SPAIN REFLECTS ON JIHADIST THREAT FIVE YEARS AFTER

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 06 MADRID 000261 SIPDIS PASS TO ELIZABETH FARR OF NSC, MARC NORMAN OF S/CT ELAINE SAMSON AND STACIE ZERDECKI OF EUR/WE, AND JANICE BELL OF INR FOR MOLLY PHEE IN EMBASSY ROME E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/26/2024 TAGS: PGOV PINS PREL PTER KJUS SP KCRM SUBJECT: SPAIN REFLECTS ON JIHADIST THREAT FIVE YEARS AFTER MADRID TRAIN BOMBINGS REF: A. 06 MADRID 3042 ¶B. 08 MADRID 1269 ¶C. 08 MADRID 1214 ¶D. 05 MADRID 3260 ¶E. 08 MADRID 73 ¶F. 07 MADRID 1914 MADRID 00000261 001.2 OF 006 Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Arnold A. Chacon for reasons 1.4 (b), (c) and (d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY. On the eve of the fifth anniversary of the March 11, 2004 Madrid train bombings (known in Spain as 11-M),Embassy personnel consulted a range of GOS officials - from the Ministries of Interior and Justice - as well as CT experts from academia and journalism on the extent of the current threat that Spain faces from jihadists. POLOFF, LEGAT and the CG in Barcelona also engaged Embassy contacts on whether the GOS has struck the right balance between disrupting cells on scant evidence to prevent an immediate threat and risking that those detained in such investigations could become further radicalized, more committed to illicit activity, and perhaps even attacking Spain. While there is agreement that Spain remains a jihadist target, there were differing views on the prospects for another attack and on how best to combat the jihadist threat. Sources also opined on the prospects for building a strong case against alleged jihadists in current and upcoming trials. END SUMMARY. //Brief Reflections on the Madrid Train Bombings// ¶2. (S) Magistrate Javier Gomez Bermudez, the sentencing judge in the 11-M case and in many other high-profile trials of jihadists, spoke at length with POLOFF and LEGAT on February ¶24. POLOFF asked him - from all the materials that the magistrate had read and heard, not just from the items that were acceptable evidence in a court of law - whether there was any indication of an Al Qaeda (AQ) link to 11-M. The magistrate replied that there was no such link and that 11-M was conducted by a bunch of like-minded criminals and jihadists without a master plan or further connections. Furthermore, he refuted suggestions that the 11-M attacks were an act of revenge against the GOS by individuals who had formed the second tier of a Madrid-based AQ cell - whose leadership had been detained in 2001 - and later emerged to conduct the Madrid train bombings. COMMENT: The Embassy believes the cell responsible for the Madrid train bombings exhibited considerable coordination in its attacks. The Embassy highlights that, five years later, discussions of 11-M remain highly politically charged, and Gomez Bermudez's comments appear to reflect ONE political view of the attacks. END COMMENT. //Agreement that Spain is a Jihadist Target// ¶3. (S) Gomez Bermudez says that - five years after 11-M - the threat of a jihadist attack in Spain is even greater than it was then. For ONE thing, Al Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) now exists, which takes formal orders from AQ Central in Afghanistan/Pakistan, which has given AQIM the mandate to recover or "liberate" Al Andalus - the parts of the Iberian peninsula that were ruled by Muslims for hundreds of years during the Middle Ages - and Ceuta and Melilla, Spain's two North African enclaves. An attack could happen any day, Gomez Bermudez warned. Asked whether jihadists' calls to liberate Ceuta and Melilla were issued primarily for propaganda or recruiting purposes or if there truly was an active desire to bring about an attack, the magistrate responded that if the jihadists could execute an attack in the enclaves, they would do so, but there is a very MADRID 00000261 002.2 OF 006 heavy security presence that makes an attack unlikely, even with all of the daily border crossings. He related an old saying that for every three people you meet in Ceuta or Melilla, ONE is military, the other is police, and the third is a spy. (COMMENT: LEGAT suggests it is hard to believe that, with all the daily cross-border traffic, jihadists could not conduct an attack in the enclaves if they wanted to do so badly enough. Furthermore, the Embassy's Office of Regional Affairs (ORA) notes that Gomez Bermudez's statements also ignore the possibility of enclave residents conducting attacks. A cell in Ceuta that had planned attacks on an explosives depot and on the city's fairground was dismantled in December 2006. Among the detainees, ten held Spanish citizenship while only ONE was Moroccan. See REFTEL A. END COMMENT.) Gomez Bermudez told Embassy officials that he believes the Casablanca attack of 2003 took place in Morocco because the jihadists could not execute an attack in Ceuta or Melilla. More commonly, he acknowledges, Spain is used as a logistics base from which to finance jihadist activity. ¶4. (S) This claim is borne out by recent research by Javier Jordan, a political science professor at the University of Granada and the director of Athena Intelligence, a foundation devoted to counter-terrorism (CT) research. Jordan's findings note that 24 of the 30 jihadist cells dismantled by Spanish security services since 11-M were involved in logistical support. (COMMENT: The 30 operations are the 28 that are cited in Jordan's publicly available research, plus two recent cases in 2009: Operations Cheapest and Fish, which dismantled cells in January and February, respectively. ORA, however, notes that the ties of the Op Fish suspects to terrorism were considerably exaggerated. END COMMENT.) In a February 27 conversation with POLOFF, Jordan acknowledged that, since 11-M, the number of Islamic militants in Spain has increased, as has the number of different jihadist groups operating in Spain. He also asserted that jihadists' hostility toward Spain has increased and that the number of attempted attacks on Spanish soil -- seven, by Jordan's account - has increased. However, the professionalism and the capabilities of these jihadists has not improved. At the same time, there is more pressure on these jihadists by the Spanish security services, which after 11-M have made considerable efforts to enforce "preventative justice" - to detain Islamic radicals before they become operational. Because of this, the actual threat of another attack could be lower than it was at the time of 11-M. He assessed that, overall, the security services have the upper hand in the situation, which is due in part to a greater recognition by the GOS of the radical Islamist threat and the possibility of an attack on Spanish soil. Jordan adds that analyzing social networks is "fundamental" to understanding who potential jihadists are. There have been so many cases in which friends and family of a radical Islamist are also involved in radical Islam. Understanding social networks is useful for learning where they get their resources and where and how they recruit. ¶5. (C) Antonio Baquero, the leading CT investigative reporter for Barcelona-based El Periodico, disputed the view that the jihadist threat to Spain has increased. In a March 10 conversation with the CG in Barcelona, he asserted that Spain is in no greater or lesser danger of an attack five years after 11-M. "It is a continuous threat," he said. Baquero said in Spain, terrorism continues to be used as a "political tool, like Iraq was in the U.S." He also opined that the GOS was not forward-leaning in warning the public on the extent of the jihadist threat, but he acknowledged there was not much clamoring for that kind of information from the public. MADRID 00000261 003.2 OF 006 ¶6. (C) Rogelio Alonso, a professor at the King Juan Carlos University in Madrid who also works at the Real Instituto Elcano's Global Terrorist Program, asserted to POLOFF on February 11 that the jihadist threat to Spain is still present. There was a threat before 11-M and there continues to be a threat now. All of the motivations and justifications that the jihadists had against Spain are still there. The cause of 11-M was not the Spanish participation in the Iraq war, although - together with the presence of the Spanish military in Afghanistan and Lebanon - it has contributed to the radicalization of jihadists in Spain. The jihadist threat to Spain still exists and the jihadists' intent to harm Spain is still real, Alonso assessed. There is still a lot of jihadist activity in Spain. The calls for the liberation of Al Andalus and Ceuta and Melilla are still there too, he highlighted. //Differing Views on How Best to Counter The Jihadist Threat// ¶7. (C) POLOFF asked Gomez Bermudez about the merits and risks of the GOS's policy of preventative justice (see REFTELS B and C) and whether disrupting cells on scant evidence and detaining suspects for a few years risks even further radicalizing those detained. The magistrate said that the GOS is doing enough to warn the public about the extent of the threat that Spain faces from jihadists and added that there is the risk that the security services are even doing too much on the preventative side, which could make the public jaded. The security services are detaining alleged jihadists with "nothing" for evidence, he claimed. Even so, Gomez Bermudez said he believes that the GOS has struck the right balance, especially in the short term, because Spain cannot allow another attack like 11-M to happen. He opines that Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba is very knowledgeable on CT matters and that the GOS has adopted the right approach. Nevertheless, the judge reasoned, the GOS will need to revise its approach in the next two to three years as the short term becomes the medium term. Baquero agreed that Spanish law enforcement officials have a pretty good handle on CT operational issues, but he suggested that they have a poor understanding of Islam or the familial, cultural aspects that weave terrorists and non-terrorists together. Baquero further noted that, for the moment at least, the different Muslim groups - Pakistanis, Maghrebis, sub-Saharan Africans - are not working together and they all have their own agendas. ¶8. (S) Based on the few experiences that the GOS has had with the issue (he cited Allekema Lamari, an Algerian jihadist who, after being mistakenly released from a Spanish jail, helped conduct the 11-M attacks),Gomez Bermudez has the impression that a jihadist does not repent and cease to be a jihadist after being released. He says that all jihadists who are foreign citizens who are detained and then released are immediately deported so they are not Spain's problem any more. LEGAT asked Gomez Bermudez who is the decision-maker that gives the order on whether or not to go ahead and detain a cell of suspected jihadists: the Minister of Interior, the security services -- the Spanish National Police (SNP),the Civil Guard (GC) or the National Intelligence Center (CNI) -- or the investigative judge who is looking into a case? Gomez Bermudez replied that he understood that it was the Minister who made the decision, which makes it a political decision to proceed with the detention of suspects. COMMENT: LEGAT found this answer interesting in that GOS security services frequently tell him that it is the judges who decide. Meanwhile, ORA remarks that - based on its information - the GOS infrequently deports foreign jihadists from the Middle East or Pakistan upon their release from prison due to MADRID 00000261 004.2 OF 006 concerns that their human rights may be violated in their countries of origin. In recent years, the GOS has successfully obtained commitments from North African countries, particularly Morocco and Algeria, assuring that the human rights of deportees will be respected. This has paved the way for the GOS to deport citizens from these countries; however, released jihadists from the Middle East and Pakistan are allowed to remain in Spain. END COMMENT. ¶9. (C) Alonso acknowledges that the GOS policy of preventative justice involves risks, but - even though there is not a lot of solid proof in these cases - the policy is justified on the idea that it takes very little time for a cell to go operational. What is needed, Alonso argues, is better cooperation between the judiciary and the police, a notion with which Baquero concurs. Baquero further suggested that that the GOS also needs better coordination and cooperation within the security services. He said the intelligence services and the Mossos d'Esquadra - the Catlan regional police force - work pretty well with the GC, but the SNP appears to be left out in the cold except for occasional work with the Guardia Urbana. Baquero lamented that none of them really share information, and as a consequence they all often pay the same informants for the same information. Meanwhile, Alonso also says what is required in cases of jihadist terrorism is a change of mentality in terms of the judicial process in which there would be "a reverse burden of proof," in which the suspects are guilty until proven innocent. The circumstances in which the suspects were detained ought to be given greater consideration, Alonso urged, and ought to be accepted in a court of law. For example, if a person has no job, but fervently preaches jihad and has $25,000 in cash, then that person ought to be assumed to be involved in financing terrorism. He should not just be able to say he found the money and be released. Likewise, if a suspect without a criminal record is found at a jihadist training camp in the Sahel, the person should not be able to claim convincingly that he is a tourist who got lost. ¶10. (C) Gomez Bermudez says that politicians in the Spanish parliament are working on finalizing two new types of crimes related to radical Islam: financing terrorism and the use of the Internet for terrorist purposes. During a November 2008 speech at a CT conference in Zaragoza, Spain, Gomez Bermudez had publicly called for these activities to be codified as their own specific crimes. He suggested that the parliamentarians' work on this issue is nearly completed. He also highlighted that the EU has been working on laws like this and so now Spain must update its laws to be in compliance with the EU. //Current and Future Trials of Alleged Jihadists// ¶11. (C) Gomez Bermudez asserts that the October 2008 Supreme Court ruling (See REFTELS B and C) will not make future prosecutions more difficult. He noted that the Supreme Court argued that actions rather than words are convictable offenses, which he said effectively is not different from what had always been the law. Anything more stringent would be jailing someone for their thoughts and that has no place in a democracy, he remarked. The magistrate said he does not see the National Court doing anything different to prosecute jihadist cases as a result of that Supreme Court ruling. On the topic of current and future jihadist cases, Gomez Bermudez agrees with the notion that there is a lot more evidence (especially emails) in the trial of the 14 suspects as part of Operation Tigris (See REFTEL D) than there was in the Operation Nova case (see REFTEL C),in which he claimed there was "nothing" in terms of evidence. The trial for Op MADRID 00000261 005.2 OF 006 Tigris case began on February 23 but has temporarily been suspended due to HEALTH concerns of ONE of the principal suspects. Professor Jordan suggests that verdicts in the Tigris case may be issued in May or June. ¶12. (S) Asked in mid January 2009 how morale is within the SNP and GC due to the recent Supreme Court acquittals of jihadists who had been convicted by lower courts (See REFTELS B and C),Joaquin Collado, Advisor to Deputy Interior Minister Antonio Camacho, rolled his eyes and said, "you can imagine..." Collado said it is difficult for the security forces because they think they are doing good work, only for the Supreme Court to overturn lower court convictions of jihadists on the basis of lack of evidence. Collado agreed with the notion that the October decision by the Supreme Court did not raise the bar for the future conviction of alleged jihadists. He claimed that in the case of Operation Nova, the allegations were "difficult to prove." Collado indicated that he believes there is more substantial evidence in the upcoming case of Operation Cantata (See REFTEL E), citing for example, that although no explosives were found in that case, the security forces did find timers and other items, which indicated the plot had gone beyond the talking phase and had proceeded to action. He predicted that the protected witness in that case would provide compelling testimony against the defendants. Noting that the suspects in Operation Cantata were only arrested a year ago, Collado suggested it is still too early for the trial in that case to begin any time soon. COMMENT: ORA notes that Spanish law enforcement agencies tend to lose interest in cases following the detention of suspects and do not always provide investigating judges with the support necessary to secure convictions. This greatly reduces the prospects of a successful prosecution for maximum penalty. END COMMENT. //COMMENT// ¶13. (C) Although Spain is adopting a very low-key public observation of 11-M, the GOS, five years on, maintains a very active CT policy focused on disrupting the jihadist threat. Between its experience in combating radical Islamists and its efforts to neutralize the more-than-40-year-long violent campaign for independence by the domestic terrorist group Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA),the GOS has extensive knowledge in CT policy and operational tradecraft and is applying its expertise fully. As the new U.S. Administration takes shape, there are numerous avenues for engaging and improving the bilateral CT relationship. Senior GOS CT officials are extremely well-positioned to discuss the substance of CT issues with USG officials. Post recommends consideration of a series of senior-level visits in both directions, beginning with a visit to Washington by Interior Minister Rubalcaba. Post has an excellent relationship with Rubalcaba, whom we consider ONE of the most impressive and influential Ministers in Zapatero's Cabinet and who has been known to make Zapatero alter or reverse course on CT policies even after the President has publicly committed himself to another position. An invitation for Rubalcaba to travel to Washington - it would be his first trip there - in the coming months for a robust itinerary of inter-agency meetings would very likely pay huge dividends in terms of bilateral cooperation and, in light of Spain's impending ascension to the rotating EU Presidency during the first half of 2010, could also set the stage for enhanced US-EU cooperation on CT issues. Rubalcaba speaks some English. ¶14. (C) Spain's northeastern region of Catalonia, and its capital of Barcelona in particular, have for years been a hotbed of illicit activity, including from radical jihadists MADRID 00000261 006.2 OF 006 who finance terror and those who hope to commit terrorist attacks. Beyond terrorist networks, a confluence of organized crime syndicates - with connections that virtually span the globe - that deal in the contraband of narcotics, human trafficking, money laundering, credit card fraud, and document falsification continues to operate in this region, as detailed in REFTEL F. Catalonia has been the site of 18 of the 30 CT operations cited in Paragraph 4 above and Barcelona, in the words of La Vanguardia, the city's leading daily, is "the principal focus for the development of jihadist terrorism in Spain and in Europe." An emerging trend in the past 15 months is the frequency with which Islamic radicals from the Pakistani community in Catalonia are detained by GOS security services, including in Operations Cantata, Cheapest, and Fish, discussed above. (COMMENT: There are an estimated ONE million Muslims in Spain and roughly 40,000 - 70,000 Pakistanis. Some 25,000 Pakistanis, roughly 90 percent of whom are men - live in greater Barcelona. Baquero believes Barcelona became a hotbed of activity because that's where Muslims settled. This is where they could find jobs and start a life. The terrorists used the economic immigrants as cover and it works. Most of the activity is outside Barcelona proper in places like Hospitalet, Badalona, Reus, and as far south as Tarragona. END COMMENT.) As another recent example, there are allegations that a Pakistani, who was living in Barcelona at the time, is connected to the November, 2008 coordinated Mumbai attacks, which left 179 dead and more than 200 wounded. Javed Iqbal, now in custody in Pakistan, allegedly provided communications and financial support on behalf of the cell that conducted the attack. ¶15. (C) For its part, Post recognizes the multi-faceted threat to U.S. interests from a range of illicit activity emanating from Catalonia and has been making efforts to increase the multi-agency USG presence at the jointly-coordinated counterterrorism, anti-crime, and intelligence center that has been established at the Consulate General in Barcelona. As part of this expansion, Post is pleased that POL/GSO and RSO slots have been approved for Barcelona and we welcome on-going inter-agency interest in contributing to the increased USG presence in Barcelona. CHACON