IN Madrid yesterday a Syrian, Imad Yarkas, was jailed for 27 years for having headed Al-Qaeda’s Spanish operations and also helping to fund and organize the 9/11 attacks. Seventeen others were jailed for between six and 11 years; six other defendants were cleared in what was Europe’s biggest terror trial. All the accused denied the charges. Yarkas had actually condemned the 9/11 attacks.
This case now clears the way for another one against some 70 people accused of the March 2004 Madrid train bombings in which 191 died and 2000 were injured. As the verdicts were being handed down yesterday, a further Madrid bombing suspect, Abdel Majid Bouchar, was extradited from Serbia to Spain. Seven leading suspects in the attack died, along with a policeman, when they blew up the apartment in which they had been cornered in a Madrid suburb a month after the murderous train attacks. The speed with which European police forces have moved, first in Spain to round up the 9/11 accomplices, followed by the Madrid train bombing suspects and then this year in London, in the wake of the two terror attacks, suggests that there is a high level of coordination and preparedness.
However, though Al-Qaeda has not shied from claiming responsibility for acts of terrorism — the latest claim came last week when the group’s deputy leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri boasted in a video that it had organized the London crimes — it must be wondered to what degree the terrorists now have a coherent command and control structure. Before 9/11 the plotters undoubtedly had the leisure to make careful and detailed plans. When the Taleban ruled in Afghanistan, terrorists could easily be trained and sent to target countries. Hamburg was an operational centre as was Spain. Apart from setting up key terror personnel in key locations and moving funds to wherever they were needed, did Al-Qaeda really also plan five or ten years ahead with targets and terrorist cells already in place, waiting only to be activated? If they were anticipating the massive worldwide electronic and police dragnet that followed the barbarity of 9/11, perhaps they did.
It seems more likely though that only a skeleton network of highly trained terrorists exists and generally acts independently, recruiting willing dupes through shadowy intermediaries while they themselves remain well in the shadows. It was forensic evidence in Spain and forensic and closed-circuit television evidence in London which led the authorities so quickly to the criminals.
Stalking and finding the top professional terrorists behind the amateurs who are being sent to kill themselves along with dozens of innocent victims must already be a hard job for the European police. As slowly, one by one, senior Al-Qaeda personnel are captured, the task will become harder still. It is therefore of the utmost importance that the European police and courts are not tempted to abandon their standards of evidence. Jailing innocent men would be a grave error which would only vindicate extremist claims of injustice against Muslims.
