>> QUOTE A FRIEND - "This intelligence failure is further magnified by the ease with which the terrorists were able to carry out their attack. They had no need of aircraft, suicide bombers, wads of cash or even box-cutters - only very simply to buy Spanish-manufactured explosives, stuff them into ten ordinary bags and leave them on the targeted trains."
Who's Next after Madrid?
DEBKAfile Special Analysis
March 13, 2004, 10:31 PM (GMT+02:00)
Officially, Spain's political parties cut short their election campaign three days before polling in deference to the agony and shock of the most brutal terrorist attack since the 9/11 assaults on New York and Washington. Thursday, March 11, three crowded commuter trains were blown up in Madrid, killing 199, injuring 1,400, and changing Spain overnight. In reality the campaign never stopped. By harping on the Basque terrorist movement ETA as the culprit of the outrage, the Aznar government hoped to drum up votes for the ruling PP - Popular Party's bid for reelection on Sunday, March 14.
It also left the investigators at sea in a probe of vital importance to the global war on terror.
The government's reasoning went like this: If ETA is proved to be behind the attack - which the group categorically denies - the PP's tough campaign against the Basque radicals would triumph and Mariano Rajoy would breeze in to the prime minister's office in place of the retiring Jose Maria Aznar.
If, on the other hand, it was orchestrated by Muslim extremists - al Qaeda or its associates - the ruling party would be held to account for stirring up Muslim wrath by backing Washington in Iraq. The opposition Socialist leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero catered to the war's unpopularity by promising if elected to bring the 1,300-strong Spanish force home from Iraq.
In the debate before terrorists hit Madrid, the conservative PP attempted to tar Zapatero as conniving with the hated ETA terrorists in clandestine meetings with its leaders in France and promises to engage them in negotiations if a Socialist-led government was returned.
Thursday's attacks cast a cloud of uncertainty over all these calculations. Yet the Aznar government refused to budge, insisting ETA committed the horrendous act, even as millions of grief-stricken Spaniards, including many Basques, marched against nameless terrorism.
Witnesses saw three shadowy figures bringing bags to one of the trains attacked from a stolen van found to contain detonators and taped Koran verses. The placing of ten explosive devices at four different stations in Madrid would have required many more personnel than ETA is believed to command after being decimated by mass arrests.
Yet interior minister Angel Acebes declared Friday, March 12: "So far, none of the intelligence services or security forces we have contacted has provided reliable information to the effect that it could have been an Islamic terrorist organization."
A few hours later, five suspects were rounded up in connection with a cell phone inside an explosives-packed bag found on one of the trains. Three were Moroccans, two described as Spaniards of "Hindu" origin. Still, the minister refused to assume anything. Police are investigating all avenues, he said.
By clinging to its campaign line against all odds, the Spanish government risked prejudicing an inquiry of fateful import for the rest of Europe and the West at large in ways that should be obvious:
A. The first hours after a terrorist attack, or any murderous crime, hold the key to the inquiry and its successful solution, because only then are the evidence and clues still fresh and untainted on the scene. The interference of Spanish politicians, or, worse, their attempt to prejudge the investigation's outcome, may well have thrown the counter-terrorist and intelligence investigators off-course before they got started. In those first precious hours, the terrorists might have messed up the evidence and made good their escape, removing any leads to their network. This network would have been left free to carry out its next deadly attack.
B. The findings of the Spanish inquiry are tensely awaited by European and US governments. Their counter-terrorist and intelligence services, which labor in al Qaeda's threatening shadow, need every scrap of authentic information to enable them to prepare for the worst. No one believes the Spanish government's insistence on ETA as the culprit. It is a fact that security has been stepped up in France, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Poland and Britain, among others, all gearing up for al Qaeda's next onslaught.
C. The drama of such events inevitably draws in seekers of limelight. The London-based Al Kuds al Araby newspaper claimed to have received an e-mailed letter from a group affiliated to al Qaeda which assumed responsibility for the Spanish train attack and announced that preparations for attacking the United States were 90 percent complete.
According to DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources, US and Israeli intelligence services refute the provenance of this letter after checking it out.
D. The line the Spanish government has taken with regard to the inquiry into the Madrid outrages ignores al Qaeda's operational roots in Spain and its strong ideological foundation in Europe at large, which points inexorably to the fundamentalists' next targets as being Italy, Britain and the United States.
DEBKAfile's counter-terror experts emphasize that Osama bin Laden's terrorist movement makes no secret of its plans, priorities or motives. They are all laid out - in English too - in a plethora of print and internet publications. While difficult reading for Westerners, who find it hard to take the florid phrasing and outrageous aspirations seriously, such publications are the daily fare of tens of millions of Muslims around the world, almost in the same way a daily newspaper may be part of an ordinary Westerner's routine.
According to data gathered by our experts, from December 2002, three months before the US invasion of Iraq, al Qaeda began issuing a stream of fatwas designating its main operating theatres in Europe. Spain was on the list, but not the first.
1. Turkey was first. Islamic fundamentalists were constrained to recover the honor and glory of the Ottoman caliphates which were trampled by Christian forces in 1917 in the last days of World War I.
2. Spain followed. There, al Qaeda set Muslims the goal of recovering their lost kingdom in Andalusia.
3. Italy and its capital were third. Muslim fundamentalists view Rome as a world center of heresy because of the Vatican and the Pope.
4. Vienna came next because the advancing Muslim armies were defeated there in 1683 before they could engulf the heart of Europe.
These aspirations are far from being restricted to a lunatic fringe of radical Islam. The Arab world's most popular television preacher, Yusouf Kardawi, whom DEBKAfile has mentioned before, subscribes to the same agenda in his sermons over al Jazeera - with one difference. Whereas al Qaeda aims to "liberate" Turkey, Spain, Italy and Israel by force of arms, Kardawi who addresses the masses from a studio in Qatar just a few hundred yards from American Central Command HQ, advocates persuasion.
However strangely these decrees and teachings may fall on the ears of their targets, there is no option but to try and make sense of them in order to understand the force driving an inhumanly ruthless enemy. The logic behind this philosophy is capable of attaining a perfect match between its injunctions and the actions of its faithful in practice.
November 2003 saw two terrorist outbreaks in Istanbul that claimed 63 lives and injured more than 600. Tuesday, March 10, the day of the attacks in Madrid, al Qaeda continued its deadly cycle in Istanbul by sending two suicide killers to a building on the Asian side of the city housing a Masonic lodge. Armed with a bomb belt and gas canisters they planned to go up to the conference chamber and set it alight during a meeting. The members would have burned to death. It so happened that the lodge meeting was postponed at the last minute. The bombers blew themselves up at the door of an empty restaurant, killing a waiter.
Since last year, Al Qaeda has been able to spread its operational wings through many countries by linking up with local affiliates or sympathizers - either as accomplices or surrogates. In Turkey, they rely on the Muslim radical IBDA/C.
A similar pattern of operation repeated itself on March 2 in the massacre of 271 Shiites in the Iraqi cities of Karbala and Baghdad. Another thousand or more were injured. A dozen suicide bombers whose identity eludes investigation to this day were used, but the logistical structure that made an offensive on this scale possible must have numbered hundreds of locals.
The offensive against Shiite Muslims is set to a timetable that is separate from al Qaeda's European planning. It belongs to the history of Muslim internecine warfare and is governed by a different set of fatwas.
In Madrid, as in Istanbul, al Qaeda most probably operated through or with the help of local terrorist organizations, possibly even young radical members of ETA, members of the half million Muslim population of Spain or terrorists from its former North African colonies.
This expanded infrastructure, straddling many target countries, also enables al Qaeda to multiply the number of deaths it is capable of inflicting in each individual attack. In the last four months, bin Laden's organization has managed to take 533 lives and maimed more than 3,000. The organization has pushed out the limits of the scale and diversity of its operations substantially since the 9/11 catastrophe in America.
On the same day as the Madrid trains were blown up, the Americans launched Operation Mountain Storm against "high value" al Qaeda and Taliban targets in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan. It does not escape observers that while al Qaeda is capable of assaults on five fronts at least - Iraq, Turkey, Spain Kashmir and Saudi Arabia, the US global offensive against terror is limited to a single front, which too is far from the fundamentalists' most active current arena.
Where do the United States and Britain stand on al Qaeda's time table?
Its religious edicts dictate the "liberation" (by terrorism) of lands once under Muslim rule. Turkey and Spain were therefore placed ahead of London, Paris and Berlin. Israel is doubly anathemized as a Jewish state established in a country once governed by Muslims. Rome ought to come next, although the fatwas allow some flexibility to meet changing circumstances and enable al Qaeda to strike where least expected.
Bin Laden and the leadership group of his organization have been arguing over their next directions. Their debate is conceptual between those who advocate building up Islamic fundamentalist gains in Europe before turning to America and those who see Europe as a springboard to the United States. Bin Laden has issued a fatwa deciding the issue: the organization is instructed to strike simultaneously on both continents.
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>> OUR FRIENDS IN INTERIOR...
washingtonpost.com
Report Critical of Interior Official
Inspector General Calls Deputy Secretary's Dealings Troubling but Not Illegal
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 17, 2004; Page A23
An 18-month investigation by the Interior Department's inspector general has found multiple instances in which Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles had dealings with energy and mining industry clients of his former lobbying firm even as he continued to receive income from the firm's owner.
Among the actions detailed in the report was a dinner party Griles arranged for department officials at the home of his former lobbying partner, who was still paying Griles for his share of the company and who had mining and energy company clients with pending business before the department; a case in which one of Griles's former clients received preferential treatment for department contracts; and an instance in which Griles contacted Environmental Protection Agency officials regarding some of his former clients' efforts to gain coalbed methane extraction concessions in the Powder River basin of Wyoming and Montana.
The report sought only to lay out the facts and did not conclude that Griles, who assumed his post in July 2001, broke any law or was a party to conflicts of interest or ethics violations. The Office of Government Ethics, in reviewing the findings, said that, with two possible exceptions, Griles did not violate ethics rules.
But the inspector general made clear he was troubled by Griles's actions and by the inaction of the department's ethics office, which, he concluded, did a very poor job of helping Griles avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest until an "onslaught of public criticism erupted."
In the end, Inspector General Earl E. Devaney said in his transmittal letter to Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton, the American people may never get "a sound legal conclusion" on Griles's complex activities inside and outside government. But even "mere appearances" of conflict can seriously erode the public trust, he said.
"This is only one in a series of cases in which we have observed an institutional failure" to consider the appearance of conflicts of interest by Interior Department employees and officials, Devaney noted in his letter. "It is my hope, however, that [the Griles case] may be the case that changes the ethical culture in the Department."
In a letter to Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), who initiated one aspect of the investigation, Devaney said the Office of Government Ethics left open the possibility that in two instances Griles did violate ethics rules. The office referred those two cases to Norton. But Norton said yesterday that she considers the cases closed.
In a statement, Norton said she was "pleased that Deputy Secretary Griles has been cleared of the allegations that have been raised against him over the past two years."
Norton noted that Griles has already conceded that "he should have used better judgement" when, soon after his arrival at Interior, he organized a dinner party for department officials and his former lobbying partner, Marc Himmelstein -- especially given that, as a condition of his Senate confirmation, Griles had signed at least three agreements to avoid such dealings for up to six years.
Since then, Griles "has taken a number of steps to strengthen ethics screening in his office," Norton said. "This closes the issue. I'm glad that we can now put these allegations behind us."
Griles released a brief written statement in which he said he was "gratified" by the report's conclusions, which he described as a final determination "that I have adhered to the ethics law and rules."
Others read the report differently.
"The inspector general's report is damning. It uncovers regular and consistent breaches of Griles's ethics agreements and, more importantly, blatant violations of the public's trust," said Kristen Sykes of Friends of the Earth, the environmental group that helped trigger the investigation after it obtained Griles's meeting calendar through the Freedom of Information Act. "If this White House is serious about ethics and accountability, Griles should be dismissed immediately."
In an unusual arrangement, Griles is receiving payments of more than $1 million over four years from his former partner in the lobbying firm while serving as deputy secretary.
The report bluntly outlines the many roadblocks it faced in its effort to determine whether Griles had violated ethics rules. Foremost among them was an inability to ascertain exactly which companies had been -- or still are -- clients of Griles's former lobbying firm. Lacking adequate records, the inspectors had to rely on Griles himself and a few others with stakes in the investigation's outcome to tell them about those relationships.
That effort was challenged by "an unanticipated lack of personal and institutional memory; conflicting recollections; [and] poor record-keeping," the report stated, adding: "When we interviewed the Deputy Secretary and discussed our efforts to discern the status of his client list, he commented simply, 'Good luck.' "
Some of the questioned meetings concerned industry proposals and demands for concessions or exemptions from regulations pertaining to, among other matters, offshore natural gas exploration, air pollution and mining -- each involving substantial corporate revenue.
When investigators questioned these meetings, Griles provided various explanations. He said that some of the meetings were strictly "social"; that he was unaware client firms would be present at others; that he had not represented the firms on the particular matters being discussed.
Some of his assertions were corroborated by Interior Department colleagues and officers of the firms, but others were contradicted, with no resolution by the investigators.
The report said Griles took part in deliberations and meetings concerning three former clients -- Chevron, Shell and Aera (a Shell subsidiary) -- regarding their lawsuit against the government seeking access to natural gas fields they had leased in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of California. Griles also discussed the issue with the chief of staff of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), the president's brother, who opposed the industry's plan, according to the report.
Although Griles had formally recused himself from dealings regarding Shell and Chevron, he said after being questioned that he had listed these companies erroneously on his recusal form. He said he had not lobbied for Chevron, for example, despite signing a contract while still at his firm that identified him as the firm's principal contact with Chevron, and despite having been listed as a Chevron lobbyist in filings with ethics offices.
The firm amended its forms to delete Griles's name after the controversy arose over his Interior Department meetings. The Office of Government Ethics accepted the assertion that he had not lobbied for the companies.
Griles told investigators he could not explain why Chevron's first six payments to his firm for lobbying included the annotation, "attn.: Steve Griles." He said at first that his meetings with Aera were permitted because his recusal did not apply to subsidiaries; later he said he was never aware that Aera was owned by Shell, according to the report.
Another possible conflict involved former client Advanced Power Technologies Inc. (APTI), which was lobbying the government for imaging technology contracts.
The report found that officials at the Bureau of Land Management's National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, worked closely -- and improperly -- with the company, sharing information that gave APTI vital information about how much money the government was willing to spend, and providing specific details that ensured only APTI could win the contract.
Although Griles called the fire center's director in March 2001 -- a couple of days before he was nominated -- to explain that he would not get involved in the negotiations, his name popped up a month later when the company discussed its proposal with the fire center.
At an April 2001 briefing, an information technology officer at the center took handwritten notes that included the comment: "Steve Griles (Deputy Sec. of Interior)." The officer later told investigators he could not recall why he had made that notation, or what its significance was.
A contracting officer at the fire center told investigators that it was "suspicious" that APTI's bid ended up being so close to the government's estimate.
The report also noted that requests for bids should have been sent out to three companies, but they went out only to one: APTI. In addition, the contract requirements, including the use of trademark equipment, were so specific that only APTI could have met it, according to the report.
In another case, the officer whom Griles had designated to handle all matters related to APTI directed two junior officials to examine whether additional projects could be found for APTI, the report said. It resulted in another contract for the company, worth $165,000.
One key meeting of ATPI personnel was held in Griles's conference room. Although Griles was not present, an Interior official told investigators he was uncomfortable with that and with being summoned to the meeting. As a career civil servant, he said, he had never seen such a thing before.
All told, the report concluded, "Mr. Griles' lax understanding of his ethics agreement and attendant recusals, combined with lax dispensation of ethics advice given to him, resulted in lax constraint over matters in which the Deputy Secretary involved himself."
Staff writers R. Jeffrey Smith and Shankar Vedantam contributed to this report.
? 2004 The Washington Post Company
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Internet Cutoff Ordered at Interior
Judge Says Money Owed to Indians Is Still at Risk
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 16, 2004; Page A19
A federal judge in Washington yesterday ordered the Interior Department to shut down most of its employees' Internet access and some of its public Web sites after concluding that the agency has failed to fix computer security problems that threaten millions of dollars owed to Native Americans.
The order, the third the judge has handed down regarding computer security concerns at the agency since 2001, enlarges the portion of the Interior Department that will have to disconnect from the Internet. In his decision, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said he was forced to take this step because Interior officials have refused to address obvious lapses and have given contradictory information about computer security.
In the past, Interior's Internet shutdowns have made it difficult for people to get online information about national parks and monuments as well as for departmental offices to communicate with one another.
Dan DuBray, a spokesman for the Interior Department, said the agency's top officials and lawyers were still reviewing Lamberth's injunction and could not comment on its ramifications for employees or the public.
Lamberth's order is the latest in an increasingly bitter dispute between him and the agency.
Since 1996, Lamberth has presided over a lawsuit in which a group of Indians sued to force Interior to produce an accounting of all the grazing, energy and mineral royalties from Indian lands that the department had been managing since 1879. The judge has criticized the agency for ignoring its responsibility to Native Americans and found government officials in contempt of his orders.
The department's lawyers, meanwhile, have sought to have Congress intervene and have repeatedly appealed each of the judge's demands and deadlines to a higher court.
Yesterday's decision came as Interior was arguing before the appeals court to overturn other Lamberth decisions and to get another judge appointed to hear the case.
The most recent decision covers computer connections and Web sites in the Inspector General's Office, the Minerals Management Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Office of the Special Trustee, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Office of Surface Mining, and the National Business Center.
"The interest of the 300,000-plus current beneficiaries of the individual Indian trust outweigh the potential inconvenience of those parties that would otherwise have access to Interior's Internet services," Lamberth wrote.
As in July, Lamberth ruled that Interior could keep emergency systems connected, particularly those involving firefighting and policing. The National Park Service, the U.S. Geological Survey and Interior's budget office also will remain connected because the court was convinced that those agencies are secure.
Lamberth first required the department to shut down Internet operations in 2001. A special master he appointed discovered that even a novice hacker could penetrate the Web sites' security and access data on the Indian revenue.
In July, Lamberth ordered a smaller portion of the department disconnected and gave Interior a chance to reconnect those divisions and offices that officials could certify were safe from hacking. But the judge wrote in yesterday's opinion that the department's claims of secure systems "mocked this Court's injunction."
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Marshals Faulted on Protection of Judges
Associated Press
Tuesday, March 16, 2004; Page A19
There are numerous flaws in the methods used by the U.S. Marshals Service to protect judges, some of whom preside over terrorism trials that carry a high risk of attack, a Justice Department report says.
The report yesterday by the department's inspector general, Glenn A. Fine, said it can take the marshals weeks or months to assess threats. Seventy-three percent of the cases take longer to check out than the agency's guidelines allow.
Also, the report said the marshals have no centralized intelligence program to handle threats, lack a secure national communications system to share information and have too many personnel without the security clearances necessary to see classified information.
While the number of threats against the nation's 2,000 federal judges and magistrates has decreased in recent years, the inspector general predicts the war on terrorism is likely to produce more high-risk trials.
The Marshals Service also hunts down fugitives, transports prisoners and protects federal witnesses.
Fine's report said that although the marshals have placed greater emphasis on judicial security since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, much more needs to be done.
In a written response, the Marshals Service took issue with many of the findings, noting that in 215 years only four judges have been assassinated, none since 1989. "While a single assault or assassination is unacceptable, the full picture actually supports, rather than questions, the [agency's] capabilities," the response said.
The report found that some problems occur because the Marshals Service has not assigned personnel to all of the FBI's 84 joint terrorism task forces, created to ensure that sensitive information and investigations are shared by multiple agencies.
In one recent high-threat trial, the Marshals Service did not receive classified information regarding trial security because a key person lacked clearance to see top-secret material.
The Marshals Service agreed to revise its policy on how quickly threats against judges must be assessed, and it said it is working to ensure more of its senior officials have top-secret security clearances.
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Powell to Seek Nuclear Details From Pakistan
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 16, 2004; Page A18
NEW DELHI, March 15 -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Monday that he planned to press Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to disclose whether his country's probe of a nuclear trafficking network blamed on scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan had uncovered the involvement of other Pakistani officials.
Powell, speaking to reporters on his plane shortly before arriving here Monday night to begin a swing through South Asia, said he was seeking a detailed briefing on "what else they may have learned about the network" that he had not "been made aware of through normal intelligence channels."
In particular, Powell said, he would "be interested to see whether there is any involvement of past officials or any official involvement in any of this over the years. I think that is something the government of Pakistan should look into and I think is looking into."
The scope of Khan's dealings suggest that key members of the Pakistani military, intelligence services or government may have aided or ignored Khan's efforts to peddle nuclear technology and expertise to Iran, Libya and North Korea. But Bush administration officials have been wary of probing too deeply because the United States needs Pakistan's assistance in the search for Osama bin Laden and members of his al Qaeda network.
Powell said that the administration wants even greater Pakistani cooperation. "Pakistan has undertaken a number of operations recently along the border . . . and we just want to see them do more of that," he said. Referring to the militia that once ruled most of Pakistan's neighbor, Afghanistan, he said, "We want to see if they can do a better job of apprehending Taliban persons who we might be able to identify for them."
Khan, who long ran Pakistan's main nuclear weapons plant and is known as the creator of the country's nuclear bomb, acknowledged last month that he had passed nuclear secrets without government authorization; Musharraf then pardoned him. The Pakistani government launched an investigation of Khan last year after receiving evidence from the United States.
Powell is to hold talks with Indian officials on boosting U.S. exports to India and about the growing thaw between Pakistan and India. Powell also is to discuss how to implement an agreement in which the United States will help India with its nuclear energy and space technology in return for India's promise to use the aid for peaceful purposes and to help block the spread of dangerous weapons.
Powell noted that tensions have eased enough between Pakistan and India that they have begun a series of cricket matches this week. But he arrived the day after India's Foreign Ministry rejected Musharraf's insistence that the disputed region of Kashmir was the central issue dividing the countries.
Over the weekend, Musharraf said India and Pakistan must resolve the 56-year conflict over Kashmir in order for the two nuclear powers to resolve their differences.
Powell also has scheduled a visit to Afghanistan to confer with Afghan leaders about their preparations for an election and efforts by the central government to win greater control -- and tax revenue -- from areas now controlled by regional military leaders.
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Similar Tactics, Different Names
Al Qaeda-Like Groups Scrutinized
By Dana Priest and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 16, 2004; Page A16
U.S. and European counterterrorism officials have seen a growing number of clues in the Madrid bombings that point to terrorists from any one of dozens of Islamic jihadist groups that use tactics similar to al Qaeda's but conduct operations and choose targets independently, the officials said yesterday.
This evidence, although preliminary, includes the use of cell phones to trigger explosive devices, a tactic al Qaeda has employed, and a strong suspicion that part of the operation was planned outside the targeted country, also an al Qaeda signature, two U.S. counterterrorism officials said yesterday.
No evidence points directly to Osama bin Laden's network, but counterterrorism officials believe they may be seeing proof of their worst fears: the carrying out of a spectacular, coordinated attack aimed at making a worldwide political statement by terrorists who might emulate al Qaeda but operate autonomously.
"It would be disheartening but not totally surprising if we were seeing shadow-type groups adopting [al Qaeda's] methods throughout the world," one U.S. intelligence official said. Some officials hold out the possibility that ETA, the Basque separatist movement, may have helped facilitate the attack.
Meanwhile, intelligence officials have recorded an increase in intelligence reporting in recent days indicating possible terrorist strikes in Rome, France and Turkey, according to one European intelligence official. Such intelligence reports often surge after a terrorist attack. U.S. officials also point to a message bin Laden delivered in October warning of attacks in Spain, Britain, Australia, Poland, Japan and Italy, in response to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
CIA Director George J. Tenet and other intelligence officials have warned in recent months of the danger posed by largely autonomous terror groups that use al Qaeda's tactics and have relatively loose ties to the network. Finding and destroying groups that are widely dispersed and only informally linked is even harder than eliminating bin Laden and his organization, officials caution.
"The steady spread of Osama bin Laden's anti-American sentiments through the wider Sunni [Muslim] extremist movement, and through the broad dissemination of al Qaeda's destructive expertise, ensures that a serious threat will remain for the foreseeable future, with or without al Qaeda in the picture," Tenet told the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 9.
Tenet also identified as part of the new, growing threat outside al Qaeda "so-called foreign jihadists" -- religiously motivated individuals "ready to fight anywhere when they believe Muslim lands are under attack by those they see as infidel invaders."
Among the other bits of preliminary evidence in Madrid that point to an al Qaeda-like signature is that the bombs used in the attack were dispersed quickly and widely. Al Qaeda is believed to have adopted that tactic from the Japanese religious group Aum Shinrikyo, whose members punctured bags of deadly sarin inside Tokyo subway cars in March 1995.
Authorities have also discovered what they believe to be at least one safe house near the attacks that was used by terrorists. The use of close-in safe houses to rehearse operations and store equipment and supplies is an al Qaeda trademark seen in the 1993 World Trade Center attack, the 2003 bombing of a Saudi housing complex and other attacks.
Al Qaeda, unlike ETA or the Irish Liberation Army, frequently draws on members of nationalities whose countries are U.S. allies, most notably men from Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The Spanish suspects include Moroccans and Indians.
U.S. officials stress that Spanish investigators do not have enough evidence to conclude who carried out the Madrid bombings, and no one appears to be in a hurry to do so. Spanish officials who blamed ETA immediately after the attack were embarrassed when their pronouncement turned out to be premature.
Similarly, the Oct. 12, 2002, bombing of a Bali nightclub that killed more than 200 was initially blamed on al Qaeda. Later, intelligence officials attributed it to Jemaah Islamiah, an Indonesian terrorist group with some links to al Qaeda.
Yesterday, U.S. officials took a similarly cautious position. "It could be something that's not a card-carrying al Qaeda group," one senior U.S. intelligence official said. "Or ETA, or a splinter group from either one."
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The Dear Leader, On a Platter
Sushi Chef's Book Details Kim Jong Il's Many Purported Indulgences
By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 16, 2004; Page A11
TOKYO -- For North Korea's ruler, Kim Jong Il, the latest tell-all book on the shelves in Japan is the rawest of betrayals: the confessions of the Dear Leader's own sushi chef.
Lured to Pyongyang from the sushi bars of Tokyo in 1982 by a Japanese trading company and a $5,000 a month contract, the 56-year-old Japanese chef caught the eye of Kim Jong Il a few years later and for more than a decade catered to Kim's exotic tastes.
Today he is back in Japan, and under his pen name, Kenji Fujimoto, wrote a best-selling memoir, "I Was Kim Jong Il's Cook." While North Korea is dependent on international food aid so that millions of its people do not starve, Fujimoto described Kim -- a despot to some, demigod to others -- as a sushi chef's dream: the ultimate gourmand.
"He particularly enjoyed sashimi so fresh that he could start eating the fish as its mouth is still gasping and the tail is still thrashing," Fujimoto said. "I sliced the fish so as not to puncture any of its vital organs, so of course it was still moving. Kim Jong Il was delighted. He would eat it with gusto."
Fujimoto agreed to be interviewed in a central Japanese town on the condition that the location not be disclosed. He said he still fears North Korean spies are on his trail because the end of his tenure in Pyongyang was not mutually agreed upon. The burly cook won permission to leave Pyongyang, he said, after telling Kim a fish tale about heading off to stock the palace larders with fresh Japanese sea urchin for a tasty new dish.
Fujimoto's book about life inside the Dear Leader's kitchen -- published last year in Japanese and Korean -- has piqued the interest of intelligence agencies. Japanese intelligence and foreign diplomatic officials following North Korea characterized Fujimoto's accounts as being largely credible, describing the book as adding nuances and coloring in details to long-held views of one of the world's most bizarre leaders.
Mostly, though, North Korea observers are feasting on Fujimoto's generous helpings of Kim's self-indulgent life.
Fujimoto tells of an episode in 1994 -- the year Kim became head of state after the death of his father, Kim Il Sung -- when he was invited to attend one of Kim's notorious "pleasure parties." Holding court while sporting his trademark bouffant hair and chunk heels, Kim beamed with excitement as his top aides boogied to American dance music with shocked young women who had been ordered by Kim to strip naked. There were strobe lights and a disco ball hanging that evening from the ceiling of the Dear Leader's lavish Sincheon guesthouse south of Pyongyang.
"Kim Jong Il told the women to take off their clothes," Fujimoto said. Kim pointed at senior aides one by one, commanding them to dance. "You can dance, but don't touch. If you touch, you are thieves," Kim told the aides, according to Fujimoto.
"Mr. Kim himself would not dance," continued Fujimoto, who was dressed all in black on a recent afternoon. "Kim Jong Il liked to watch." Fujimoto said he was dazzled by Kim's massive liquor cellar, stocked with nearly 10,000 bottles. There was Johnnie Walker Swing scotch and Hennessy XO cognac. To satisfy the Dear Leader's demanding tastes, Fujimoto was sent on international shopping trips, hauling back winter melons from China, pork from Denmark, caviar from Iran and Uzbekistan, but especially the finest sushi from Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market, the largest in the world.
Fujimoto said Kim once dispatched him to Tokyo's upscale Mitsukoshi department store to pick up $100 worth of his favorite rice cakes filled with mugwort. The trip itself, including airfare through Beijing -- there are no direct flights between Tokyo and Pyongyang -- and hotel expenses, cost roughly $1,500.
But Kim relished his meals, and could move himself to tears with his own toasts, often getting tipsy and, later, wistful. During fragile moments, Fujimoto said, Kim would often bemoan that Kim Jong Chul, his 22-year old son, would never rule because he had turned out to be "like a girl."
Fujimoto said Kim doted on his youngest son -- Kim Jong Woon, 18, who looks like the North Korean leader. When both sons became interested in basketball, Kim launched a nationwide campaign to spread it around North Korea, building several NBA-regulation courts in Pyongyang. "I would sometimes be the coach at the games," Fujimoto said. "They were great boys. [But] Kim Jong Woon will be his father's successor. Everyone used to say it. He looked and acted just like him."
Fujimoto said Kim was a fan of Mel Gibson, enjoying screenings of the Australian star's movies in the private theater in his palace. He is also fond of giving out his used gray or blue uniforms as gifts to friends and aides, Fujimoto said.
Given the secrecy surrounding North Korea, it is virtually impossible to confirm Fujimoto's assertions. But Japanese and foreign diplomatic and intelligence sources who have read the book and are familiar with Fujimoto's accounts are taking them very seriously.
Some of what Fujimoto describes -- including an alleged jet ski race Fujimoto said he had with Kim at a summer guesthouse -- appears to exceed the boundaries of what Kim's personal chef might have been called upon to do. But Fujimoto seldom veers into obvious exaggeration and is quick to separate what he heard from others with what he saw. "There have of course been discussions in government circles about his credibility, and the impression is that yeah, generally, this guy is for real," said a diplomatic source in Tokyo familiar with North Korea.
Noriyuki Suzuki, a leading expert on North Korea and director of Tokyo-based Radiopress Inc., which monitors North Korean media, said, "I think the book has strong credibility."
It portrays Kim in much the same way as he is described in a book about his month-long train trip across Russia in 2001. Konstantin Pulikovsky, who traveled with Kim, wrote in "Orient Express" of how the North Korean leader had live lobsters and cases of French wine flown to the train.
Fujimoto said that Kim treated him well. The North Korean leader noticed Fujimoto's interest in a lovely singer frequently called on to perform for the court. Once, for Kim's pleasure, she was ordered to fight a boxing match with another woman, and blood was spilled. Fujimoto cautiously expressed concern for the women, and Kim, with a knowing smile, later sat them together at banquets. Kim blessed their union, and photos in Fujimoto's book show Kim attending their wedding banquet in Pyongyang. When Fujimoto fled North Korea, however, he left his wife behind.
"Kim Jong Il gave me so much: He gave me a new home, let me serve his family and even brought me together with my North Korean wife," Fujimoto said. "But I know he will never forgive me for my betrayal. Sometimes I do wish I could go back, but that would be rather complicated now."
Special correspondent Sachiko Sakamaki contributed to this report.
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Yemen Makes Arrest in USS Cole Bombing
Reuters
Tuesday, March 16, 2004; 8:48 AM
SANAA -- Yemen has arrested a suspected militant wanted over the 2000 bomb attack that killed 17 sailors aboard the USS Cole in the port of Aden, an official Web site said Tuesday.
Security forces arrested Ali Mohamed Omar Shorbajy in the mountainous Abyan region in south Yemen Monday night, the Web site of the ruling General People's Congress said. A hunt is still on in the same area for three other wanted men.
Last week eight men, including six suspects in the attack on the U.S. warship, surrendered to authorities after a week-long siege of Islamic militants in Abyan.
During the operation security forces arrested local al Qaeda leader Abdul Raouf Nassib, who Yemeni officials say masterminded a 2003 jail break by al Qaeda suspects in the bombing of the ship.
Yemen, the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden, has been battling militants since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. cities focused attention on the impoverished country at the tip of the Arabian peninsula.
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