U.S. Department of State Country Reports on Terrorism 2006 - Spain

Spain cooperated closely with the United States and worked aggressively to investigate and prosecute acts of terrorism, to prevent future attacks, and to disrupt terrorist acts that possibly were directed against U.S. interests.

Spain has decades of experience with terrorism involving the Basque terrorist group Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA). Despite the "permanent ceasefire" declared by the group in March, on December 30 the group exploded a massive car-bomb at Madrid's Barajas International Airport, killing two individuals. The government of Spanish President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero announced political negotiations with the group had ended. ETA supporters continued to carry out acts of street violence and vandalism in the Basque region and Navarra. The group was weakened by the continued arrests of senior members and logistical supporters by Spanish and French authorities.

Spain arrested 47 individuals with possible links to al-Qaida and related extremist organizations. The National Court Chief Prosecutor reported in July that Spain held a total of 145 Islamist extremist terrorist suspects that were either under prison sentence or awaiting trial. Detainees included individuals arrested in 2004 for the March 11 train bombings and others for conspiring to bomb Spain's High Court. Authorities continued to hold eleven Pakistani nationals arrested in Barcelona in 2004, for allegedly providing logistical support to al-Qaida, and the prosecutor asked for sentences ranging from 22 to 32 years in jail. In April, the U.K. extradited Tunisian citizen Hedi Ben Youseff Boudhiba to Spain, where he was awaiting trial for membership in a Spanish terrorist cell that provided false passports and other identification to the March 11, 2004 bombers.

Spain remained both a target for international terrorist groups and an important transit point and logistical base for terrorist organizations operating in Western Europe. Spain did not serve as a safe haven for terrorists or terrorist organizations, but the large population of immigrants from North Africa, the opportunities that exist for raising funds through illicit activities, and the ease of travel to other countries in Europe, made Spain a strategic location for international terrorist groups. Spanish authorities put great effort into investigating, disrupting, and prosecuting members of such groups.

Many of the 2004 Madrid train bombing suspects had direct or indirect relationships with members of the Moroccan Islamic Combat Group (GICM), and, in 2006, several GICM members were arrested. A splinter group, known as the Moroccan Salafiya Jihadiya, was also increasingly on the radar screen of Spanish law enforcement.

The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), who later in the year changed its name to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, was known to use Spain as a logistical base and transit point. Several alleged AQIM/GSPC members were arrested this year and Joan Mesquida, Director of the Police and Civil Guard, announced in November that the Spanish and French Ministries of Interior had created a "Joint Investigation Team" to investigate the financial network of the group. This was the first joint team the two countries have created to fight Islamist terrorism.

Spanish police worked to thwart terrorist facilitation networks that sought both to funnel potential extremists from Spain to Iraq, primarily through Syria, as well as bring fighters seasoned in Iraq into Spain. In November, police arrested four individuals charged with cooperating with an Islamist terrorist organization, forging official documents to support terrorist activities, and aiding extremists who tried to enter Spain after having fought in Iraq. In a separate case pending before Spanish courts, the national prosecutor will seek a prison sentence of 124 years for six alleged Islamist extremists arrested in January 2003 in Barcelona and Girona. These individuals are known in Spain as "The Detergent Command," because of their possession of large quantities of detergents that police believed were to serve as ingredients for explosive devices. In June, police arrested eleven individuals on charges of recruiting terrorists for terrorist organizations operating in Iraq.

Also in June, the Supreme Court reduced the prison sentence of Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, aka Abu Dahdah, from 27 years to 12 years. Barakat Yarkas, a Syrian immigrant to Spain, was detained in November 2001 on charges of providing support to AQ and of helping Mohammed Atta organize the September 11 terrorist attacks. Yarkas and 17 co-defendants were convicted in September 2005 for their roles in supporting AQ, but three codefendants were later released on appeal. Among those convicted was al-Jazeera journalist Taysir Alony, who was sentenced to seven years in prison for transporting funds from Yarkas to terrorists in Afghanistan under his cover as a journalist. Spanish authorities released Alony in October for humanitarian reasons stemming from a serious heart problem, but he remained under surveillance.

Spanish authorities continued their investigation into the March 2004 Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people and wounded hundreds of others, and the trials of 29 suspected perpetrators of the attacks were scheduled to begin in February 2007. This year, police arrested an additional 31 individuals in connection with the attacks, bringing to 110 the total number of suspects detained as part of the investigation. In November, Italian authorities extradited Egyptian national Osman El Sayed, known as "the Egyptian," to Spain in response to an international arrest warrant for his alleged role in the Madrid bombings. Later that month, Osman was sentenced in Italy to ten years in jail for international terrorist crimes.

Key arrests by Spanish security forces of suspected international terrorists included:

• January: A joint Civil Guard-SNP operation culminated in the arrest of 19 people associated with Islamist terrorism in Catalonia, Madrid, and Guipuzcoa Province (15 of them were sent to jail). Among the group arrested in Catalonia were seven Moroccans and one Spaniard who were alleged members of the GICM, and allegedly were responsible for sending the suicide bomber who struck the Italian base of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq in November 2003, killing 20 Italian soldiers.
• May: the Civil Guard arrested Issa Ben Othman in Barcelona, an alleged member of the terrorist network dismantled in the January operation. He was accused him of recruiting and sending foreign combatants to Iraq.
• November: Two individuals accused of belonging to the GICM and of having links with the 2003 Casablanca terrorist attack were arrested by Spanish police in Melilla.
• December: Spanish National Police arrested ten Spanish nationals and one Moroccan national in the North African enclave of Ceuta on charges that the men were plotting to carry out a terrorist attack.¹

Spain continued to make progress in its decades-old campaign to eliminate the Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA) terrorist group, but a new phase in the struggle began in March when ETA declared a "permanent cease-fire." The government of President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero agreed to begin peace talks with ETA and its outlawed political wing Batasuna if the group put an end to all violence. ETA supporters continued to engage in street violence and vandalism, and in October alleged ETA supporters stole 350 handguns from an armory in the French town of Vauvert. As of mid-December, Spanish authorities had arrested 15 individuals for membership in or association with ETA. On December 30, ETA exploded a massive car-bomb that destroyed much of the covered parking garage outside the new Terminal 4 of Madrid's Barajas International Airport and effectively broke its nine-month "permanent cease-fire." Two individuals killed in the blast became ETA's first fatalities in more than three years. The government suspended talks with ETA, and government officials subsequently said political negotiations with the group had ended. The bombing came on the heels of extensive vandalism by street gangs in various Basque cities.

Spain cooperated with French authorities in its ETA effort, with French police arresting 22 suspected members and extraditing seven of them to Spain to stand trial. Cooperation with Mexico resulted in the extradition to Spain of four additional ETA members. Spanish authorities charged 41 members of ETA's illegal political front group Batasuna, including senior Batasuna figure Arnaldo Otegi, with membership in a terrorist organization and of providing financial support to ETA. Before the fatal December 30 airport bombing, ETA had carried out 12 bombings, all of them before the March 22 cease-fire announcement, resulting in injuries and significant property damage, but no fatalities.

Spain made great strides in disrupting terrorist cells and frustrating would-be terrorist plots. Under Spanish law, however, the standards of evidence for conviction are high and this affects terrorism cases. For example, the Spanish National Court in September 2005 convicted Spanish national Hamed Abderrahman (known as the "Spanish Taliban", who was transferred to Spain from the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo in February 2004 at the request of Spanish authorities), and sentenced him to six years imprisonment for membership in a terrorist organization. The Supreme Court overturned that decision in July. In its decision, the Supreme Court excluded all evidence obtained during the more than two years that Abderrahman spent in Guantanamo, as well as communications intercepts by Spanish authorities that had also served as evidence against him. It threw out other evidence collected against Abderrahman prior to his capture in Afghanistan and determined that prosecutors had skewed Abderrahman's testimony to incriminate him. This finding had an immediate affect on the case of Lahcen lkassrien, a Moroccan national and former Guantanamo detainee transferred to Spanish custody in July 2005. Spain's National Court, in October, acquitted lkassrien after finding insufficient evidence that he was a member of either AQ or of the Abu Dahdah terror cell in Spain, or that he fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Court excluded the prosecution's evidence that was obtained during his detention in Guantanamo and any information gleaned from intercepted phone calls in Spain.

The U.S. – Spain Counterterrorism Working Group (CTWG) met in Madrid in October, and was addressed by U.S. Attorney General Gonzales, Spanish Minister of Justice Lopez Aguilar, and Spanish Attorney General Conde Pumpido. The group helped foster counterterrorism cooperation between numerous U.S. agencies and their Spanish law enforcement and judicial counterparts. The sides agreed to designate a point of contact on counterterrorism issues in the U.S. Department of Justice and in the Spanish Prosecutors' office to streamline future collaborative efforts.

Spain participated in the Container Security Initiative to scan containers bound to the United States from the port of Algeciras for hazardous and illicit materials. The Megaports initiative was inaugurated in Algeciras in June. Spain and the United States co-chaired the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Terrorism Finance Working Group, and Spain participated in all meetings of the G8 Counterterrorism Action Group (CTAG).

1 Among the detainees were two brothers of former Spanish national Guantanamo detainee Hamed Abderrahaman Ahmed (known in Spain as the Spanish Taliban), whose conviction on terrorism charges was overturned earlier this year by the Spanish Supreme Court. According to initial reports, the eleven men were accused of membership in the GICM or the related "Al Haraka Salafiya Jihadiya" organization. In announcing the arrests, Minister of Interior Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said the group had not selected a specific target, but was in the initial stages of planning an attack.