Wednesday, October 31, 2007

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.)

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Blogroll

Note! Although I believe that these websites and blogs are useful resources for understanding the War on Terror, I do not necessarily agree with their opinions. 1 1 Given a recent misunderstanding of the phrase "useful resources," a clarification: I do not limit my reading to resources which support my views, or even to those which appear to be accurate. Reading opinions contrary to what I believed has been very useful at times: sometimes verifying my previous assumptions, sometimes encouraging me to change them.

Even resources which, in my opinion, are simply inaccurate are sometimes useful: these can give valuable insights into why some people or groups believe what they do.

In short, It is my opinion that some of the resources in this blogroll are neither accurate, nor unbiased. I do, however, believe that they are useful in understanding the War on Terror, the many versions of Islam, terrorism, and related topics.