(Radical) Muslims war on Spain

'Jihad recruiters' held in Spain

Monday, 28 May 2007, 08:38 GMT 09:38 UK

Spanish police have arrested 14 suspected Islamist
militants, mostly in the north-eastern region of Catalonia. The suspects were allegedly involved in recruiting jihadi volunteers for training in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Police in Catalonia detained 11 in Barcelona and other
towns. The others were arrested in Madrid and Malaga.
The interior ministry believes the majority of those arrested
are Moroccan nationals. Police have confiscated a
considerable amount of computer data.
Twenty-nine suspected Islamists - most of them
Moroccans - are currently on trial for the deadly Madrid
train bombings in 2004 which killed 191 people and injured
more than 1,700.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6697481.stm

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NEWS FEATURE: Alarm in Spain over al-Qaeda call for
its "reconquest"By Sinikka Tarvainen, dpaEds: epa photos available
Thursday, April 12, 2007 at 13:11Subject: /Spain-Terrorism/
Madrid (dpa) - The emergence of a new al-Qaeda-linked
organization in Northern Africa is alarming Spain, which is
concerned about Islamists' calls for the reconquest of the
country they regard as a lost part of the Muslim world. "We will not be in peace until we set our foot again in our beloved al-Andalus," al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said
on claiming responsibility for an attack which killed at
least 24 people in Algiers on Wednesday.
Al-Andalus is the Moorish name for Spain, parts of which
were ruled by Muslims for about eight centuries until the
last Moorish bastion, Granada, succumbed to the
Christian Reconquest in 1492.

The terrorists will undoubtedly attempt to extend their
offensive from Northern Africa to European soil, anti-
terrorism judge Baltasar Garzon warned, cautioning that
Spain was at a "very high risk" of suffering an Islamist
attack.
The reference to al-Andalus was not the first by al-Qaeda,
which has also vowed to put an end to the Spanish
"occupation" of the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on the
Moroccan coast.

Such announcements worry the security services in
Spain, where 29 mainly Moroccan suspects are on trial for
the 2004 Madrid train bombings that killed 191 and injured
about 1,800 people.
The bombings were mainly a reaction to the war alliance
of Spain's former conservative government with the United
States in Iraq, but some of the terrorists are also known to
have dreamed of reconquering al-Andalus.
The bloodbath in Algiers could launch a new string of
attacks in Northern Africa and Europe, including Spain,
terrorism expert Fernando Reinares warned.
Al-Qaeda is extending its activities in Northern Africa,
where the Algiers bombings were preceded by the
suicides of three Moroccan Islamists who blew
themselves up to avoid being captured by police on
Tuesday.

The Algerian-based al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb,
formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and
Combat (GSPC), intends to federate North African Islamist
cells under a common umbrella.
Some of the people who could attack Spain may already
be in the country, where nearly 80 per cent of prison
inmates jailed on charges related to international terrorism
have come from Northern Africa over the past five years.
Islamist radicals proselytize at an estimated 10 per cent
of Spain's hundreds of unofficial mosques, which operate
in garages, basements and the like.
Spain has become an important base for the recruitment
of suicide bombers who are sent to Iraq, according to
press reports. Some of the fighters are believed to be
trained in new al-Qaeda camps in Sahel countries such as
Mali, Niger or Mauritania.

The Madrid train bombings appear to have been organized
by a home- grown Islamist cell with the backing of the
Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM).
Ceuta and Melilla, which have sizeable Muslim
populations, could well be the next targets, judge Garzon
warned.
http://eux.tv/article.aspx?articleId=6283

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Jihad Online: Islamists recruiting in Spain, supporters
rising in CataluñaApril 18th, 2007
Source:
http://www.elconfidencialdigital.com/Articulo.aspx?IdObjeto=11510

http://toastedbread.wordpress.com/2007/04/18/jihad-online-islamists-recruiting-in-spain-supporters-rising-in-cataluna/

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Muslim - 'Palestinians' war on... Spain

HAMAS Targets Spain By Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld

FrontPageMagazine.com 1/2/2006

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos’ efforts
earlier this year to remove HAMAS from the European
Union’s terrorist list, have done little to change HAMAS’
agenda. It is not only Palestine that children in the West
Bank and Gaza are asked to liberate; now they are asked
to liberate Seville.
The HAMAS children’s magazine, Al-
Fateh, in a recent issue, (No. 66), tells the children about
the city called Asbilia (Seville) and calls on them to free it,
together with the whole country, from the infidels and to
reinstate Muslim rule.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID={BA2D868F-BDCB-429A-8432-E83343375FF9}


Gaza Not Enough; Hamas Demands Return of
SevilleHamas demands return of Seville in internet
children's magazine. The children's website Al Fateh,
property of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, http://tammybruce.com/2006/01/gaza_not_enough_hamas_demands.php

Hamas Demands Return of Seville to Islam In its latest
issue, the Hamas children’s web site Al Fateh demands
the return of the Spanish city of Seville to the “lost
paradise” of Al Andalus. ...
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=19022_Hamas_Demands_Return_of_Seville_to_Islam&only

Open Source » Blog Archive » Hamas 2.0 Hamas
demands return of Seville in internet children’s magazine.
Spain Herald.
http://www.spainherald.com/2414.html.

“The children’s website Al Fateh, ...
http://www.radioopensource.org/hamas-20

____________________________

A Fatwa in Spain

By Aaron Hanscom FrontPageMagazine.com 9/4/2006

Police protection and armored cars have been regular
features in Gustavo de Arístegui’s life for the past decade.
This is because the author and Foreign Affairs
Spokesman for Spain’s conservative Partido Popular has
devoted a large part of his 25 year career denouncing
radical Islam. After the publication of Arístegui’s latest
book The Jihad in Spain: The obsession to reconquer Al-
Ándalus, Yusuf Fernandez, the spokesman for the
Spanish Federation of Islamic Religious Entities, branded
him an “enemy of Islam.” Then last week came the
discovery of death threats against the Spanish politician
on encrypted Jihadist websites based in Saudi Arabia. I
spoke with Mr. Arístegui by phone on Monday about the
threats facing his country and himself.
Q: Why are radical Islamists obsessed with reconquering
Spain and why should this obsession be a concern for all
Westerners?

A: It’s very much about the objectives and goals that they
have and that to a large extent the West has not
understood. They want to: A) Overthrow governments that
they consider anti-Islamic, corrupt, and above all apostate.
Therefore, in considering governments and regimes
apostate they are entitled, even obliged, to overthrow them
and destroy their leaders. B) Reconquer any kind of
country or territory that has at any time in its history been
under the domain of Islam. C) Reestablish the caliphate.
D) Extend their domain and power over the whole world.
So, yes, the symbolism of Spain is extremely important to
them. Spain was under the domain of Islam for 800 years.
It’s not just Andalucía as some people say. It is almost
all of Spain. And if we are to consider the whole of
Europe, then it would be 4/5 of the Iberian Peninsula,
some parts of the South of France, half of Italy, all the
Balkans, and definitely all the islands of the
Mediterranean. We are facing a very serious threat.
To understand the risks that we face, we’ve got to read
what our enemies have to say about us. Ayman al-
Zawahiri said in his book Knights Under the Banner of the
Prophet that Europe had become a spiritual vacuum that
only Islam could fill and that Europe is the new frontier of
Islam, the new land of conquest, and above all the new
battleground of the global jihad. Europe is the weakest
link in the chain because it has 27 million Muslims of
which some have a certain degree of sympathy for radical
ideas. Therefore, they think that when Europe actually
becomes a continent with a very important Muslim
minority, it will be a very easy target and its land very
easy to conquer.

Q: Describe what you call the “síndrome andalusí” or the
obsession for lost glory. Who is guilty of perpetuating the
myth of Al-Ándalus?
A: Many people, not only Muslim scholars. Romantic
scholars were guilty of perpetuating the myth. Just take a
look at the 19th century novelists and intellectuals who
were obsessed with medieval times. (An example is Sir
Walter Scott and his famous novel Ivanhoe.) That had an
exact equivalent among the Muslim scholars and
intellectuals who were Romantic. They had an obsession
with medieval Spain and the importance that Al-Ándalus
had as the highlight of their civilization.
Western intellectuals have also had a grave responsibility
in perpetuating this myth. Some books like The
Ornament of the World, which is very well-known in the
United States and has been awarded and praised, are
completely false. It is not true that medieval Spain was a
perfect and peaceful coexistence between the three most
important monotheistic religions. Muslims only tolerated
Jews and Christians when they were very powerful and not
so much when they were not so powerful. It had a lot to
do with the political and historical moment. They myth of
Al-Ándalus is a very dangerous myth because people tend
to think that everyone else was responsible for the lost
glory of Al-Ándalus. They believe that Spaniards who
were not Muslims or those who had been Muslim in the
past and converted to other religions such as Christianity
are to blame for the loss of that glory and the preeminence
that they had historically until the 15th century. It is
extremely dangerous because self-criticism does not exist
in a large part of the Muslim world. They believe that
everybody else is to blame for the tragedies that they
suffered, and one of those is definitely the loss of Al-
Ándalus.
People tend to forget what Osama bin Laden and Ayman
al-Zawahiri say. There are a great deal of communiqués of
Al-Qaeda signed by these two individuals which clearly
state that the loss of Al-Ándalus was a tragedy. Zawahiri
recently said that Islamic land had to be reconquered from
“Al-Ándalus to Iraq.” This is a very serious threat that not
only Spain and Europe, but all serious, advanced, and
modern democracies should take very seriously.

Q: Please tell us about the buying of land and houses and
the controlling of neighborhoods and cities as a way of
regaining Spain. Why is the resilamification of the
mosque of Córdoba so important to ultra-conservative
Muslims?
A: They call it the policy of the “foot in the threshold.”
Once the foot is in the threshold, they think they will be
able to get in there and reconquer Spain. I state in The
Jihad in Spain that there is a part of the University of Al-
Azhar in Egypt that is obsessed with a very clear strategy
to reconquer land that was once under the domain of
Islam. But this is becoming more and more popular in
many parts of the Islamic world. They believe that
conquering a neighborhood, then a town, then a city, then
a province, and then a region will eventually lead to the
reconquest of the whole country.
Recently, there was a research program carried out by the
Spanish television channel Telecinco. One of the
reporters questioned many Muslims off camera. They
said that because they had been able to conquer Albaicín
(a very important and prominent neighborhood in Granada)
they would absolutely be able to conquer the city and then
all of Al-Ándalus. As the expression goes: Andalucía
first, Al-Ándalus thereafter.
I want to quote Joschka Fischer, the German foreign
minister from 1998 to 2005 and member of the Green
Party. He said that if by any chance Israel were to be fall
and be defeated, the next in line would definitely be Spain.

Q: How have multiculturalism and political correctness
allowed the penetration of radical Islam into Spain and
lowered the country’s defenses?
A: Multiculturalism and political correctness are the most
tried systems for coexistence in Europe and they both
have failed miserably. Multiculturalism is in many ways a
return to the Middle Ages. It means in fact that whoever is
a Christian, a Jew, or a Muslim is going to be ruled by
laws and courts of justice that are either Christian, Jewish
or Muslim. This is preposterous. It is very much like the
communities in which the Ottoman Empire was divided up
into.
The Western Left has chosen to see radical Islamism as
the only enemy capable of confronting the West, the
United States, and its allies. They truly believe that it is in
many ways their ally. If you are to observe the way that
Venezuela, Bolivia and other countries dominated by
populist regimes have acted, you will see that they vote
consistently with countries like Iran or Syria, which are
very anti-Western.
Political correctness and the obsession of the Left with
radical Islamism are deactivating the self-defense
capabilities of Western democracies. By not denouncing
radicals and the movements that are clearly linked to
radical associations, institutions, and even terrorist
organizations, the West is getting closer to being
dominated by them.

Q: How has the Left in Spain responded to the recent
death threats made against you?
A: The radical Left has joined forces with radical Islamists
against me. When they saw the popular and
overwhelming reaction of so many people in Spain
supporting me—even from the moderate Left, they thought
things had gotten out of hand. As a result, they decided
to discredit me and the reality of these threats that have
been confirmed by the Spanish Ministry of the Interior.
The Minister of the Interior called to tell me that the
Spanish Police Intelligence has found these threats which
are on several Jihadist websites that are encrypted and
based in Saudi Arabia. Their message is clear: I need to
be killed. The Spanish Minister of Defense, who was the
Interior Minister for two years, also called me to show his
solidarity and support.
I deplore the very fact that these extremists from the far
Left in Spain have decided to join forces with those that
attack democracy, because no matter how deep our
differences may be we are supposed to be on the same
side.

Q: Do you think there is a chance that radical Islamists
will one day achieve their dream and Spain will once again
be under Islamic rule?
A: I don’t think so, but the fight will become more difficult
and extensive because Spanish society today is not
willing or ready to accept the threat we face. People here
have become prosperous in a very short time. Spain is
the eighth most prosperous nation in the world. We have
a per capita income of around $28,000 a year. People
want to pay their mortgages, go out on Friday night, take
15 to 30 days off a year from work, buy nice cars, and
generally enjoy the good life. They are not listening to
those of us who are in some ways apocalyptic. But it is
our job.

I’m not going to compare myself to Churchill; it would be
extremely preposterous if I ever did. But in many ways I
do feel that some of the intellectuals and politicians who
are denouncing this century’s threats against democracy
are facing the same criticisms that Churchill once faced
before the Nazi threat was evident to the whole world.
While some people are quite aware of the huge danger
that Islamism represents for a large part of the world, they
don’t believe it is capable of jeapordizing their way of life or
their liberties and freedoms in the 21st century. In fact,
this is very much the case.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID={715C1193-821F-47F0-8332-1FA10C86CEB6}