So how’s that appeasement working out for you, Zapatero?

With a hat tip to Lady Vorzheva, the Spanish Pundit, I see Spain has terrorist problems despite the fact that El Presidente Zapatero won his election by promising to appease al Qaeda and leave Iraq (AP);

Spanish police and the FBI arrested two Pakistani nationals in a joint operation in Madrid and Barcelona on suspicion of being involved in financing international terrorism, the Interior Ministry said Thursday.
 
The men, identified as Anar Muhammad Shan and Preces Mehmood Sandhu, were also held on suspicion of belonging to a terrorist organization, a ministry statement said.

But, according to the AP story, this isn’t the first time;

Eleven Pakistanis were acquitted in May of plotting to blow up buildings in Barcelona, although five were found guilty of lesser charges.

The 11 were arrested in September 2004 and prosecutors maintained the defendants had been planning to attack high-rise buildings and a shopping center in Barcelona. The National Court acquitted them for lack of evidence, but convicted three of sending sent money to Muslim extremists and two of forging documents.

Lady V asks;

Zapatero says that “the menacing message from Al-Qaeda is not new“. Yeah, that’s true. But you assured every Spanish citizen that Al-Qaeda was interested in attacking Spain because we were in Iraq. Now we aren’t. So what are we going to do now? What and who are we going to cave in this time….

She also quotes from an anonomous Frenchman in le Figaro;

Till now, the menaces were adressed mainly to the Americans. How can we explain that Al-Qaida targets now the Franch and Spanish in the Maghreb?

How indeed?

The arrests in Spain seem to have been coordinated with the US, according to this AP article in the Washington Times that announced there were 39 arrests worldwide;

Raids were conducted yesterday in Maryland, the District, New Jersey and Spain, authorities said.

Thirty-two of the 39 indicted had been arrested as of yesterday afternoon, said Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The U.S. District Court clerk’s office said it did not have records of lawyers being assigned to the defendants.

Maybe Spain should take a lesson from Pakistan;

Osama bin Laden on Thursday called on Pakistanis to wage holy war on their President, saying in a new recording that it was their religious duty to overthrow General Pervez Musharraf for his alliance with the US against Islamic militants.

But Pakistan dismissed the same, taking a vow instead to cleanse its soil of extremists and terrorists like the al-Qaeda.

“If someone is hurling threats at us, that is their view. The whole nation is behind us and the Pakistan army is a national institution,” Pakistan military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said.

”We are already committed to fighting extremists and terrorists — there is no change in our policy,” he added.

They’re coming anyway, ya might as well go down fighting. Emiliano Zapata said “It’s better to die on your feet than to live on your knees”.

Category: Foreign Policy, Terror War