[A-List] Spain: the relationship with Morocco

[Michael Keaney]

Escobar misses one vital piece of information, much more important than any
starry-eyed dream about reestablishing muslim supremacy in Spain itself -- 
the possession by Spain of Moroccan territory, in Ceuta and Mellila, as well
as a few uninhabited islands to the north.

See http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2002w29/msg00020.htm

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Return of the Moor
By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times, March 18 2004

The Spanish press has finally confirmed it: the outgoing government of
premier Jose Maria Aznar - just like the Bush administration and the British
government in relation to the non-existent weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq - lied and manipulated information concerning responsibility for the
Madrid bombings. Since the morning of March 11, hours after the bombings
took place, journalists at the Spanish news agency EFE knew that the
official version blaming Basque separatists from ETA was false.

According to the journalists, "already in the morning, EFE learned about the
existence of a cellphone configured in Arabic, the van found in Alcala de
Henares and [knew] that one of the dead was one of the terrorists. But the
information designating Islamist radical terror was expressly forbidden."
Those journalists are now calling for the resignation of the news director
responsible for the censorship. Spanish and European journalists are talking
about a "coup d'etat using information".

Leading Spanish film maker Pedro Almodovar, presenting his latest movie in
Madrid, went even further, talking about an e-mail circulating widely on the
Internet in Spanish and first published in an Internet forum: "The PP
[Partido Popular], by Saturday midnight, was about to provoke a coup . But
it was the Spanish people who took to the streets demanding information, and
fortunately they could not be stopped."

Almodovar was referring to the "SMS [special messaging service]
revolution" - the word in the streets of Barcelona - that led to spontaneous
demonstrations in major Spanish cities when an avalanche of voters had the
impression that Aznar and his government chose to lie on the backs of the
200 dead and more than 1,500 injured in Madrid. The anger was translated in
the polls by the victory of the socialists against Aznar's PP.

The Moroccan connection
The Spanish daily El Pais, even before the Ministry of Interior, claimed on
Tuesday that the bombings were perpetrated by Salafia Jihadi, a secretive
Moroccan Islamist group linked to al-Qaeda and also blamed for the May 2003
Casablanca suicide bombing that killed 42 people, including 12 suicide
bombers.

But the plot thickened when Spanish police said that Algerian Said Arel, a
resident of Barcelona, coordinated the preparation of the bombings, under
the general supervision of none other than the alleged al-Qaeda operative,
Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, insistently sold by the Americans as "the
new Osama". Experts at a special anti-terrorist cell in Brussels are taking
the Zarqawi connection with a pinch of salt. He has been blamed by the
Pentagon for practically every major terrorist attack in the last few
months: Zarqawi would by now be responsible for the deaths of more than 700
people.

The fact remains that Jamal Zougam, a Moroccan from Tangiers, already in
custody, is the key to the whole investigation. One of his cousins in
Tangiers denies any involvement. But Zougam was recognized by a witness
traveling in one of the trains on March 11. Zougam is directly connected to
the Afghan-Moroccans - jihadis who received training in al-Qaeda camps in
Afghanistan - and was already investigated by French police on suspicion of
being connected to the dismantled al-Qaeda cell in Spain led by Imad
Barakat, aka Abu Dhada, directly implicated in the September 11, 2001
attacks. Zougam is also connected to fellow Tangiers-born Abu Mughen, one of
dozens of people arrested in Morocco for the Casablanca bombings. Five other
Moroccans, already identified, may have placed the dynamite backpacks on the
trains, but by now may have already left Spain.

European investigators are still puzzled: it remains to be seen whether the
Salafia Jihadi are connected or mingled with the Lions of Al-Mufridoon, an
al-Qaeda cell made up of Moroccans, Tunisians and Algerians which claimed
responsibility for the Madrid bombings even before the e-mail sent by the
Abu Hafs Al-Masri Brigades to a London-based Arabic newspaper.

Moroccans, for their part, are understandably on edge. There is a wide
consensus in the country that good Muslims could not have possibly
perpetrated the attacks, while Moroccan immigrants in Spain are bracing for
an inevitable backlash. A Moroccan political leader - who asked to remain
anonymous - told the website IslamOnline.net that "all the talk about
Moroccans being arrested is suspicious . I smell a clear Zionist plot . Who
has a catch here? International Zionism is the answer. Implicating Arabs and
Muslims in such horrific acts serves to add credibility to the Zionist
project."

Spain is the ultimate Eldorado for Moroccans and other northern Africans.
There are up to 340,000 legal Moroccan immigrants in Spain, plus tens of
thousands of illegals who crossed the 13 kilometers of the Straits of
Gibraltar using anything that floats. In 2003 alone, more than 23,000 were
repatriated to Morocco. Conservative Spaniards are resolutely against
Moroccan immigration.

The new sigh of the Moor
For Islamists and jihadis, Spain is definitely Islamic territory occupied by
infidels. Osama bin Laden has already explicitly mentioned the "Andalucian
tragedy" when referring to the end of the Moors' (Muslim) presence in Spain.

When the Arabs of the desert conquered Spain in the 8th century, they
thought they had reached heaven. No need to wonder, then, why in the minds
of jihadis the fate of Boabdil is very much alive. Boabdil was the Last
Moor, also called El Zogoybi (The Unlucky). In 1491 the Castillans laid
siege to the last Islamic fortress in Spain - and the most fabulous of them
all: the magnificent Alhambra, in Granada. On the morning of January 2,
1492 - only a few months before Columbus discovered America - Boabdil
surrendered Alhambra. Every serious visitor to Granada goes to the summit of
a hill called El Suspiro del Moro - the Last Sigh of the Moor - to reenact
the moment when Boabdil turned in tears to take a last glimpse of the
Alhambra. At the same time, church bells were ringing all over Christian
Europe.

Christian historians insist that the Spanish Reconquista started as early as
722 - only 11 years after the Spanish had been soundly defeated by a Muslim
army of only 10,000. But Islam started withdrawing from Spain only by 1085,
when they lost Toledo to Alfonso VI. This was 10 years before the official
start of the Crusades, when Pope Urban I granted remission of all sins to
everyone who joined the holy war against Islam: the Pope said it was a
Christian duty to "exterminate this vile race from our lands".

The Moors were in Spain for almost 800 years. Then the Spanish Inquisition
deported all Muslims and Jews from the Catholic empire. Those who stayed had
to convert. Spanish Jews fled to the Ottoman empire and lived in peace for
centuries under the caliph. Muslims had to go back to northern Africa and
live for centuries in nostalgia of past glory. Islamic Africa could not
muster the energy to engage in another war with Europe. But in the mind of
many a jihadi, the Madrid bombing - a direct attack on Castille - is the way
of saying, more than 500 years later: "It's payback time." A jihad is never
over.