Al Qaeda and Company: They Can't be 'Decapitated'

Over in Madrid, Judge Javier Gomez Bermudez told 21 of 28 defendants in the Madrid bombing trial that the Spanish court had found them guilty.

The news has focused on the trial, the March 11, 2004, backpack bomb attacks that killed 191 people, and how the court decisions ranged from acquittal to sentences running to thousands of years.

That's interesting, and important, certainly to the individuals involved.

There's a bigger story here, too.

"Most of the suspects are young Muslim men of North African origin who allegedly acted out of allegiance to Al Qaeda to avenge the presence of Spanish troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, although Spanish investigators say they did so without a direct order or financing from Usama bin Laden's terror network." (emphasis is mine)

Yesterday, I wrote briefly about WWII and the War on Terror, and how today's decentralized Islamic fanatics make a one-to-one comparison impossible.

This is an example. These terrorists, who included Spaniards, were inspired by Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, but neither taking orders or getting support from Al Qaeda or the terrorist group's leader.

(Usama? Osama? read this post.)