Europe's Quieter Fight Against Terror

Some EU members question Bush's plan

MADRID A citybound train rumbled along with purpose on the same commuter line where bombs inflicted brutal carnage on March 11, killing 191 people and wounding hundreds more.

On a day this month, passengers read their newspapers, snoozed and chatted. The mood suggested that Spaniards, hardened by decades of struggle against terrorism, have moved on, and that Americans and Europeans have responded in vastly different ways to the threat of global terrorism.

For the United States, the response to Sept. 11 was to launch a "war on terror," one cast in terms of good and evil and marked with somber ceremonies, fought more with armies than with indictments. But for Spain, as well as for France, Germany and Britain, all countries that have suffered a history of terrorist violence, the focus is a "struggle" against a criminal element.

These European countries have expressed a more quiet but collective resolve to work within an international consensus to fight terrorism. In the eyes of many European counterterrorism specialists and officials, the Bush administration's reliance on conventional military means can serve to provoke more terrorism.

The contrasting strategic visions translate into diverging tactics on the ground.

The United States' confrontation with terrorism turns now on a long-term commitment of troops in Iraq. Spain's newly elected prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, fulfilled a campaign promise to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq, but also increased Madrid's commitment to peacekeeping in Afghanistan.

And at home, the Spanish authorities have staged a series of raids against Islamic extremist cells, making numerous arrests.

"When Spain pulled out its troops, it was completely wrong to say the Spanish people had gone soft on terrorism," said Gijs de Vries, the European Union's first counterterrorism chief, a post created in response to the Madrid bombing to help European countries coordinate efforts against terrorism.

"They were instead exerting their belief that the war in Iraq was not connected to the war on terrorism, and that in fact it undercut the war on terrorism," de Vries added.

De Vries, of the Netherlands, said that the effort against terrorism needed to combine conventional military force, police investigations and a political dimension that is "more than just hearts and minds, but truly analyzing the context and the conditions that create terrorism." He said that the United States and Europe had cooperated very effectively in many ways, especially in criminal investigations, but that the United States had unnecessarily alienated many of its allies by relying too heavily on a military response and consistently undervalued the political dimension.

Zapatero has politically reunited his country with France and Germany, which have led Europe's opposition to the war in Iraq. Spain's former conservative prime minister, José María Aznar, had aligned himself with President George W. Bush and had supported the war in Iraq.

On the week that Spain marked the six-month anniversary of the bombings, Zapatero welcomed President Jacques Chirac of France and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany to Madrid. Zapatero and his Socialist Party were swept into power just three days after the bombings.

Zapatero derided the comment by the U.S. secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, disparaging "old Europe," which had opposed the Iraq war. "You have before you three fervent pro-Europeans," Zapatero said. "I am glad to say that old Europe is as good as new."

The three leaders agreed to share police databases and vowed closer cooperation in the continent's fight against terrorism. They also agreed to pursue a united approach to address the anger and despair among Muslims in the Middle East and those who come as immigrants to Europe, and who sometimes become recruits for terrorist groups.

Across Europe, terrorism has claimed 5,000 lives in the past three decades, in attacks from such groups as the Irish Republican Army, the Basque separatist group ETA, anarchists, Italy's Red Brigades, Arab nationalists and Islamic militants.

This month, the European Union released a report that it had commissioned to reassess Europe's ability to confront terrorism. The study was compiled by an independent group of counterterrorism and military specialists. It showed that Europe must increase its capacity to intervene in regional conflicts worldwide, and to help root out security risks at the source. To do this, the report said, leaders must stress the importance of reexamining outdated notions of protecting states in favor of an approach that protects people and that offers a wider and more interlocking concept of security. "In an era of interdependence, Europeans can no longer feel secure when the rest of the world is insecure," said the report, which was published on Wednesday. The report also emphasized a need to complement conventional military means with improved civilian elements, such as the police and their trainers who can provide assistance in peacekeeping missions and in the promotion of democracy and the rule of law. The report also illustrated the approaches of the United States and Europe.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush and his administration responded with a swift invasion of Afghanistan to crush the Taliban government that provided logistical support for Al Qaeda. Then, Bush pushed toward the war in Iraq, ignoring widespread opposition among longtime U.S. allies.

After the attacks in Madrid, Spaniards reacted with a demonstration of collective resolve that brought 10 million people to the streets to protest the terrorists, as well as Spain's involvement in Iraq. The new government deployed investigators to follow up leads and penetrate Moroccan cells with purported links to Al Qaeda, which turned out to be behind the attacks. Antiterrorism police have arrested 68 people in connection with the train bombings, including 20 believed to have been directly involved. The suspects are alleged to form a web that ranges from Moroccan cell-phone store owners who perhaps unwittingly helped the terrorists obtain and program phones used to trigger bombs, to Spanish nationals who helped secure some of the explosives, to a core of 20 militants who more actively took part in the bombings.

The core cell has been dismantled, according to Spanish law enforcement officials. A suspected mastermind of the operation, Rabei Osman Ahmed, is awaiting extradition from Italy under a new EU extradition agreement. A second purported coordinator is in custody in Spain and a third was killed when he exploded a bomb as the police tried to capture him, authorities said.

German and French counterterrorism officials have also made significant gains in disrupting Islamic militant cells through sweeps and key arrests. However, these countries have also suffered setbacks in obtaining convictions. In some cases this is because the United States is reluctant to share intelligence on Al Qaeda; in others it is because the kind of information obtained by the United States is deemed inadmissible in European courts.

Charles M. Sennott
The Boston Globe



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