Who are the bastards?
: Netzeitung reports that according to the Spanish secret service, 15 Islamists are behind the Madrid bombings. They say they are “99 percent certain.” This from a Spanish radio report.
: And from Norway:
Norwegian defence researchers have come across documents that may link Al-Qaeda to the Madrid train bombings that have claimed nearly 200 lives, Norwegian TV reported this week .
The researchers, who specialise in digging up original Al-Qaeda releases and interviews, told the NRK television channel they discovered a document on an Arabic website last year outlining Al-Qaeda strategies on how to force the US and its allies to leave Iraq, and pointing to Spain as the “weakest link”.
“It wasn’t until yesterday when we were going through old material to find links to Spain that we understood what we were holding in our hands,” project leader Brynjar Lia told NRK.
“We mainly had the impression that the documents referred to the situation in Iraq, but on closer examination we saw that they specifically refer to Spanish domestic politics and the elections due today,” he added.
According to the TV report, page 42 of the Arabic document reads: “We have to make use of the election to the maximum. The governement at the most can cope with three attacks.”
The document also reportedly predicts that the other partners in the US-led coalition would follow like “pieces of domino” if Spain were to withdraw from Iraq.
Don’t give the bastards an inch.
: UPDATE: Three from Morocco and two from India arrested in the bombings.
: UPDATE: Spanish bloggers post on Tim Blair that a tape has been found with Al Qaeda taking credit/blame for the bombings.
: From The Observer:
The Madrid bombings which killed 200 people were dramatically claimed by the Islamic militant group al Qaeda early on Sunday morning [UK time].
The Interior Minister Angel Acebes said police had recovered a videotape. ‘It’s a claim made by a man in Arabic with a Moroccan accent,’ he said. ‘He makes the declaration in the name of someone who says he is the military spokesman of al- Qaeda in Europe.’
The man on the tape says: ‘We declare our responsibility for what happened in Madrid exactly two-and-a-half years after the attacks on New York and Washington. This is an answer to the crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. If your injustices do not stop there will be more if god wills it.’
