And even when prosecutors do have the legal tools they need, sometimes their case falls apart because of the judges' interpretation of the law and of events in Iraq. In January 2005, Italy was shocked by the sentence returned in the trial of Mohammed Daki, the Moroccan who was supposed to provide Maxamed Cabdullah Ciise with the passports to go to Iraq, and of other minor players in the Milan Ansar at Islam recruiting network. The Milan judge, Clementina Forleo, decided that the men were indeed part of a network that was recruiting fighters for the Iraqi conflict, but that the operations taking place in Iraq constituted "guerrilla warfare" and not terrorism. In her view, "Ansar at Islam was structured as an Islamic combatant organization, with a militia trained for guerrilla activities and financed by groups in Europe and orbiting in the sphere of Islamic fundamentalism, without having goals of a terrorist nature, goals probably shared by only some of its members."66 Because one of the men on trial, Mohammed Tahir Hammid, conveniently declared that he did not agree with Ansar at Islam's tactic of using suicide bombers, Forleo considered Ansar at Islam to be a "heterogeneous" organization whose members had conflicting opinions on the valid means to use in fighting enemy forces. Therefore, according to the judge, Ansar at Islam could not be considered a terrorist organization as a whole and those who recruit and raise funds for it cannot be considered terrorists. The men, while found guilty of minor crimes such as document forging, were acquitted of all the charges involving terrorism.
The sentence, which was immediately appealed by Italian prosecutors, caused an uproar in Italy. Many politicians expressed their strong disapproval. Franco Frattini, a former foreign minister and currently EU commissioner for justice and security, commented: "This sends a devastating signal. Cells of Islamic fundamentalists can now think that they have safe haven in Europe."67 Several Italian politicians accused Forleo of having been influenced by her own political views, as they considered the ruling a slap at the Italian government's support for the US war in Iraq. Public fury grew in the following days when Italian media played a homemade video shot in a training camp in Kurdistan by Hammid, the man who had repudiated the use of suicide bombers before the judge. In the seventy-eight-minute video that he had brought to Italy to use as a recruiting tool, he was shown handling automatic weapons and singing jihad hymns with other Ansar al Islam members.68 The Italian public, who had watched the funerals of an Italian soldier killed in action in Iraq on the same day the sentence was published, was outraged to know that the Kalashnikov-brandishing Hammid and his associates were now free.
Political considerations aside, the ruling was considered legally flawed by most analysts. Stefano Dambruoso, an Italian prosecutor who led most of the terrorism investigations in Milan and currently serves as a legal adviser for the United Nations in Vienna, commented that it is "impossible to distinguish between guerrilla and terrorist activities."69 Dambruoso also pointed out that because Ansar al Islam had been designated a terrorist organization by the UN Security Council, Italy was bound to view it as such.
While European authorities struggle to make charges against recruiters stick or debate whether Ansar al Islam is a terrorist organization, the events on the ground in Iraq offer undisputable proof of the group's true nature. In the months after the war began, several radical Islamist insurgent groups were formed throughout Iraq, mostly by former members of Ansar al Islam. As Ansar al Islam kept fighting Kurdish and US forces and became, in the words of a senior Pentagon official, America's "principal organized terrorist adversary in Iraq," other groups composed of Kurdish, Iraqi, and foreign fighters joined its efforts.70 Sunni terrorist bands such as Ansar al Sunna, active mostly in the north of the country; Tawhid wa'el Jihad, led personally by Abu Musab al Zarqawi; and other minor outfits sharing a radical Salafi ideology have carried out daily attacks against coalition forces and Iraqi civilians. The differences among these groups are often blurred, as they regularly join forces to carry out operations and plan their strategy. Abu Musab al Zaraqwi is commonly reputed to be the brains behind the religiously motivated insurgency, though analysts debate whether his role has been unduly magnified by the media.
Aside from a common ideology, these groups are characterized by the support they all receive from networks that have traditionally worked with al Qaeda. The same networks that for years had supported al Qaeda turned their attention to Iraq and began recruiting operatives and raising funds for the jihadi groups operating there. The pattern was evident in the Middle East and, as has been shown above, in Europe, where established al Qaeda networks such as those in Milan and Hamburg began to operate in support of Ansar al Islam and its affiliated groups.
The events in Iraq turned Ansar al Islam from a small, mostly Kurdish, virtually unknown Islamist group whose goals were limited to establishing an Islamic state in remote northern Iraq to an outfit operating globally and daily making news worldwide. Realizing that Iraq was the main "field of jihad," the cause that could rally millions of Muslims against "the American aggressor," al Qaeda turned its attention there and decided to use Ansar al Islam and its offshoots as its proxies in the country. Abu Musab al Zarqawi became a jihad star, and Ansar al Islam grew beyond recognition, only because well-organized Islamist networks set up by al Qaeda throughout the world over the past fifteen years gave their backing.
The evidence collected in Europe and in the Middle East about the cooperation between Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden simply confirms what the two have been publicly saying for months, as both have openly expressed their mutual admiration and cooperation. In January 2004, coalition forces arrested a courier who was carrying a letter that authorities believe was written by Zarqawi to al Qaeda's masterminds Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri. The letter, in which Zarqawi explained his vision of the Iraqi conflict and his need for support from al Qaeda, clearly showed that Zarqawi considered himself their subordinate:
You, gracious brothers, are the leaders, guides, and symbolic figures of jihad and battle. We do not see ourselves as fit to challenge you, and we have never striven to achieve glory for ourselves. All that we hope is that we will be the spearhead, the enabling vanguard, and the bridge on which the [Islamic] nation crosses over to the victory that is promised and the tomorrow to which we aspire. This is our vision, and we have explained it. This is our path, and we have made it clear. If you agree with us on it, if you adopt it as a program and road, and if you are convinced of the idea of fighting the sects of apostasy, we will be your readied soldiers, working under your banner, complying with your orders, and indeed swearing fealty to you publicly and in the news media, vexing the infidels and gladdening those who preach the oneness of God. On that day, the believers will rejoice in God's victory. If things appear otherwise to you, we are brothers, and the disagreement will not spoil [our] friendship. [This is] a cause [in which] we are cooperating for the good and supporting jihad. Awaiting your response, may God preserve you as keys to good and reserves for Islam and its people. Amen, amen."
Bin Laden's public response came in December 2004, in an audiotape played by al Jazeera television. In the message, the Saudi millionaire officially appointed Zarqawi as his man in Iraq: "The brother mujahid Abu Musab al Zarqawi is the emir of the al Qaeda organization in the land of the two rivers.... The brothers in the group there must listen to him and obey him for what is good.... We in the al Qaeda organization strongly welcome their joining hands with us."'z Bin Laden's message finally made official the de facto merger between Zarqawi's group and al Qaeda. This move enabled bin Laden, whose prominence has been partially obscured by Zarqawi's brazen operations in Iraq, to benefit from Zar qawi's popularity and make the Iraqi insurgency's successes his own. At the same time, the alliance brings Zarqawi additional financial and logistical support from the worldwide al Qaeda network-and the official endorsement, by demonstrating that Zarqawi has the support of the undisputed leader of worldwide jihadi movement, adds to his prestige.
After the message was broadcast, Zarqawi's group changed its name to "Al Qae
da's Jihad Committee in Mesopotamia," making the alliance explicit. In reality, not much changed, as the cooperation between the two organizations was complete even before their exchange of praises. Iraq has become a new major field of jihad where thousands of al Qaeda members, sympathizers, or wannabes fight and get experience. The consequences for the West are easy to imagine. "The Iraqi conflict, while not a cause for extremism, has become an extremist cause. Those jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced in and focused on acts of urban terrorism," said CIA director Porter Goss in his January 2005 testimony before the US Senate Intelligence Committee.73 Director Goss's statement is based on concrete evidence that al Qaeda is training militantsincluding some with Western passports-in Iraq and sending them back to their home countries to form sleeper cells.
Europe, given its geographical proximity to the Middle East and the number of European Muslims currently fighting in Iraq, is feeling the effects of this problem most acutely. "We are determined to stop young people going to make jihad in Iraq because if they come back they will have greatly enhanced prestige and be in a position to recruit more people to the cause-or even mount terrorist operations," declared a senior French counterterrorism official.74 The fears of French security officials were confirmed by the January 2005 arrests of the militants operating in Paris's 19th arrondissement. Investigators soon realized that the men, originally detained just because they were recruiting volunteers to go to Iraq, were "drawing up plans for attacks in France against French and foreign interests."75 Veterans of the conflicts in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Chechnya have either attempted or successfully carried out terrorist attacks in Europe. It may be just a matter of time before a veteran of Iraq will strike the Continent.
NOTES
1. Zarqawi letter, February 2004. Translated into English by the Coalition Provisional Authority.
2. Tribunal of Milan, Indictment of Muhamad Majid and others. November 25, 2003.
3. Sebastian Rotella, "Europe's Boys of Jihad," Los Angeles Times, April 2, 2005.
4. Tribunal of Milan, Indictment of Muhamad Majid and others.
5. Ibid.
6. Paolo Biondani, "Pestaggi dei Camorristi contro i Detenuti Islamici," Corriere Bella Sera, December 10, 2004.
7. Tribunal of Milan, Indictment of Muhamad Majid and others.
8. Stefano Dambruoso, Milano Bagdad: Diario di un magistrato in prima linen nella lotta al terrorismo islamico in Italia (Milan: Mondadori, 2004), p. 63.
9. Victor L. Simpson, "European Militant Network Shut Down," AP, December 19, 2003.
10. Tribunal of Milan, Indictment of Muhamad Majid and others.
11. Ibid.
12. Florian Meesman, Ahmed Senyurt, "Ansar al Islam-Terror in Deutschland?" Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, December 13, 2004.
13. Annette Rameisberger, "Islamistische Terrorzelle in Muenchen Zer- schlagen," Sueddeutsche Zeitung, December 3, 2003.
14. Tony Czuczka, "Militants Said to Send Fighters to Europe," AP, January 8, 2005.
15. Craig Whitlock, "In Europe, New Force for Recruiting Radicals. Ansar al Islam Emerges as Primary Extremist Group Funneling Fighters into Iraq," Washington Post, February 18, 2005.
16. Elaine Sciolino, "French Detain Group Said to Recruit Iraq Rebels," New York Times, January 26, 2005.
17. Tony Czuczka, "Germany Cites Link to Islamic Group's Command in Alleged Allawi Plot, Charges Group Member," AP, December 7, 2004.
18. Whitlock, "In Europe, New Force for Recruiting Radicals."
19. "Terrorist with One-Way Ticket to Istanbul Caught," Hurriyet, December 10, 2003. Accessed via FBIS.
20. Tony Czuczka, "Militants Said to Send Fighters to Europe," AP, January 8, 2005.
21. "Chronicle of a Foiled Plot-How Iraqis Were Tailed," Deutsche Presse-Agentur, December 8, 2004.
22. "Schnelles Eingreifen Verhinderte Anschlag auf Allawi," Tagesschau, December 7, 2004.
23. "Berlin Building Searched in Probe of Alleged Attack Plan on Iraqi Prime Minister," AP, December 8, 2004.
24. Tony Czuczka, "German Authorities Say Islamic Militants behind Allawi Assassination Plot Are Sending Fighters from Iraq to Europe," AP, January 8, 2005
25. "Islamic Terrorist Suspects Held after Police Raids," Deutsche Presse- Agentur, January 12, 2005.
26. Geir Moulson, "Terror Suspects Arrested in Germany," AP, June 14, 2005.
27. Craig S. Smith and Don van Natta Jr., "European Muslims Joining War against U.S. in Iraq," New York Times, October 26, 2004.
28. Jean Chichizola, "Le Troisieme Francais Capture en Irak a Ete Iden- tifib," Le Figaro, February 5, 2005.
29. "Sept Suspects Arretes a Paris," Le Parisien, January 26, 2005.
30. Jean Chichizola, "Four Recruiters for Jihad in Iraq Arrested," Le Figaro, January 26, 2005. Accessed via FBIS.
31. Scheherazade Faramarzi, "Leaving Slums of Paris, Two Muslim Teens Turn to Waging Jihad," AP, November 26, 2004.
32. Ibid.
33. "France Detains 11 Suspected `Recruits' to War in Iraq," AFP, January 26, 2005.
34. "France Investigates Iraqi Jihad Volunteer Suspects," AFP, September 22, 2004.
35. Piotr Smolar, "Une Enquete Mise a Mal par les Tensions entre Parquet et Juges antiterrorists," Le Monde, June 15, 2004.
36. Chichizola, "Le Troisieme Francais Capture."
37. Faramarzi, "Leaving Slums of Paris."
38. "France Detains 11 Suspected `Recruits."'
39. Karimi is believed to have recruited Brahim Yadel, one of the seven Frenchmen detained in Guantanamo Bay.
40. Pierre-Antoine Souchard, "Arrests Keep Young Would-Be French Militants from Iraqi Battlefields," AP, February 3, 2005.
41. Rotella, "Europe's Boys of Jihad."
42. Elaine Sciolino, "French Detain Group Said to Recruit Iraq Rebels," New York Times, January 26, 2005.
43. Craig S. Smith, "U.S. Holding 3 Frenchmen with Ties to Insurgency," New York Times, February 5, 2005.
44. Gerard Davet, "Les Filieres de Recrutement de la `Guerre Sainte' Sont en Place," Le Monde, December 16, 2004.
45. Elaine Sciolino, "French Detain Group Said to Recruit Iraq Rebels."
46. Don van Natta Jr. and Desmond Butler, "Calls to Jihad Are Said to Lure Hundreds of Militants into Iraq," New York Times, November 1, 2003.
47. Jean Chichizola, "Coup de filet de la DST a Limoges et Montpellier," Le Figaro, June 22, 2005.
48. Nick Pelham, Jordan Antony Barnett, and Mark Townsend, `British Olympic Hope `Was Iraq Suicide Bomber,"' Observer, November 16, 2003.
49. Ibid.
50. Richard Beeston, "Briton `Caught Red-Handed' over Guns," Times (London), January 7, 2005.
51. David Leppard and Hala Jaber, "70 British Muslims Join Iraq Fighters," Sunday Times, June 26, 2005.
52. "Operacion en Espana Contra el Terrorismo," El Mundo, June 15, 2005.
53. "Interior Sospecha que Afalah se Inmolo' en Irak," El Mundo, June 15, 2005.
54. Whitlock, "In Europe, New Force for Recruiting Radicals."
55. Ibid.
56. "4 Sweden Terror Suspects Said to Murder," AP, April 23, 2004.
57. "Iraqi Pair Jailed for Terror Plots," AFP, May 12, 2005.
58. Tribunal of Milan, Indictment of Muhamad Majid and others.
59. Philip Shishkin, "Norway Hits Bumps in Terror Probe," Wall Street Journal Europe, March 23, 2004.
60. "Mullah Krekar Warns US," Aftenposten, March 20, 2003.
61. Tribunal of Milan, Indictment of Muhamad Majid and others.
62. Nathanael Johnson, "Norway's Dilemma: How to Deal with Mullah Krekar," PBS Frontline Special on Europe. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/ frontline/shows/fronUmap/krekar.html.
63. Ibid.
64. Jonathan Tisdall, "Bin Laden Turned Him Down," Aftenposten, April 22, 2004.
65. Domink Cziesche and Georg Mascolo, "Departure for the Killing Fields," Der Spiegel, December 8, 2003. Accessed via FBIS.
66. Tribunal of Milan, Sentence against Maher Bouyahia and others, Janua
ry 24, 2005.
67. Giuseppe Sarcina, "Frattini: "Ora c'e' it Rischio the l'Italia Diventi Zona Franca per gli Estremisti,"' Corriere Bella Sera, January 25, 2005.
68. Paolo Biondani and Biagi Marsigilia, "Il `Moderato' Tradito da un Video dove Spara," Corriere Bella Sera, January 26, 2005.
69. "Dambruoso: Guerriglia e Terrore? Indistinguibili," ANSA Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata, January 26, 2005.
70. Air Force Lieutenant General Norton Schwartz, Department of Defense briefing, October 23, 2003.
71. Abu Musab al Zarqawi, letter of February 2004, translated into English by the Coalition Provisional Authority.
72. "Bin Laden Hails Zarqawi as Iraq Chief, Calls for Polls Boycott; Tape," AFP, December 27, 2004.
73. Testimony of CIA Director Porter Goss before the US Senate Intelligence Committee, January 16, 2005.
74. "Third Suspected Radical Islamic under Investigation in France," AFP, January 29, 2005.
75. "Islamists Arrested in Paris Planned France Attacks," Reuters, January 28, 2005.
PART IV
MADRID, VAN GOGH,
AND THE NEW FACE
OF AL QAEDA
CHAPTER 11
THE MADRID
TRAIN BOMBINGS
You have to know that I met other brothers, that little by little I created with just a few things, before they were drug dealers, criminals, I introduced them to faith and now they are the first ones to ask me when it's the moment for jihad. Some of them went to Afghanistan and others are praying and waiting.... You have to know that we are emigrants of God. We are for jihad, we believe in God and in his Prophet Mohammed, because everything is allowed, including marrying Christian women because we need the documents. We have to be everywhere, in Germany, Holland, London. We are dominating Europe with our presence.
Al Qaeda in Europe Page 30
