Al Qaeda's New Front

Drudge/Frontline ^ | Tuesday, January 25

[woofie]

On March 11, 2004, as four early morning commuter trains were arriving at Atocha station in Madrid, a series of bombs were detonated. Packed with commuters and students heading for work and school, the trains were blown apart. Pandemonium ensued. Fractured bodies littered the station and railway tracks, leaving 191 people dead and more than 1,400 injured.

It was the worst terrorist attack in the history of Western Europe. And it was a grim reminder that the followers of Al Qaeda were very much alive and well.

In "Al Qaeda's New Front," airing Tuesday, January 25, at 9 P.M. on PBS (check local listings) FRONTLINE, in association with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and The New York Times, investigates the alarming threat radical Salafist jihadists pose to Western Europe and its allies‹including the United States.

"It might come as a surprise to many Americans," says correspondent Lowell Bergman, "But the most pressing threat to the United States is not the suspected Al Qaeda cells at home, but rather the cells operating overseas, especially in Western Europe."

Home to an estimated 18 million Muslims, Western Europe has become the new and deadly battleground in the war on terror. That's because disenfranchised Muslims‹inspired by local radical imams and jihadist Web sites‹are taking up the cause of jihad. And Al Qaeda, once just a loose organization on the continent, has morphed into a powerful ideological movement.

"The threat is before us, not behind us," France's top antiterror judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, tells FRONTLINE. "And we are quite concerned....I think that the terrorist threat today is more globalized, more scattered, and more powerful...than it was before September 11."

What's driving the terrorism threat? Many experts in counterterrorism say it's the belief that violence is justified in order to free the Muslim world from corrupt governments and the influence of the United States and Europe. And because it's difficult for jihadists to launch an attack on U.S. cities and institutions, their focus has turned to local targets in Western Europe.

FRONTLINE follows Rabei Osman El Sayed Ahmed, an Egyptian charged with 191 murders in connection with the Madrid attack. Rabei, also known as "Mohammed the Egyptian," is an example of this new generation of jihadi operatives who apparently operate independently of the old Al Qaeda network set up by Osama bin Laden. He is an example of the next generation of Islamist terrorist that Europe must now contend with.

"This country has seen terrorism since the end of the 1960s," says Sir David Veness, assistant commissioner for specialist operations with London's Metropolitan Police, "Both domestic extremism and international terrorism here on the streets of London. What is different about this form of terrorism is the unequivocal intention to cause mass murder...without warning in any form to the public."

European police have thwarted dozens of Islamist terrorist plots set to be launched following the U.S. attacks of September 11. But European counterterrorism experts say their job has become more difficult since the War in Iraq has further radicalized Salafist jihadists in Europe.

"Any observer can see that this War in Iraq is in fact a farm, a school to train graduates on acts of terrorism and fighting," says Reda Seyam, an Egyptian-born German citizen who reportedly had been under investigation in connection with the Bali bombings. "[It] revives the spirit of jihad in the Muslim nation."

[Maigret]

Ah yes, another Canadian made 'it's Bush's fault' piece.

[woofie]

What is different about this form of terrorism is the unequivocal intention to cause mass murder...without warning in any form to the public

[quantim]

Many experts in counterterrorism say it's the belief that violence is justified in order to free the Muslim world from corrupt governments

Imagine that.

[America's Resolve]

unequivocal intention to cause mass murder

Why should mass murder be any different. Islam condones every law of man and God that any of us has ever heard of. Drug running, gun running, arson, kidnapping, slavery, extortion, fraud, forgery, you name it, it is practiced somewhere in Islam.

Except maybe barratry. Haven't heard of that one I think, yet.

Oh well, we're only infidels. Subhumans to the Muslims, same as Jews were 'only jews' to the nazi's.

[America's Resolve]

Gotta say though. PBS, CBC and NYT is as potent a mix of leftie biased ideology as you're gonna find anywhere.

[prairiebreeze]

"Any observer can see that this War in Iraq is in fact a farm, a school to train graduates on acts of terrorism and fighting,"

Bull. They were in Afghanistan before Iraq and if it wasn't Iraq it'd be some other hell-hole place on that part of the planet. Sorry Reda, your "justification" is crap.

[ClaireSolt]

This assertion that fighting them promotes terrorism is nuts. Increasing the cost of bad behavior with serious consequences always shrinks these movements down to the hard core.

[prairiebreeze]

Precisely. Yet the MSM would love for us to believe differently. Fools.

[woofie]

I think the bigger question for the left is :

Is any war justified in their thinking?

Was peace attained after WW2 worth the price or would we all be better off speaking German?

[Shermy]

"Many experts in counterterrorism say it's the belief that violence is justified in order to free the Muslim world from corrupt governments and the influence of the United States and Europe. And because it's difficult for jihadists to launch an attack on U.S. cities and institutions, their focus has turned to local targets in Western Europe."

Yeah, they're only attacking Euros because they can't attack America. Candian Lefty logic.

[SeaBiscuit]

blah, blah, blah. In the sick world of liberals, the victim is the perp and the perp is the victim.

[Rockingham]

Consider how Europe invited its role as al Queda's new prime target.

On the take from Saddam and cultivating ties with Muslim countries, Chirac and the French lead Old Europe into opposing the US on Iraq, much bitter anti-American rhetoric thrown in. This repudiation of Europe's traditional alliance with the US is popular with the Left and reverberates through the news media, steering popular opinion toward hostility to the US. Even the continent's Muslims seem to like what Europe's leaders are saying since it fits with Muslim views.

Then, with the US homeland so well defended as to be a too hard a target, al Queda and other Islamic terrorist groups logically turn their attention toward Europe. With popular opinion inflamed against the US, extremism is spurred among Muslims and recruitment of them for terrorist work becomes relatively easy in Europe.

After all, everyone knows that the Americans are up to no good in Iraq. All a Muslim in Europe has to do to arrive at that opinion is to read the newspapers, watch TV, or talk to his friends. Rarely are contrary views heard, and European leaders themselves frequently make hostile comments about Americans and their foolish and evil war in Iraq.

But is the American effort in Iraq really the problem? Or is the problem Europe's venal motives and reckless denunciations of America?

Europe, awash with millions of resentful, unassimilated Muslims, has been like a man standing in a pool of gasoline determined to annoy his neighbor by tossing lit matches at him. And now that Europeans sense their self-made peril, they blame the USS, not themselves.

[Jumper]

The choice of the Europe was to have relations with neighbors, e.g., Islam and Arabs, Africians and others, or to seal their boarders at the colonies. The Europeans choose to make humaine relations and provide administrative hold of the former colonies who are still under European dominance. Africa has never shed the stench of the French, the Belgium's the Dutch, nor the Spanish. Only the Germans who ceded their possessions at the end of WWI are free from entrapment in the modern era.

One of the reasons the UN is so corrupt and anti-American is the European Administration of these socially failed states in political orbit of their colony masters. The reason Bush offered AIDS money only to certain countries was a reflection of this reality and spheres of influence.

Islam will continue to conflict with any other philosopy it encounters with hostile intent for it knows no other teaching. Most of the Arabic/Africia problems seem to be traced directly to French interactions from the earliest date and this Gual influence is still being used against America today.

[standing united]

If we only left them alone, we would not be facing such a terror threat.

It is Bush's fault, and those stupid Americans>

Thanks Canada, your next on the terror list, and you don't even see it coming.

[nw_arizona_granny]

Ping

[Calpernia]

bump

[ml1954]

because it's difficult for jihadists to launch an attack on U.S. cities and institutions, their focus has turned to local targets in Western Europe.

Low hanging fruit.