The Bombing of Madrid: Two Years On

by **antiaristo** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 10:50 pm

Tomorrow is the second anniversary of the bombing of Madrid. The worst terrorist attack in the history of the European Union. Everybody wants to do a minute's silence. But nobody wants to find out Whodunnit. I wonder why? <blockquote>Quote:<hr>No Evidence al-Qaida Planned Madrid AttacksBy PAUL HAVEN, AP MADRID, Spain (March 10) - A two-year probe into the Madrid train bombings concludes the Islamic terrorists who carried out the blasts were homegrown radicals acting on their own rather than at the behest of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, two senior intelligence officials said. Spain still remains home to a web of radical Algerian, Moroccan and Syrian groups bent on carrying out attacks - and aiding the insurgency against U.S. troops in Iraq - a Spanish intelligence chief and a Western official intimately involved in counterterrorism measures in Spain told The Associated Press. The intelligence chief said there were no phone calls between the Madrid bombers and al-Qaida and no money transfers. The Western official said the plotters had links to other Islamic radicals in Western Europe, but the plan was hatched and organized in Spain. "This was not an al-Qaida operation," he said. "It was homegrown." [Comment. No phone calls to al Qaeda. But their last phone call was to London - also known as "Londonistan".] SNIP Ahead of Saturday's anniversary of the March 11, 2004 blasts - which killed 191 people and wounded 1,500 - victims' groups have been clamoring for more progress in the investigation. Gabriel Moris, whose 30-year-old son died in the bombings, said: "These past two years have done nothing to clear up what happened. My questions are simple: Who ordered the massacre? Who killed my son and the other innocent victims?" Some 116 people have been arrested in the bombings, and 24 remain jailed. At least three others - Said Berraj, Mohammed Belhadj and Daoud Ouhane - are sought by authorities, though all are believed to have fled Spain long ago. The intelligence official said the top planners are all either dead or in jail. [Comment. Oh no they're not.] While the plotters of the Madrid attack were likely motivated by bin Laden's October 2003 call for attacks on European countries that supported the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, there is no evidence they were in contact with the al-Qaida leader's inner circle, the intelligence official said. Most of the plotters were Moroccan and Syrian immigrants, many with criminal records in Spain for drug trafficking and other crimes. They paid for explosives used in the attack with hashish. That is a far cry from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States - allegedly planned by al-Qaida leaders like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh and funded directly by the terror network through international wire transfers and Islamic banking schemes. SNIP (load of propaganda) He said authorities believe the Madrid bombers learned how to construct the bombs - all connected to Mitsubishi Trium T110 mobile phones - from Internet sites linked to radical Islamic groups. The devices were similar to ones used in the 2002 Bali bombing, he said, evidence that militants in both countries got information on the same radical Web sites. Spanish authorities were monitoring several of the bombers in the months before the attack - and actually stopped Ahmidan's car on a highway in late February, unaware he was leading a caravan of other terrorists transporting the explosives used in the blasts. [Comment. They were stopped FOUR times on that journey, not once. And each time they were allowed to continue on their way.] The intelligence official said authorities had never imagined a group of petty drug traffickers were capable of planning such a massive attack. "Had we been told a day before (the bombing) that this is what was going on, we would have dismissed it," he said.<hr></blockquote> <a href="http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060309204209990002&_ccc=3&cid=842">articles.news.aol.com/new...=3&cid=842</a> There is your tip-off. <blockquote>Quote:<hr>The intelligence official said authorities had never imagined a group of petty drug traffickers were capable of planning such a massive attack.<hr></blockquote> That could be any number of people in the Bush administration, couldn't it? Condi on 9/11 and Bush on Katrina come immediately to mind. The Spanish Establishment are getting really nervous about this. The investigating magistrate is Juan del Olmo, who works for the King. Two days ago he tried the same sort of dirty manoeuvre against the victims that the European Court pulled on me. But it hit the airways. And he backed down quicker than you can say "Viva Franco!" The people are learning. Chapter and verse on the bombing here <a href="http://p216.ezboard.com/frigorousintuitionfrm17.showMessage?topicID=98.topic">p216.ezboard.com/frigorou...D=98.topic</a>

by **antiaristo** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 9:07 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>DOJ Faults FBI for Fingerprinting Error Saturday March 11, 2006 10:31 AM By WILLIAM McCALL Associated Press Writer PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - An FBI mistake linking an Oregon lawyer, a Muslim convert, to the 2004 Madrid train bombings was a ``watershed event'' that led to improved fingerprint identification but more needs to be done, according to a federal report. The 330-page Department of Justice report released Friday, the day before the second anniversary of the bombings, expanded on its January report that faulted the FBI for sloppy work but concluded the government did not misuse the anti-terror Patriot Act against Portland attorney Brandon Mayfield. FBI experts mistakenly matched fingerprints found on a bag of detonators in Madrid to Mayfield's after the March 11, 2004 train bombings that killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,500. Mayfield, who was jailed for two weeks in 2004 on a material witness warrant, was released after the FBI acknowledged the fingerprint was not his. ``Among other things, the examiners applied circular reasoning, allowing details visible in Mayfield's known prints to suggest features in the murky or ambiguous details ... that were not really there,'' the report by the department's internal watchdog said. Mayfield is suing the federal government. Some of the report was blacked out - especially details of the FBI's search of Mayfield's home and office, which are the subject of Mayfield's lawsuit. The Justice Department's Inspector General, Glenn Fine, conducted an investigation into Mayfield's arrest. The full report states that the misidentification of the fingerprint was a ``watershed event for the FBI Laboratory, which has described latent fingerprint identification as the 'gold standard for forensic science.''' But Fine adds that ``we found that some of the changes adopted by the (FBI) Laboratory were not fully responsive to the issues raised by the Mayfield misidentification.'' The report outlined at least six recommendations, including alternate procedures for verifications; reviewing previous cases based on a single fingerprint identified through the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System; and requiring documentation of observed features before comparisons are made to confirm the identification. FBI Special Agent Ann Todd, a spokeswoman for the lab, said the two FBI experts who first examined the print are not doing case work, ``although both have been cleared to do so.'' An FBI contractor who verified the identification has ``not performed any work for the FBI laboratory subsequent to the Mayfield error,'' Todd said. She said that in the 73-year history of the latent prints operation, the lab has made an erroneous identification once every 11 years, on average.<hr></blockquote> <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5678426,00.html">www.guardian.co.uk/worldl...26,00.html</a> Two comments. As soon as the "evidence" was wired to the investigators in Spain it was identified as wrong. But Mayfield stayed in prison. There is a similar case convulsing Scotland at the moment. The same type of "evidence" was used to frame a female police officer. Though every expert who has looked at it has identified the flaws. Is the "gold Standard" being reduced to pyrite?

The Bombing of Madrid: Two Years On

The Bombing of Madrid: Two Years On

Re: The Bombing of Madrid: Two Years On

Who is online