current leadership is young, lacking in political formation and more ferociously radical than its predecessors. This group has certainly resisted persuasive arguments from supporters to call a new ceasefire. Yet its military campaign has been a shambles, with unit after unit falling into police hands virtually unblooded. The very muted response on the Basque street to the banning of Batasuna and associated groups over the past two years might suggest to such a leadership that the Basque people had lost their will to struggle, and needed to be inspired by an unprecedented show of strength in Madrid.
Such a leadership, under deep cover and out of touch and perhaps even out of sympathy with its own political base, might draw deeper on a quasi-mystical strain underlying Etas ideology the sacramental view of violence identified by the Basque anthropologist Joseba Zulaika in his provocative work Basque Violence. It might be argued that such a strain of thinking is not a million miles away from the apocalyptic thinking of al-Qaeda.
We also know that al-Qaeda has operated extensively in Spain, where a number of its operatives have been arrested since September 11. Indeed, there is some evidence that the attacks on the US were partly planned in Spain. Its members can move easily through a large immigrant Islamic community. Most Spanish Muslims abhor violence, but the racism and discrimination that some sections have suffered, coupled with the impact of the Middle East conflict and the Iraq war, ha ve created a disaffected minority who sympathise with extremism.
It is true, too, that Eta has historic links with Arab states. Algeria and Libya both served as training grounds in the past. Like the IRA, the Basque group has also associated with radical Palestinian groups.
Perhaps the strongest paradigm for Arab-European terrorist co-operation comes from the joint operations carried out by the German Baader-Meinhof group and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the 1970s.
This certainly gave an indication of how warped an isolated terrorist groups thinking could become. Baader-Meinhof was born out of the German 1968 generations rejection of Nazism, yet its activists ended up callously helping to separate Jews (as hostage-victims) from Gentiles in attacks directed against Israel.
However, there is a striking difference between these precedents and the present situation. In the past, both the European and Palestinian groups were coming from an at least apparently similar secular and Marxist position. It is much harder to imagine camaraderie between todays Muslim fundamentalists and the infidel soi-disants Marxist-Leninists who run Eta.
In short, the nightmare scenario of Basque-Islamist collaboration seems most likely to remain in the realm of political fiction. On the other hand, anyone predicting the terrible events since September 11 would no doubt have been dismissed in the last century as a fantasist.
Paddy Woodworth is the author of Dirty War, Clean Hands: Eta, the GAL and Spanish Democracy (Yale 2003).
March 12, 2004 at 07:12 PM in Terror groups | Permalink | TrackBack (13) | Top of page | Blog Home
Eta denies involvement in Madrid attacks
An activist from the Basque terror group Eta talks to journalists on ETB (Euskal Telebista - Basque Television)
The Basque terror group Eta has said that it "was in no way" responsible for the bomb blasts that killed 199 people on crowded commuter trains in Madrid yesterday.
The denial came as hundreds of thousands of people started marches in Spanish cities and towns to protest against the attacks at the beginning of three days of mourning.
Police said more than 500,000 people had gathered in the capital alone.
Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the French Prime Minister, Romano Prodi, the President of the European Commission, John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, and Denis MacShane, Britain's Europe Minister, were planning to join the rally.
Jos Mara Aznar, the Spanish Prime Minister, has vowed to leave no stone unturned in fight to find those responsible for the carnage.
Seor Aznar's conservative government, which is seeking re-election on Sunday, has blamed Eta for the blasts, but the Prime Minister refused to specify the group today when pressed by journalists.
He said: "We will leave no stone unturned in our enquiries. We will follow up each and every lead."
He vowed to bring the killers to justice and pledged that the investigation "will soon bear fruit".
Investigators announced today the discovery of a rucksack containing an unexploded device, which had been stashed by emergency crews with other lost luggage retrieved from the train wreck.
The device was later safely detonated by police.
Angel Acebes, the Interior Minister, told a news conference that "new leads" had been opened up by the discovery of the rucksack.
But he told a news conference Eta was still considered the main line of inquiry.
"It is still the main line of investigation. There is no reason for it not to be," he said, adding that explosives used in the atrocity were similar to those used in the past by the Basque guerrillas.
A Spanish radio report today said that the backpack bombs were set off by mobile phone and contained copper detonators, which are not generally used by Eta.
The private radio station Cadena Ser quoted security sources as saying the components may point to the bomb having been set by an extremist Islamic group like al-Qaeda.
Other evidence has included the discovery of a van containing detonators and an audio tape in Arabic reciting Koranic verses yesterday, near the route of the targeted trains.
There has also been an unverifiable acceptance of responsibility from a group affiliated to al-Qaeda.
Eta used Basque television and newspapers to formally deny involvement in the blasts tonight.
"An Eta message has arrived saying that it bore no responsibility for the attack," a presenter for ETB Basque public television said.
A similar message was sent to the Gara newspaper, which is regularly used by Eta to issue statements.
At midday Seor Aznar joined in a minute's silence to honour the 199 dead, who included 14 nationals from ten other countries.
The number of injured has soared to 1,400, with 377 people still in hospital and 45 of those in a critical condition. Eighty four of the dead have yet to be identified.
As well as the Spanish victims, there was one Chilean, one Cuban, three Peruvians, one Ecuadorean, one from Guinea Bissau, two Hondurans, two Polish, one French, one Moroccan and one Colombian.
Seor Aznar vowed that any immigrant caught up in the disaster would be offered Spanish citizenship.
Among the non-fatal casualties are two Britons, including a woman who is thought to be a resident in Spain and is now recovering in hospital.
The London-based Arabic language Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper said yesterday it had received an e-mail from a group representing al-Qaeda network, claiming responsibility for the explosions.
The e-mail, issued by the Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri in the name of al-Qaeda, said its "death squad" had penetrated "one of the pillars of the crusader alliance".
"This is part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America's ally in its war against Islam," it said.
Madrid was attacked 911 days after the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington DC.
Europol "predicted Eta attack"
Europol, the European police organisation, gave warning last month of a large-scale attack by the Basque separatist group Eta in Madrid, according to a recent confidential report.
A censored copy of a Europol report made available to the AFP news agency, said that the "possible central scene of terrorist activity could be Madrid and the planned action could involve placing various explosive devices and vehicle bombs in different strategic points of the capital (subway, fast access roads, important streets, particular commercial centres etc.) and setting them to explode successively in the course of a few hours."
The Europol report, which was sent to the Council of Europe last month, added: "The recently observed emphasis on conducting large-scale operations which aim at creating considerable public shock and international coverage is equally of great importance."
March 12, 2004 at 07:05 PM in Terror groups | Permalink | TrackBack (27) | Top of page | Blog Home
ETA's 45 bloody years
March 12, 2004 at 07:17 AM in Terror groups | Permalink | TrackBack (121) | Top of page | Blog Home