Based on this and other evidence, Spanish Prosecutor Baltasar Garzon states in a court document made public today that a terrorist cell based in Madrid was “directly related to the preparation and carrying out of the attacks” on Sept. 11. The document, which remands eight suspects to prison to await trial, also reveals intelligence about key links among Mohammed Atta’s group of conspirators operating out of Hamburg and the top leadership of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network in Afghanistan. Atta was known to have visited Spain twice this year while preparing the attack on the Trade Center. The document does not reveal the identity of Shakur, or where he called from, but his intercepted remarks suggest he played a crucial role in the September atrocity.
Garzon’s outline of the case describes Shakur as “about 34 years old, short, fat, without much hair, a dark complexion, and a North African accent.” He is said to be a close subordinate of an Abu Abdul Rahman, known to Spanish cops as “El Calvo,” or “the bald one,” described as a senior member of the Al Qaeda organization. But as the date for the attack approached, Shakur wanted even El Calvo to be kept in the dark. “My target is the target, and I don’t want to get into details,” he said.
The man on the other end of the phone in Madrid, known as Abu Dahdah, has been under close surveillance by the Spanish police and intelligence services since 1999. He is the most important of the eight remanded to prison last week. Before that, his travels and his phone calls indicated contact with several suspected Al Qaeda cells in Europe, including Atta’s in Hamburg. One of Abu Dahdah’s phone numbers was found in the address book of a close Atta associate, Said Bahaji, who fled Germany for Pakistan the week before and has since disappeared.
Abu Dahdah, a Syrian named Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, married a Spanish woman and was naturalized as a Spanish citizen as were several other members of his alleged cell. Although ostensibly an unemployed construction worker, since 1996 he has made more than 20 trips to the United Kingdom where he contacted well-known leaders of international jihadist movements. He also traveled to Turkey, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Indonesia, Malaysia and Jordan on behalf of Al Qaeda, according to the court document. He is alleged to have spoken by telephone with “other extremists connected to the organization” who were based in Germany, Australia, “and even in Afghanistan.” The Spanish daily El Pais reported Sunday that Abu Dahdah’s trail had led police to the discovery of a hitherto unknown Al Qaeda training camp in Indonesia that trained more than 2,000 men. Other Abu Dahdah links laid out in the Spanish document read like a who’s who of figures who’ve appeared in other cases related to Al Qaeda made public in the last few weeks from London to Milan, Hamburg to Sydney.
If authorities know so much now, why weren’t they able to do more to stop the attacks on America before they happened? The fact is, they didn’t know what they had. The level of coordination among European police and intelligence services that exists today did not exist 10 weeks ago. “Before Sept. 11, Islamist terrorism was underestimated,” Italian prosecutor Stefano Dambruoso told Newsweek. As the Spanish document attests, only “after the the attacks was it confirmed that Abu Dahdah had relations with the members of the suicide squad.”
Shakur had spoken with Abu Dahdah on August 6, 27 and 29. Then again on September 26 and 29, weeks after the atrocity, talking about problems with health and with “doctors” who would seem to be police or other investigators. Shakur, calling from an unnamed location outside of Spain, says he thinks the Spanish air might be better, and is thinking of returning. Abu Dahdah warns him off, saying he’s a little tired, “because I had a little illness, although it’s better than where you are, Shakur, where winter has begun and, also, it’s cold.”
Was he talking about Afghanistan? Or some other place, including the United States, where investigators are closing in? The document doesn’t say, and authorities may not yet know.
