Tuesday, March 16, 2004

Surrender to terrorists in Spain? Looks as if the guy who did that was Bush's buddy Aznar:

Spain accused of easing up on terror watch

Signs emerge of serious intelligence and security failures before bombings


Spain cut the number of police units responsible for watching radical Islamists in the months before last week's Madrid bombings, reducing numbers by up to a half in some cities and sending them back to ordinary police work, it was claimed yesterday.

A report in the newspaper El Mundo emerged amid numerous signs of serious police and intelligence failures in the run-up to the attacks that killed 201 commuters.

They include allegations that:

· Spanish police possessed phone taps linking a prime suspect in the bombings, the Moroccan Jamal Zougam, with Mohamed Fizazi, a jailed leader of the May bombings in Casablanca, Morocco;

· Arguments between Morocco and Spain over the island of Perejil, fishing rights and immigration had seriously hampered coordination on shared terrorism threats;

· Paperwork that should have allowed police to trace the sale in Spain of the explosives used in the attacks has reportedly gone missing; and

· Spanish police knew that Mr Zougam was closely connected to Salaheddine Benyaiche, another north African Islamist also imprisoned in Morocco for the Casablanca attacks.

It has also been revealed that of six other people now being hunted by Spanish police in connection with the blasts, the majority were already well-known for radical Islamist connections....


--The Guardian

Same pattern as in this country: Act macho by sending troops to Iraq, act macho by getting into fights with other countries that threaten cooperation on anti-terrorism intelligence, shortchange the cops because cops arresting terrorists doersn't let you act as macho as kicking ass in a war. Aznar? Good riddance to bad rubbish.

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