JIHADIST CELLS AND “IED” 

CAPABILITIES IN EUROPE: ASSESSING 

THE PRESENT AND FUTURE THREAT 

TO THE WEST

Jeffrey M. Bale

U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

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Strategic Studies Institute Monograph

JIHADIST CELLS AND “IED” CAPABILITIES IN 

EUROPE: ASSESSING THE PRESENT 

AND FUTURE THREAT TO THE WEST

Jeffrey M. Bale

November 2012

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ISBN 1-58487-554-2

CONTENTS

Foreword..........................................................................vii

About the Author.............................................................ix

Summary...........................................................................xi

Background.........................................................................1

Part I: Introduction............................................................3

Part II: Individual and Organizational 

Learning about IEDs.......................................................17

Part III: Jihadist Cells in Europe and IED 

Expertise............................................................................30

Part IV: Conclusion.......................................................119

v

FOREWORD

Western military forces and security and intelligence agencies are justifiably concerned about two 

phenomena that continue to affect their ongoing 

asymmetric conflicts with jihadist terrorist organizations: 1) the increasing diffusion and application of 

expertise acquired by jihadists in fabricating “improvised explosive devices” (IEDs), and 2) the extent to 

which local jihadist cells in the West may or may not 

be connected to veteran terrorist groups and networks 

in other countries and regions. This monograph by 

Dr. Jeffrey M. Bale argues that these two issues are, in 

fact, interrelated. Using the March 2004 Madrid train 

bombings and the two failed July 2006 train bombings 

near Cologne as contrasting case studies, Bale argues 

that jihadist cells whose members are linked organizationally, logistically, or operationally to wider terrorist networks, especially ones comprising well-trained 

and battle-tested operatives, are much more likely 

to be able to acquire the levels of technical expertise 

needed to manufacture effective IEDs, carry out devastatingly successful single IED attacks, and perhaps 

even sustain longer-term IED bombing campaigns.

Although these conclusions might seem to be selfevident, they, in fact, challenge the widespread notions 

that amateur would-be bomb makers using the Internet are likely to be able to carry out highly destructive IED attacks or IED campaigns without having received any hands-on training from professionals, and 

that today supposedly “self-generating” jihadist cells 

made up of “bunches of [regular] guys” with no significant connections to larger networks of extremists 

constitute the principal terrorist threat to the West. 

Although autonomous groups of relative amateurs, 

vii
viii

or even ideologically-motivated lone individuals, can 

occasionally carry out one or two devastating bomb 

attacks, cause significant casualties, and create other 

security problems because they may be able to operate “under the radar” beforehand, the most serious 

terrorist threats, IED or otherwise, stem from jihadist cells with a web of interconnections to networks 

of veteran terrorists, including those with operational 

and bomb making expertise. As a result, determining 

the type and degree of connectivity between particular 

jihadist cells and wider terrorist networks is of great 

importance in assessing their probable operational effectiveness. In order to shed more light on this matter, 

Bale develops a new categorization scheme herein for 

assessing different types and levels of local cell connectivity.

This monograph was funded by the Department 

of Defense in connection with a larger project the purpose of which was to help military units and security 

agencies better assess and cope with the growing IED 

threat, both overseas and at home.

 

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

Director

Strategic Studies Institute
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JEFFREY M. BALE is the Director of the Monterey Terrorism Research and Education Program (MonTREP) 

and an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of 

International Policy and Management (GSIPM) at the 

Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS). 

Dr. Bale has been studying violence-prone political 

and religious extremists for nearly 3 decades—long 

before it suddenly became “fashionable” in the wake 

of the tragic September 11, 2001 (9/11) attacks on the 

United States. He has published numerous scholarly 

articles on nonstate and state terrorism, right-wing 

extremism, Islamism, apocalyptic religious groups, 

and covert political operations, and (together with 

Bassam Tibi) co-edited a special June 2009 issue of the 

journal Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 

(recently renamed Politics, Religion & Ideology) devoted to Islamism. He is in the process of updating a 

two-part manuscript on underground neo-fascist networks in Cold War Europe and the terrorist “strategy 

of tension” in Italy, and preparing three new scholarly monographs: one (for Routledge) on the growing 

links between dissident left- and right-wing radicals 

in the West and Islamist groups (Where the Extremes 

Touch); another (also for Routledge) on the burgeoning “conspiracy theory” literature related to 9/11 and 

other major recent terrorist attacks (Imagined Terrorist 

Plots); and still another on the ideological background 

and organizational connections of Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik (A Strange Tale of Rival 

Right-Wing Extremisms). Dr. Bale has carried out specialized archival research in the United States as well 

as in several European countries, has personally interviewed extremists from several political and religious 

ix
x

milieus, and has accumulated an extensive collection 

of primary source materials related to both extremist 

and terrorist groups and covert politics. He frequently 

serves as a consultant and researcher for government 

agencies and other organizations on matters related 

to terrorism and ideological extremism, and regularly 

teaches on a visiting basis at the Naval Postgraduate 

School (NPS). He previously taught at the University 

of California, Berkeley; Columbia University; and the 

University of California, Irvine. Dr. Bale holds a B.A. 

in Middle Eastern and Islamic history from the University of Michigan, an M.A. in social movements and 

political sociology from the University of California, 

Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in contemporary European history from Berkeley.
xi

SUMMARY

During the past 2 decades, two interrelated security threats have emerged that Western democracies 

will likely be forced to contend with for the foreseeable future. The first of these threats is multifaceted 

inasmuch as it stems from a complex combination of 

religious, political, historical, cultural, social, and economic motivational factors: the growing predilection 

for carrying out mass casualty terrorist attacks inside 

the territories of “infidel” Western countries by clandestine operational cells that are inspired ideologically by, and sometimes linked organizationally to, 

various jihadist networks with a global agenda. The 

most important of these latter networks is still the late 

Usama bin Ladin’s high-profile group Qa‘idat al-Jihad 

(The Base [or Foundation] of the Jihad), together with 

its many organizational offshoots and regional affiliates. The second threat is more narrowly technical: the 

widespread fabrication of increasingly sophisticated 

and destructive improvised explosive devices (IEDs) 

by those very same jihadist groups, devices which—

if properly constructed—are capable of causing extensive human casualties and significant amounts of 

physical destruction within their respective blast radiuses. The purpose of this monograph is to examine 

these dual intersecting threats within the recent European context in an effort to assess what they might 

portend for the future, including the U.S. homeland.

1

JIHADIST CELLS AND “IED” CAPABILITIES IN 

EUROPE: ASSESSING THE PRESENT 

AND FUTURE THREAT TO THE WEST

BACKGROUND

During the past 2 decades, two interrelated security threats have emerged that Western democracies 

will likely be forced to contend with for the foreseeable future. The first of these threats is multifaceted 

inasmuch as it stems from a complex combination of 

religious, political, historical, cultural, social, and economic motivational factors: the growing predilection 

for carrying out mass casualty terrorist attacks inside 

the territories of “infidel” Western countries by clandestine operational cells that are inspired ideologically by, and sometimes linked organizationally to, 

various jihadist networks with a global agenda. The 

most important of these latter networks is Usama bin 

Ladin’s high-profile group Qa‘idat al-Jihad (The Base 

[or Foundation] of the Jihad), together with its many 

organizational offshoots and affiliates. The second 

threat is more narrowly technical: the widespread fabrication of increasingly sophisticated and destructive 

improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by those very 

same jihadist groups, devices which (if properly constructed) are capable of causing extensive human casualties and significant amounts of physical destruction 

within their respective blast radiuses. The purpose of 

this monograph is to examine these dual intersecting 

threats, above all within the recent European context, 

in an effort to assess what they might portend for the 

future, including for the U.S. homeland. Specifically, 

the goal herein will be to assess the extent to which 

members of more or less autonomous jihadist cells 
2

are likely to be able to make a transition from carrying out single attacks with IEDs, which some analysts 

believe is not particularly difficult, to launching more 

sustained “IED campaigns,” which most specialists 

agree would require considerably more expertise and 

resources to manage.
3

PART I:

INTRODUCTION

This monograph is organized into four parts. Part 

I seeks to clarify various preliminary conceptual issues, ranging from the appropriateness of the definitions of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to the 

factors involved in their employment and diffusion. 

Part II deals, relatively briefly, with the question of 

whether would-be jihadists can fabricate an effective, 

sophisticated, or destructive IED merely by following 

the instructions in a hard copy or online instruction 

manual, or whether they generally need to get handson technical training from an experienced bombmaker 

in order to be able to make really devastating devices. 

Part III, the heart of the report, deals with the thorny 

question of whether jihadist cells in Europe really are 

amateur “self-starter” groups of kinsmen and friends 

that are not linked organically to professional terrorist networks, as Marc Sageman argues; whether they 

generally are linked to such networks, as Bruce Hoffman suggests; or whether they fit into neither of those 

paradigms comfortably. This is necessary because determining the level of professionalism of cell members 

is likely to be of seminal importance if one is attempting to assess their capabilities for: (1) manufacturing 

sophisticated IEDs, and (2) launching sustained IED 

campaigns. Hence two illustrative cases are examined 

herein in more detail. Part IV then offers some tentative conclusions that might enable security officials 

to formulate more accurate threat assessments concerning potential future IED attacks and campaigns 

in the West.
4

DEFINITIONAL AND CONCEPTUAL 

PROBLEMS WITH THE TERM 

“IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICE”

The first key issue to be dealt with is how, precisely, to define and delimit the application of the 

term “Improvised Explosive Device.” According to 

the definition being used by the National Academies, 

the term seems to refer both to: (1) explosive devices 

that are hand-made, artisanal, or “improvised” with 

respect to their manufacture, i.e., that are not prefabricated according to specifications on a factory assembly line, like conventional military munitions, or (2) 

conventional explosive devices, including military 

grade explosives and military munitions (e.g., artillery shells) that are used in innovative, unconventional, or improvised ways, i.e., not in the way in which 

they are designed for use in the course of conventional 

military operations but rather in an unconventional 

manner in the context of irregular, unconventional, 

or asymmetric warfare.1

 While one need not object 

in principle to this sort of formulation, the problem 

is that virtually any kind of explosive device that is 

manufactured or used by nonstate groups in more or 

less nonconventional ways can now be placed willynilly into the “IED” category. This raises two questions: (1) are there any types of explosive devices used 

by insurgent or irregular forces that do not fall into the 

“improvised” category, and, (2) if not, have we simply 

created a trendy new buzzword covering every type 

of bombing carried out by guerrillas, insurgents, irregulars, and terrorists? 

Given the penchant for creating acronyms by U.S. 

Government agencies, especially the Department 
5

of Defense (DoD), does the use of the term IED really add any precision or “scientific” value to earlier 

ways of describing or characterizing such devices or 

attacks? For example, is there any advantage in employing the term Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive 

Device (VBIED) to refer to an old-fashioned car or 

truck bomb, or in using the term Person-Borne Improvised Explosive Device (PBIED) to refer to a “suicide 

bomber”? One wonders.

The second conceptual point to make is that IEDs, 

however the term is defined, can be employed both in 

“normal” instrumental acts of violence (e.g., simply to 

eliminate, destroy, or damage particular human and 

nonhuman targets) and in bona fide acts of terrorism, 

i.e., acts of violence for psychological effect in which the 

perpetrators’ primary purpose is to influence the perceptions and behavior of a wider target audience or 

audiences.2

 It is important to distinguish conceptually 

between standard acts of violence that involve only 

two parties, the perpetrator(s) and the victim(s), which 

technically do not constitute acts of terrorism, and acts 

of terrorist violence which invariably involve three 

parties, the perpetrator(s), the victim(s), and the wider 

target audience(s) upon whom the perpetrator(s) intentionally aim to exert a psychological impact. Given 

their dramatic effects and destructive power, IEDs are 

obviously well suited for both types of attacks.3

UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES DO 

NONSTATE GROUPS EMPLOY IEDS?

When considering the prior and likely future use 

of IEDs in attacks by insurgents or terrorists, one must 

carefully evaluate the role played by: (1) operational 

objectives; (2) ideological factors; (3) organizational 
6

factors, which are especially relevant to the matter of 

operational capabilities and available resources; and 

(4) environmental and contextual factors.

Operational Objectives and IED Use. 

There is no real mystery about why particular insurgent groups (or, for that matter, their opponents) 

have often had recourse to making and employing 

IEDs. The primary reasons why diverse extremist and 

opposition groups have chosen to employ such devices are that IEDs are relatively easy to manufacture 

and deploy, relatively cheap to fabricate, and have repeatedly proven, in a multitude of different historical, 

cultural, and operational contexts, to be highly effective.4

 Explosive devices, improvised or not, enable the 

groups employing them—assuming that their members are minimally competent in operational and technical matters—to successfully attack and harm their 

targets or, in the case of terrorism proper, to affect the 

psychological state, perceptions, and behavior of the 

target audiences they are trying to influence. In short, 

from a narrowly tactical or operational point of view, 

the decision to employ IEDs often appears to be quite 

rational: Groups believe that they can get a lot of “bang 

for the buck” and thereby accomplish their operational 

objectives. Hence the difficult question to answer is not so 

much why certain groups might use IEDs, but rather why 

other groups might decide not to. From a strictly operational standpoint, the only reasons why groups might 

refrain from using IEDs is because they fear alienating 

the sympathies of their base of supporters by carrying 

out indiscriminate bomb attacks, or they have already 

become accustomed to using and hence continue to 

prefer to use other signature tactics that they consider 
7

effective. In other words, the “operational signature” 

or “operational profile” of particular groups is in certain cases based on the use of other types of weapons 

and tactics, not IEDs. For example, the leftist Brigate 

Rosse (Red Brigades [BR]) preferred to kidnap, “kneecap,” or assassinate individuals whom they felt were 

representatives of the “imperialist state of the multinationals,” i.e., functionaries of the “oppressive” 

capitalist class or the “bourgeois” democratic state 

which was supposedly beholden to that class. The 

BR did not have any fundamental ideological objections to or moral qualms about using explosives, but 

it was simply not the group’s preferred tactic.5

 Moreover, recent self-proclaimed offshoots of the BR, the 

so-called “new” BR, have likewise not yet resorted to 

mass casualty attacks or the use of sophisticated IEDs, 

even though one of those offshoots—the Nuclei Territoriali Antiimperialisti (Anti-Imperialist Territorial 

Cells [NTA])—has bombed several parked automobiles and specifically advocated an alliance between 

Western left-wing radicals and the “anti-imperialist” 

fighter Usama bin Ladin.6

 This suggests that the mere 

diffusion of IED knowledge and technology will not 

necessarily cause extremist groups that have historically preferred other methods to employ IEDs in mass 

casualty attacks.

Ideological Factors in IED Use.

The question here is whether particular extremist or insurgent groups have any moral reservations 

about, or ideological/theological objections to, the 

likely causing of inadvertent loss of life (collateral 

damage) or mass casualties as a result of IED attacks. 

In the case of jihadist groups, however, this is not an 
8

issue: They have neither moral nor ideological objections to carrying out public bombings using IEDs 

against “infidels,” including within the dar al-harb 

(abode of war, i.e., portions of the world in which the 

shari‘a does not hold sway and where unbelievers are 

not paying the jizya or poll tax to signal their submission), because they believe that both killing and terrorizing infidels is specifically sanctioned by passages 

in the Qur’an and/or by supporting ahadith (accounts 

of what Muhammad allegedly said or did).7

 Furthermore, on the basis of Islamic “just war” conceptions of 

proportionality with respect both to scope and means, 

jihadist spokesmen have openly proclaimed that they 

have the right to kill millions of Americans, including by means of the use of so-called “weapons of mass 

destruction” (WMD).8 Moreover, both Usama bin Ladin and Ayman al-Zawahiri have sought to provide 

explicit theological-legal justifications for killing both 

American civilians (including women and children) 

and Muslims who are living in targeted regions of 

the dar al-harb.

9

 Add to that a host of semi-rational or 

non-rational “expressive” impulses or motives, e.g., a 

desire to cleanse the world of corruption by exterminating unbelievers, obsessions with getting revenge 

for real or imagined crimes, a passion for martyrdom, 

or the desire to precipitate an apocalyptic end-of-days 

scenario, and one can easily conclude that the jihadists have no ideological restraints whatsoever that 

might inhibit them from causing mass, indiscriminate 

casualties.10 If such repeated pronouncements are not 

alone sufficient to convince every careful observer, all 

one has to do is look at their normal modus operandi, 

which is characterized by the widespread employment of IEDs to cause mass casualties and/or traumatize target audiences on virtually every front where 
9

jihadists are waging armed struggle, from Algeria to 

Iraq, from Afghanistan to Chechnya, from Kashmir to 

Thailand, and from Europe to Indonesia.

Organizational Factors in IED Use.

In many contexts the most important organizational issue that could affect the use and impact of 

future IED attacks is the extent to which the jihadist 

groups emerging in particular areas have had or will 

in the future develop tangible links to more professional terrorist networks and groups, either in their 

own region or elsewhere. Most analysts have been fixated on the question of whether Qa‘idat al-Jihad has 

provided, or will henceforth be providing, direct or 

indirect operational and logistical assistance to homegrown jihadist cells in other parts of the world, but it 

would be a serious mistake to overlook or minimize 

the possible connections between newly-formed jihadist cells and professional terrorist groups based 

in places like Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Chechnya, or 

Kashmir. At this juncture, debates continue to rage between those researchers who argue that many, if not 

most, of the supposed “self-starter” jihadist groups in 

various regions have in fact had documented links to 

cadres of Qa‘idat al-Jihad, which in its most extreme 

formulations could lead to the conclusion that Usama 

bin Ladin and his organization’s majlis al-shura (consultative council) are directly ordering, tangibly assisting, or even secretly “teleguiding” jihadist attacks 

in various countries, and those who claim that the 

attacking cells, although clearly inspired by the ideology of global jihad (specifically jihadist Salafism), 

were not connected organizationally or logistically to 

Qa‘idat al-Jihad.11 As will later become clear, the actual 
10

situation on the ground generally lies somewhere between these two interpretive poles—e.g., at least two 

members of the “bunch of guys” that carried out the 

7/7 suicide bombings in London reportedly traveled 

to Pakistan and made contact with jihadist militants 

there, including those at a Lashkar-i Tayyiba (Army of 

the Pure [LeT]) madrasa near Lahore12—but this sort of 

question obviously cannot be answered in a general or 

abstract way: Only careful and thorough qualitative empirical research on a case-by-case basis can shed sufficient 

light on these complex matters, and each case is likely to 

be different from the others and, virtually by definition, unique in certain respects. One single interpretative framework therefore does not and cannot fit every individual case, though after carefully examining 

a variety of such cases one may eventually be able to 

discern and identify broader trends.

The reason why this organizational issue may well 

be of considerable importance is because it seems a 

priori probable that cells connected in various ways 

with veteran, professional terrorist groups or networks, or whose members have received hands-on 

instruction in jihadist training camps, would be better 

able to construct more effective IEDs (in terms of their 

overall destructive power and anti-personnel effects) 

and/or plan more devastatingly effective attacks, e.g., 

a near simultaneous series of bombings, bombings 

involving secondary and tertiary explosions that are 

designed to kill emergency personnel and onlookers 

who rush to the scene of the initial bombing, a more 

skillful deployment of chemical agents or radiological 

dispersion devices (RDDs), etc. This does not mean, 

of course, that a small group of resourceful (and perhaps lucky) amateurs would necessarily be unable to 

carry out a highly destructive and bloody attack that 
11

ended up having a traumatic psychological impact or 

affecting government policies. If one accepts the problematic thesis of Marc Sageman and Scott Atran, for 

example, that the Madrid bombings were carried out 

by a relatively amateurish “bunch of guys” with only 

tenuous links to other jihadist organizations—a topic 

that will be investigated further below13—it is obvious 

that even amateurs can carry out a highly successful, 

near simultaneous bomb attack using fairly simple 

homemade IEDs. However, even if a particular “selfstarter” group was able to carry out one successful IED 

attack, even a major one, it is questionable whether it 

would be able to carry out sustained IED campaigns.

Environmental and Contextual Factors in IED Use.

The continent of Europe, like North America, constitutes an almost ideal operating environment within 

which to plan and carry out IED attacks. Apart from 

the fact that jihadists consider all of Europe (excepting Bosnia and Albania) to be “infidel territory” and 

most European governments to be key participants in 

the “Zionist-Crusader war against Islam,” European 

countries offer many other advantages as IED targets. 

First, they are unusually rich in targets of both tangible 

and symbolic importance, ranging from sophisticated 

public transportation systems that ferry millions of 

civilians back and forth on a daily basis, to the innumerable symbols of Europe’s past glory (such as the 

Vatican) and present power (such as financial centers 

and military bases). Second, the freedoms provided 

by Western democratic societies enable extremist and 

subversive groups of various types, including Islamist 

networks, to operate with relative freedom of action 

and impunity (despite the prodigious and sometimes 
12

effective efforts of various European secret services 

to monitor their activities). In particular, Islamist 

radicals (including future would-be jihadists) find it 

easy to exploit the European legal and welfare systems to promote their extremist agendas and engage 

in anti-democratic activities, and they likewise find it 

relatively easy to “hide in plain sight” in ghettoized 

Muslim communities on the peripheries of major European cities.14 Moreover, even when they are arrested 

and brought to trial, the nature of European judicial 

systems and the political proclivities of many judges 

often combine to make it hard to prosecute them successfully. So it is that such radicals can systematically 

take advantage of the very freedoms that they detest 

in order to identify, conduct surveillance of, and eventually attack a multitude of potentially vulnerable and 

highly-desirable targets.

PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS ON IED 

DIFFUSION: HOW ARE IED KNOW-HOW 

AND TECHNOLOGY SPREAD?

At first glance one might either assume or hypothesize that information about how to construct IEDs, 

or the actual technologies needed to fabricate them, 

would be likely to spread in one of two ways. First, 

they could spread outward from particular geographic 

locales where insurgents or terrorists had already developed a certain amount of expertise in constructing 

and employing IEDs (or perhaps where they had access to certain materials needed to manufacture them 

that were unavailable elsewhere), which would mean 

that one could probably trace their diffusion spatially from particular geographic centers, first to adjacent and thence to further removed territories. This 
13

would also imply that, temporally, those techniques 

would spread outward through a relatively gradual 

process. Second, they could be spread in conjunction 

with the movements of particular individuals who already had expertise in creating and deploying IEDs, 

whether those movements conformed to predictable 

patterns or were more random. In such a situation, 

the spread of IED know-how would not necessarily 

be characterized by a gradually expanding process of 

diffusion outwards from a particular epicenter, but instead move along the circuitous paths taken by those 

individuals. In that sense, knowledge would be more 

likely to “jump” spatially and thereby be transmitted 

somewhat more rapidly than in the aforementioned 

diffusion pattern. For example, if an IED expert traveled from al-’Anbar province in Iraq to a destination 

in Europe or Southeast Asia, his knowledge and expertise would be likely to move and potentially be 

spread along with him. But this would not necessarily 

follow an easily discernible pattern, and unless U.S. 

intelligence agencies were somehow able to monitor 

the movements of such individuals it might be very 

difficult for them to glean where and when this accumulated know-how might appear or be transmitted 

next. In this second type of “personal” diffusion, the 

appropriate analogy might be to tracing the spread of 

infectious diseases by following the travel itineraries 

of infected individuals.

However, in today’s Internet era, the processes of 

IED knowledge and technology diffusion are arguably less likely to conform to such traditional patterns 

of technological diffusion. Unfortunately, it is now 

possible for individuals all over the world to access 

the Internet and get information therein about how to 

obtain chemicals and other materials needed for IEDs, 
14

as well as detailed instructions for actually fabricating them. In short, the diffusion of rudimentary IED 

know-how no longer primarily depends, as it generally had in earlier eras, on its gradual expansion 

outwards from specific geographic nodes, the physical movements of knowledgeable and experienced 

people, or, perhaps, on the potentially traceable and 

therefore risky acquisition of obscure and often illegal 

hard copy bomb making manuals. Nowadays locating information about how to construct home-made 

bombs is as easy as clicking on a URL from a desktop 

or portable computer, perhaps one at an Internet café 

on which time has been rented under a fictive name 

and paid for with cash. This is certainly something 

that many “wanna-be” jihadists do these days.

Perhaps the most important question, then, is 

whether one needs to obtain actual hands-on training from an explosives expert to be able to construct 

highly effective IEDs, or whether one can do so simply 

by carefully following the instructions provided in an 

online IED manual. This is a question that technical 

experts are perhaps best able to answer, although one 

would suspect that efforts by rank amateurs to learn 

how to construct and deploy IEDs, especially amateurs without any prior scientific or technical background, are in general not likely to lead to optimal results in terms of achieving their operational objectives, 

whether those objectives be causing mass casualties, 

destroying targeted facilities, traumatizing target audiences, or some combination thereof. Indeed, efforts 

by untrained amateurs to fabricate IEDs solely from 

online instructional materials are likely to lead, perhaps not infrequently, either to premature accidental 

detonations and the resultant maiming or death of the 

would-be bomb-maker, or to the mistaken fabrication 
15

of bombs that then fail to detonate. Moreover, until 

they have acquired more firsthand operational experience in deploying IEDs and created an efficient logistical infrastructure of some type, it will likely be more 

difficult for self-styled revolutionaries or “mujahidin” 

to launch sustained IED campaigns even if they are 

capable of launching successful single IED attacks.

Of course, one of the main characteristics of IEDs 

is that they are “improvised.” This implies that there 

are innumerable new and creative ways to make explosive devices by employing a wide variety of chemicals and household objects, not to mention actual 

military munitions. In that sense, it may not always 

be the slavish imitation of devices and techniques that 

have previously been used and disseminated by others, including professional bombmakers, but rather 

the innovative development of entirely new types of 

devices and techniques by clever amateurs with technical skills, which ends up creating significant new 

terrorist threats. In that sense, the only certain limits 

that can be placed on the ability to construct and deploy IEDs, apart from the laws of physics and access 

to a minimal amount of resources, are those of the human imagination itself. As has already become clear 

in Iraq, different groups of insurgents are both very 

adaptive and very innovative in terms of employing 

locally available materials in creative ways and devising techniques to circumvent U.S. efforts to discover 

IEDs, dismantle them, or jam the signals that are used 

to detonate them. At a 2006 conference in Monterey, 

California, a British munitions expert explained just 

how easy it was to fabricate devastatingly effective 

IEDs, how difficult it was to identify, disarm, or defuse them, and how adaptable the insurgents had become in finding ways to deal with sophisticated Coali-
16

tion countermeasures, both human and technical. This 

provides yet another illustration, if any was needed, 

that the ongoing process of mutual learning and adaptation between adversaries in warfare shows no signs 

of abating.15 It also indicates that battle-hardened and 

creative insurgents, however rigid and fanatical they 

may be from an ideological standpoint, can eventually 

find ways of adapting or effectively responding, in the 

operational realm, to the immense technological superiority of U.S. and Western armies, and that a complex 

array of human factors, both tangible and intangible, 

will remain decisive elements in the outcome of present and future conflicts.
17

PART II:

INDIVIDUAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL 

LEARNING ABOUT IEDs

Not all terrorists learn, and those that do appear 

limited in their ability to do so.

—Michael Kenney16

One issue raised in the introduction was whether 

members of terrorist cells would need to receive direct 

personal training from individuals with actual expertise, i.e., with significant prior hands-on bombmaking 

experience, in order to learn how to fabricate effective 

improvised explosive devices (IEDs) themselves. It 

would be rash to draw categorical conclusions about 

this matter, since certain talented amateurs have in the 

past sometimes been capable—and will no doubt in 

the future also sometimes be capable—of manufacturing very destructive IEDs, either by imaginatively applying their existing levels of technical knowledge or 

by following detailed step-by-step instructions found 

in manuals, even without having had the benefit of direct personal instruction from an experienced bombmaker. Nevertheless, the question is not whether such 

amateurs might occasionally be able to fabricate such 

devices, which is a certainty, but rather how frequently they are likely to be able to do so.

Hence a brief discussion should be undertaken 

about the general importance of individual learning 

and organizational learning in terrorist groups. Alas, 

not enough in-depth research has as yet been carried 

out on the specific processes by which members of terrorist groups, or their organizations as a whole, actu-
18

ally acquire, analyze, share, and apply knowledge, in 

part because most of the existing literature on social 

learning and organizational behavior has been focused 

on relatively large, stable, formal, and bureaucratized 

organizations instead of on small, sectarian, violenceprone political or religious groups that are compelled 

to operate clandestinely or covertly in hostile law enforcement and military environments. Such groups 

are usually characterized by ideological extremism, 

authoritarian and often charismatic leadership, insularity, internal factionalism leading to organizational 

fission and fusion, compartmentalization on a need-toknow basis, and intense intra-group social dynamics. 

Oftentimes, it has simply been assumed that terrorist 

groups will continue to learn, like most supposedly 

“rational” actors, as time progresses. However, there 

is no doubt that different terrorist groups, including 

those that emerge from within the same ideological 

milieu, do not all learn vital skills and important lessons at the same rate. Nor, for that matter, do they 

all learn equally well. Thus it should not simply be 

assumed a priori that particular terrorist groups are 

invariably learning what they need to know and then 

effectively applying what they have learned, all the 

more so given that social learning tends to be “sensitive to a variety of individual and institutional impediments, including bounded rationality, coalition 

dynamics, and organizational inertia.”17

However that may be, in the context of both individual learning and organizational learning, an 

important preliminary distinction must be drawn 

between what has generally been referred to as “explicit knowledge” and that which has been dubbed 

“tacit knowledge.”18 Explicit knowledge refers to 

formal knowledge about how to do something that 
19

can be effectively codified in various formats and can 

thence be transmitted easily to others. In contrast, tacit 

knowledge is more informal personalized knowledge 

gained through sometimes unique individual experiences, which often manifests itself in the form of 

subjective insights, intuitions, and hunches, that are 

harder to formalize and hence much harder to transmit fully to others.19 An example of explicit knowledge, with respect to IEDs, would be the information 

found in hard copy or online manuals that provide 

detailed instructions about how to make bombs. An 

example of tacit knowledge would be the “tricks of 

the trade” painstakingly acquired over a period of 

years by veteran, highly-skilled bomb makers, which 

are likely to include all sorts of innovative, flexible, 

and adaptive techniques, nuances, and insights, many 

of them idiosyncratic, that are not to be found in standardized manuals. Diligent students might eventually 

succeed in learning the basics of bomb making from 

such manuals, but they would only be able to learn 

and master the many subtleties associated with tacit 

knowledge if they received personal training from, or 

perhaps even became the protégés of, an experienced 

bomb maker or, alternatively, after practicing extensively for a considerable period of time and thereby 

acquiring valuable firsthand experience. Moreover, 

according to a team of RAND Corporation experts, 

“[a]cquiring new information, knowledge, or technology from an explicit source is usually only a group’s 

first step. The group must then develop enough tacit 

knowledge within its ranks to be able to apply the information effectively.”20

Another, older scheme that was designed to draw 

a distinction between book learning and experiential 

learning has recently been resuscitated by Michael 
20

Kenney, who argues that the terms explicit and tacit 

knowledge should be replaced by the ancient Greek 

terms techne and mētis. Although techne is very similar 

to the notion of explicit knowledge, in that it focuses on 

abstract technical knowledge or “know what” that is 

structured in “small, explicit, logical steps” which can 

be broken down, verified, and therefore easily communicated, mētis is arguably a more subtle, nuanced 

version of tacit knowledge.21 Like the latter, mētis focuses on intuitive, practical knowledge or experiential “know how” that one acquires by doing, but it 

especially emphasizes that this involves a “cunning” 

or “crafty” intelligence which is manifested through 

traits such as dexterity, ingenuity, improvisation, and 

overall adaptability.22 Such attributes must be present to enable insurgent terrorists to learn quickly and 

respond effectively to government countermeasures. 

Unlike techne, which consists of codified knowledge 

that can be acquired by “reading manuals and other 

documents that provide detailed, step-by-step” instructions, mētis must be shared—to the extent that it 

can be shared—by experienced practitioners through 

sustained interaction with others, including less experienced acolytes.23 In the words of Kenney:

‘Veterans’ tell ‘novices’ stories about their past experiences; they demonstrate how to perform specific 

tasks; and they mentor aspiring fanatics by building 

social relationships with them. Like tailors, midwives, 

butchers, and photocopy technicians, terrorists share 

mētis by participating in ‘communities of practice,’ social communities formed by veterans and novices that 

interact on a regular basis, creating and re-creating experiential knowledge expressed in shared narratives, 

practices, and routines.24
21

This distinction between techne and mētis is obviously 

very relevant to the terrorist use of IEDs.

Thus far the focus has been on the individual 

learning of bomb making and related skills, but it is 

necessary to emphasize that organizational learning 

is also of vital importance for terrorist organizations. 

This is because insurgent terrorist groups operate 

within a fluid, dynamic, and adversarial conflict environment characterized by interactive processes of 

thrust-and-parry, action-and-reaction, or responseand-counter-response—in short, a complex process of 

“competitive adaptation”—between their own operatives and the security forces of the regimes they are 

fighting.25 If they do not continue to learn and adapt, 

insurgent groups are not likely to be able to prevail 

against the generally superior forces and greater resources fielded by the state. What is being referred to 

herein as organizational learning has been defined by 

Brian Jackson and a team of RAND researchers as “a 

process through which a group acquires new knowledge or technology that it then uses to make better 

strategic decisions, improve its ability to develop and 

apply specific tactics, and increase its chance of success in its operations.”26 These same authors further 

emphasize that “learning at the organizational level 

is more than simply the sum of what each individual 

member knows or can do [because an] organization is 

a system that structures, stores, and influences what and 

how its members learn.”27

It follows that in order to learn, terrorist groups, 

as organizations, must engage in some process to ensure that the information they acquire is effectively 

processed and applied. The RAND researchers have 

characterized this as a fourfold process that involves 

acquiring information and knowledge from both exter-
22

nal and internal sources; interpreting that information 

properly; distributing it to members of the organization that need access to that information; and then 

storing the information through various means for 

future collective retrieval.28 The information that has 

thereby been learned and retained can then be used to 

facilitate the group’s ability to perform several vitally 

important functions—to develop, improve, or employ 

new weapons or tactics in order to change its capabilities over time; to improve the skills of its members so 

that they can better apply current weapons or tactics; 

to collect and utilize the intelligence information needed to mount operations effectively; to thwart countermeasures and hence improve its chance to survive 

efforts to destroy it; and to preserve the capabilities 

it has already developed even if key individual members are lost.29 If it is able to build significant expertise 

within the group, whether through learning by doing, 

offering basic or specialized training to raise the skill 

sets of its members and thereby reduce their chances of 

making mistakes, or carrying out after action reviews 

to learn from its past successes and failures, it will be 

able to increase its operational effectiveness considerably and thereafter carry out increasingly destructive 

and/or complex attacks.30

Note, however, that the organizational learning 

processes discussed by Jackson and his colleagues 

might be more relevant and applicable to larger insurgent terrorist groups with greater resources than 

to small, more or less autonomous jihadist cells.31

Smaller, more transitory ad hoc groups may not need 

to survive for as long a period, much less to evolve 

and become increasingly effective, especially if their 

handful of members intend to martyr themselves in 

the process of carrying out a terrorist attack. If, on the 
23

other hand, they hope to survive, sustain themselves, 

and remain active for a longer period, they too would 

benefit from instituting a process of organizational 

learning, albeit on a smaller scale, in order to increase 

their operational capabilities and successfully adapt 

and respond to changing situations. Even in that case, 

however, the fact that these types of cellular organizations are relatively tiny means that the mechanisms 

necessary to maintain organizational learning, and in 

particular to distribute knowledge to members and 

store it collectively, are likely to be far more rudimentary. In such a case all that is arguably necessary is 

for key personnel, including bomb makers and operational leaders, to survive so that the cell can maintain 

itself in being, recruit new members, and continue to 

operate.

Hence, in the context of small ad hoc jihadist cells 

in Europe, organizational learning—in contrast to 

individual learning—might at first sight appear to 

be less difficult to attain than would be the case for 

larger, more dispersed, and more functionally specialized terrorist organizations. On the other hand, 

precisely because such cells are small, geographically 

concentrated, and relatively noncompartmentalized, 

they may be far more vulnerable to penetration, covert manipulation, or eventual destruction by the security forces. For that very reason, the maintenance of 

tight organizational and operational security is perhaps even more essential, at least in the short term, 

precisely because of the relative paucity of skilled 

personnel in such cells. After all, if the only effective 

organizer, operational planner, or experienced bomb 

maker within a cell is captured or killed, that alone 

might make it impossible for the remaining members 

to carry out successful terrorist attacks.
24

In contrast to the scheme presented by Jackson and 

his team, Kenney has instead formulated a three-stage 

process of terrorist organizational learning. From this 

perspective, “individuals acting on behalf of collectives gather, share, and apply information and experience to their activities, frequently in response to 

environmental feedback.”32 He also emphasizes that 

the actual mechanisms associated with this process 

are related to certain characteristics of jihadist terrorist groups:

Existing research suggests that jihadists and terrorists 

connect to like-minded militants through friendship 

and kinship ties, as well as social affiliations based 

on common religious or ethnonational backgrounds, 

geographic proximity, and shared experiences. Network ties among participating “nodes” are sustained 

and deepened through regular interactions, including 

communication, information sharing, and coordination of collective action.33

Yet how, precisely, do these social network connections and interactions facilitate individual and organizational learning? In general, Kenney argues that 

terrorists learn by acquiring information about various 

methods (including by gaining firsthand experience 

employing them), sharing knowledge about different 

operational and technical methods with other trusted 

persons through varying types of social interaction, 

and then applying that knowledge and experience 

when planning and carrying out future operations.34

More specifically, they do so by means of ongoing 

interactions within the social networks they belong 

to, by forming “communities of practice,” and—to a 

lesser extent—by consulting the Internet to obtain information. As noted above, communities of practice 
25

are formed when experienced veterans begin, more 

or less systematically, interacting with and providing instruction to novices. After receiving a certain 

amount of training, the latter then increasingly refine 

their “knowledge in practice” as they continue to apply the lessons they have learned (assuming that they 

live to fight another day). In so doing, those who were 

once novices eventually develop sufficient expertise 

themselves to become “full-fledged practitioners” in 

that community of practice.35 Again, it is within these 

terrorist communities of practice that the difficult-tocodify and -master skills associated with mētis are normally passed on, either directly or indirectly, to less 

experienced members of particular organizations and 

cells.

This does not necessarily mean, of course, that 

jihadist terrorists are always or even normally good 

at learning, either on the individual or the organizational level. Indeed, one of Kenney’s most interesting 

research findings was that members of the jihadist 

cells whose activities he examined had often failed to 

master basic tradecraft skills, both in regard to technical and operational matters, and that consequently 

they frequently made serious errors when planning 

and carrying out their attacks.36 There were many reasons for this, including the general problems posed 

by “incomplete information, bounded rationality, inaccurate and biased references, [and] organizational 

inertia,” as well as by problems intrinsic to the jihadist milieu (and, for that matter, certain other extremist milieus), above all ideological fanaticism and religious fatalism.37 As a result, individual members and 

entire jihadist cells often ended up learning the wrong 

lessons or adopting inferior practices.38 Kenney’s findings, which will be echoed and further reinforced in 
26

the course of this monograph, should serve as a useful 

corrective to the claims of a host of security officials, 

policymakers, and scholars—many with a vested professional interest in exaggerating the jihadist threat39—

who have long tended to ascribe hyper-rationality, 

overly coherent strategic thinking, and preternatural 

levels of operational efficiency to al-Qa‘ida and other 

jihadist terrorist groups.

What is the relevance of all this, especially to the 

problem of IED fabrication? There is currently an ongoing debate among both scholars and security professionals concerning the degree of difficulty that is 

purportedly involved in the planning and carrying 

out of terrorist attacks. Although most experts agree 

that manufacturing complex explosive devices and 

launching more sophisticated attacks both require 

greater preparation and impose higher intrinsic “information costs,” some have argued that those same 

costs for plotting and committing simpler terrorist attacks are relatively low, especially in connection with 

actions like simple shootings and crude bombings.40

Others, however, argue that even the successful perpetration of more rudimentary terrorist attacks requires 

the prior acquisition of a significant amount of mētis, 

a fact that is generally not acknowledged by those 

emphasizing the low information costs of terrorism.41

According to Kenney, mētis—almost by definition—

“imposes substantial information costs on practitioners.”42 After all, even shooting firearms accurately requires a considerable period of prior practice at some 

sort of firing range—it is not something that can be 

mastered simply by following written instructions. It 

follows, then, that carrying out more complicated actions and operations requires even more mētis, which 

in return requires more sustained and/or intensive 
27

practice, since developing a real knack for something 

requires “learning-by-doing.”43

This is why information about building explosive 

devices found on the Internet, which is in the form of 

techne, cannot normally substitute for the acquisition 

of mētis, which normally involves obtaining handson bomb-making training from experts, followed by 

frequent practicing of the lessons learned. Even so, 

the fabrication of sophisticated and destructive IEDs 

typically requires a combination of techne and mētis, as 

Kenney explains:

Abstract technical knowledge, as found in codified 

bomb-making recipes, is essential because it contains 

precise measurements for combining different, often 

volatile chemicals in precise ways to produce the desired compounds. To be useful, this technical knowledge must be clearly expressed in coherent, step-bystep instructions that readers can follow. However, 

even when bomb-making recipes are accurate and 

reliable, which often times they are not, applying this 

abstract knowledge to meet local needs and circumstances requires practice, the act of assembling bombs 

from different artifacts with one’s own hands, repeatedly. With practice, bomb-makers develop the ability 

to combine abstract know-what with experimental 

know-how. This intuitive blending of the abstract 

with the concrete forms the cornerstone of real world 

expertise. In this sense, terrorist techne and terrorist 

mētis are complimentary, not mutually exclusive.44

Although it might not be impossible to construct an 

explosive device by carefully following instructions 

found on the Internet, it could be very risky to do 

so. First, even if the online recipe turns out to be accurate, it can be extremely dangerous to try to mix 

chemicals or attach detonators without having prac-
28

ticed these activities for a considerable period. Second, it turns out that much of the information found 

in online bomb-making manuals is either incomplete 

or seriously inaccurate. Indeed, an explosives expert 

consulted by Kenney who carefully examined several well-known jihadist online manuals claiming to 

incorporate bomb-making expertise found that much 

of the information contained therein was “rubbish.”45

Hence terrorists who lack mētis are unlikely to be able 

to build sophisticated bombs.

That is why it is so important for would-be jihadists to obtain first-hand advice or training from veteran terrorists and professional criminals who are 

trusted members of their social networks before actually planning attacks, fabricating explosive devices, or 

attacking selected targets. As Kenney notes: 

Veterans facilitate involvement in terrorism by teaching novices [ideological] concepts and values that 

support political violence, behavioral norms on how 

to treat fellow militants and outsiders, and tactical 

know-how for conducting attacks, including how to 

case targets, build bombs, lay landmines, safeguard 

operational security, and handle different types of 

firearms.46

Indeed, experienced militants who had previously received hands-on training overseas and/or 

seasoned criminals played a vital role in many of the 

plots and attacks that have been launched by jihadists 

in Europe.47 Whether informally or formally, veteran 

mujahidin tended to mingle with, radicalize, recruit, 

indoctrinate, and eventually—with the help of certain predominantly Muslim petty criminals—transmit 

technical and operational mētis to select would-be jihadists in various locales, including mosques, prisons, 
29

Islamic cultural centers, small shops owned by other 

“brothers,” personal residences, “garage mosques,” 

and at privately-organized study circles, social gatherings, and sporting events.48

In any case, the most important indicators of the 

possible existence of IED mētis in this particular context is whether members of various jihadist cells in 

Europe had received hands-on training from expert 

bomb makers affiliated with larger, more professional, operationally sophisticated terrorist organizations 

or, alternatively, whether those cells happened to 

include, perhaps serendipitously, experienced bomb 

makers within their own ranks. It is these two questions that will be addressed in Part III of this report, 

specifically in connection with the devastating March 

2004 train bombings in Madrid and the failed July 

2006 train bombings near Koblenz and Dortmund.
30

PART III:

JIHADIST CELLS IN EUROPE AND 

IED EXPERTISE

The purpose of this section is to examine certain 

key aspects of two jihadist terrorist plots involving 

the utilization of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) 

in Europe, one that was successfully carried out (the 

2004 Madrid train bombings) and one that failed (the 

2006 Cologne-area train bombings), in an effort to 

clarify two specific issues: One is the extent to which 

members of the cells involved in these attacks might 

have been linked to battle-hardened jihadists and/or 

operationally sophisticated terrorist organizations or 

networks elsewhere, from whom they might have obtained some prior hands-on training in bomb making. 

The other is whether, in lieu of such connections, any 

members of these cells were themselves experienced 

bomb makers. The answers to these questions, and the 

relevance of those answers to the success or failure of 

the attacks, may in turn help to shed light, at least in 

a tentative and preliminary fashion, on the following 

broader issues: First, is it only cells connected to one 

or more professional terrorist organizations that are 

likely to be able to carry out (a) devastating single IED 

attacks and, by extension, (b) sustained “IED campaigns” marked by a succession of such attacks? Two, 

could these types of IED attacks—or even full-fledged 

IED campaigns—also be carried out by fully autonomous “self-starter” cells, i.e., cells whose members are 

inspired by the globally-oriented “jihadist Salafist” 

ideology espoused by Qa‘idat al-Jihad but who are 

not organizationally or logistically linked in a tangible 

way to other jihadist networks? Needless to say, the 
31

answer to these questions in the European context has 

significant security implications with respect to IED 

use and effectiveness for the United States homeland 

as well.

PRELIMINARY MATTERS

Before turning to the two case studies, however, it 

is necessary to provide some preliminary information 

on the different facets of the jihadist threat in Europe, 

the phases of foreign jihadist implantation in Europe, 

and the different types of jihadist cells operating there. 

On the first of these matters, Lorenzo Vidino has justly 

highlighted the highly variegated nature of the jihadist threat in Europe by drawing a useful distinction 

between three separate dimensions of that threat. 

First, there is the “imported” jihadist threat, i.e., that 

posed by more or less veteran jihadists from Muslim 

countries who manage to obtain political asylum or 

guest worker status in European countries but then 

continue pursuing their extremist aims. Second, there 

is the “home-brewed” jihadist threat, i.e., that posed 

by second- and third-generation European Muslims, 

usually the descendants of foreign immigrant workers, who have become so alienated from and hostile 

towards their Western homelands that they come to 

embrace radical forms of Islam and eventually opt to 

engage in armed jihad. Finally, there is the “homegrown” jihadist threat, i.e., that posed by a small 

number of European converts to Islam who likewise, 

as is often the case with “born again” converts, end 

up embracing extremist doctrines and then go on to 

join jihadist cells.49 However valuable these distinctions are, especially in connection with efforts to create a demographic profile of European jihadists, what 

is most relevant in the context of this monograph is 
32

(1) whether local jihadist cells in Europe were linked 

organizationally or logistically to veteran jihadist networks in North Africa, the Middle East, or South Asia, 

and (2) whether any members of those cells, be they 

imported, home-brewed, or home-grown, had previously received hands-on training in bomb-making 

from professionals. In short, the question is whether 

certain members of specific European jihadist cells 

had managed to develop sufficient levels of mētis with 

respect to IED fabrication.

On the subject of jihadist implantation, one can 

identify several successive phases.50 In the first phase, 

from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, a number of 

jihadists had flocked to Western Europe in order to 

obtain political asylum or refugee status and thereby 

escape persecution at home. Most of these men were 

either wanted in their own countries for terrorism-related offenses or had not been allowed to return home 

after fighting in Afghanistan or on other far-flung jihadist fronts, and were thus forced to go elsewhere to 

establish a new life.51 For example, many members of 

the Syrian branch of the Jami‘yyat al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin (Society of the Muslim Brothers, better known 

as the Muslim Brotherhood), an organization which 

had been brutally suppressed in their Ba’athist-ruled 

homeland, found refuge in the 1980s in Europe.52 Although many lay low for a time and focused on rebuilding their personal lives, some soon resurfaced 

and became actively involved in Islamist activities, 

including recruiting fighters to go to Bosnia, where 

during the 1990s Muslims were being subjected to 

military attacks and reciprocal campaigns of “ethnic 

cleansing” by Croats and Serbs. Illustrative of such a 

trajectory was the career of Mustafa Sitt Maryam Nasar (better known as Abu Mus‘ab al-Suri), a very im-
33

portant jihadist thinker, operator, and military theorist who resided in several European countries while 

supporting transnational jihadist activities.53

In the second phase, during the mid-1990s, individual jihadists not only began going to Europe to obtain asylum for themselves, but also specifically to establish external support or “rearguard” networks for 

the terrorist organizations fighting in their home countries, those operating on other jihadist fronts, or for 

al-Qa‘ida.54 Among the many foreign terrorist groups 

that such individuals managed to set up support networks for in Europe were al-Jama‘a al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group [IG]) and the Tanzim al-Jihad al-Islami 

(Islamic Jihad Organization[EIJ]) in Egypt; al-Jama‘a 

al-Islamiyya al-Musallaha/Groupe Islamique Armé 

(Armed Islamic Group [GIA]), the Jaysh al-Islami lial-Inqadh/Armée Islamique de Salut (AIS: Islamic 

Salvation Army), and later the Jama‘at al-Salafiyya lial-Da‘wa wa al-Qital/Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat (Salafist Group for Preaching and 

Fighting [GSPC]) in Algeria; the Jabha al-Islamiyya 

al-Tunisiyya/Front Islamique Tunisien (Tunisian Islamic Front [FIT]), purportedly the military wing of 

Rashid al-Ghannushi’s Hizb al-Nahda (Renaissance 

Party); the Lajnat al-Difa‘ ‘an al-Huquq al-Shar‘iyya 

(Committee for the Defense of Legitimate [ i.e., 

shari‘a-based] Rights [CDLR]) in Saudi Arabia; and 

the Jama‘at al-Islamiyya al-Mujahida bi al-Maghrib/

Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain (Moroccan 

Islamic Fighting Group [GICM]).55 Support networks 

were also created in Western Europe for diverse Bosnian and Chechen jihadist components, and several 

of the European mujahidin who went to fight on those 

fronts later returned home to promote and wage jihad 

after having received hands-on training and gaining 

combat experience.56
34

In the third phase, which began in the latter half 

of the 1990s and generally continued into the early 

years of the third millennium, various jihadists began arriving in Europe specifically in order to use the 

continent as a staging area for planning and carrying out terrorist attacks, either on particular “infidel” 

Western countries or on Muslim countries ruled by 

“apostates.” To put it another way, there was a shift 

in jihadist activity inside Europe from a primarily logistical to an increasingly operational role. Many of 

the individuals involved in this new wave of terrorist 

operations had previously received hands-on training at al-Qa‘ida camps in Afghanistan or at jihadist 

training camps established in Pakistan, Chechnya, or 

the Pankisi Gorge region of Georgia.57 Moreover, most 

of the plots and attacks they participated in had been 

secretly instigated or sponsored—and in some cases 

even devised—by key operational leaders of jihadist 

groups abroad, including members of al-Qa‘ida’s majlis al-shura, even though these foreign plotters generally left the actual operational details to the designated 

‘umara (plural of ‘amir, i.e., commander or prince) of 

local Europe-based cells. The most important of the 

externally sponsored attacks that were in part planned 

and launched by jihadists residing in Europe was the 

so-called “planes operation” on “blessed Tuesday” 

(i.e., September 11, 2001 [9/11]),58 but there were also 

many other such actions.59

In the fourth and final phase, which became more 

and more pronounced in the wake of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the resulting destruction of 

al-Qa‘ida’s Afghan training camp complexes, jihadists in Europe have increasingly resorted to planning 

and carrying out attacks against the very countries in 

which they themselves are resident. Indeed, it was in 
35

this most recent and still current phase that most of 

the major terrorist plots and attacks against European 

countries were launched, including the devastating 

March 11, 2004, bombings in Madrid and the July 7, 

2005, bombings in London.60 According to some analysts, during this phase there was a shift away from 

attacks inside Europe that had been sponsored and 

supported by veteran jihadist groups abroad and towards attacks that were instead planned and carried 

out by local, fully autonomous cells composed of disgruntled European Muslim citizens or residents who 

had found a new identity and circle of friends by embracing the “jihadist Salafist” ideology espoused by 

globally-oriented terrorist networks like al-Qa‘ida.61

In its most extreme formulation, such cells allegedly 

consisted of amateurish “bunches of guys” who became radicalized, often together in small groups rather than individually, but had no significant logistical 

or operational linkages to more professional terrorist 

organizations based outside of Europe. Although in 

a handful of cases this overly simplistic characterization might be true, in general the actual situation on 

the ground concerning these cells has been far more 

complex and murky than such a portrayal indicates, 

a point that will become clearer in the analysis of the 

Madrid bombings below.

This debate about the current nature of jihadist 

cells, both in Europe and elsewhere, has now assumed 

both a greater degree of salience and a somewhat nasty 

personal dimension due to the high-profile public dispute between Bruce Hoffman and Marc Sageman. In 

response to the publication of Sageman’s most recent 

book, Leaderless Jihad, which characterizes contemporary jihadist terrorism as primarily a “bottom up” 

phenomenon, i.e., one in which small local cells are 
36

formed by radicalized amateurs on their own initiative, without receiving any direction or tangible support from al-Qa‘ida central or other affiliated jihadist 

terrorist organizations, Hoffman wrote a scathing 

book review in Foreign Affairs.

62 In addition to complaining about Sageman’s arrogant dismissal of other 

terrorism scholarship as well as his displays of historical ignorance and supposedly scientific methodological pretensions, Hoffman argued that al-Qa‘ida Central was still a powerful and dangerous organization 

which not only exerted an inspirational ideological 

impact, but also still played a significant leadership 

and operational role in relation to jihadist cells operating in the West.63 Hence, while not denying that certain localized cells may have formed spontaneously 

and remained fully autonomous, he rightly emphasized that jihadist terrorism still had a significant “top 

down” dimension. Similar conclusions had also been 

reached, both by other scholars and by high-ranking 

intelligence officials.64 In his rebuttals in the subsequent issue of Foreign Affairs and elsewhere, Sageman 

insisted that he recognized that the danger posed by 

al-Qa‘ida Central was still substantial, accused Hoffman of mischaracterizing his argument and creating a 

straw man, and then proceeded to make his own personal attacks.65

To some extent this entire back-and-forth polemic has been misleading. First of all, both Sageman and Hoffman recognize that some jihadist terrorist schemes in Europe are effectively “top-down” 

plots sponsored by al-Qa‘ida or other foreign jihadist 

groups, whereas others are “bottom-up” plots initiated by local, relatively autonomous cells. Hence their 

real dispute is largely a product of different emphases 

rather than outright disagreement. As William Mc-
37

Cants of West Point’s Combatting Terrorism Center 

justly puts it, the “main difference [between them] is 

over how strong AQ Central is and what relationship 

it has to those who fight in its name.”66 Second, as noted above, many actual plots have involved a complex 

combination of top-down and bottom-up features, 

and in that sense they do not fall squarely into either 

of these two ostensibly discrete categories.67 Indeed, in 

many (if not most) instances, it might be more fruitful 

to combine these approaches in “ways which provide 

complementary insights and a deeper level of understanding” instead of articulating them in mutually 

exclusive forms that “leave little common ground between them.”68 Alas, part of the problem, conceptually 

speaking, is that the two high-profile analysts and their 

respective supporters have at times tended to confuse 

and conflate what are in fact several different types of 

interactions and interrelationships that have existed 

between local cells and foreign jihadist organizations. 

Hence the first desideratum is to distinguish clearly 

between diverse types of interactions, even though in 

the real world the situation is typically fluid, dynamic, 

and therefore messy.

Before actually turning to this question, it is necessary to provide some background information about 

the basic structure of Qa‘idat al-Jihad, the most important of the foreign jihadist organizations that are 

strongly motivated to carry out terrorist attacks on 

Western soil. Al-Qa‘ida proper is a relatively small 

organization, numerically speaking, which is divided 

into two basic levels.69 First, there are a few dozen 

members in the so-called majlis al-shura, which is internally subdivided into several functionally specialized committees, one of which is concerned explicitly 

with military affairs.70 This council effectively con-
38

stitutes the strategic directorate or officer corps of 

the group. Second, al-Qa‘ida consists of somewhere 

between several hundred and several thousand rankand-file members who take their marching orders 

directly from leading figures of the majlis al-shura or 

their subordinates.71 These members of the rank-andfile are in turn subdivided into smaller groups known 

as anqud (literally “clusters [of grapes]”), often on a 

geographic basis that has led, in practice, to clustering 

on the basis of ethnicity or nationality.72 That is essentially all there is to al-Qa‘ida as an actual organization. 

If the group’s leaders wish to organize an attack themselves, they generally either employ existing members 

of al-Qa‘ida’s rank-and-file or recruit suitable volunteers from elsewhere who have already received—or 

may be currently receiving—training from those rankand-file members in the group’s camps. Alternatively, 

they may elect to send operatives abroad to radicalize 

and recruit locals, who then go on to carry out attacks. 

Strictly speaking, if one was limiting one’s analysis to 

al-Qa‘ida Central as an organization, it would only 

be necessary to consider the actions carried out by its 

rank-and-file members or those seemingly promising 

individuals who its leaders had recruited specifically 

to carry out particular actions, wherever in the world 

they might be operating.

Unfortunately, there is much more to the Islamist 

terrorist threat than is represented by the leaders and 

rank-and-file members of al-Qa‘ida’s central organization, which is now apparently based somewhere 

in the Pakistani tribal frontier zone. The issues under 

consideration here are in fact complicated enormously 

by two developments. First, al-Qa‘ida has established 

organizational, operational, or logistical affiliations 

with a host of other Islamist terrorist organizations or 
39

factions thereof, both within and outside the Middle 

East. These affiliated groups and factions have more 

or less publicly embraced al-Qa‘ida’s transnational 

jihadist agenda, including its emphasis on attacking 

the “far enemy,” i.e., the United States and its Western allies. Some of these affiliated organizations have 

now become quasi-official local branches of al-Qa‘ida 

Central, including the Tanzim Qa‘idat al-Jihad fi Bilad 

al-Rafidayn (al-Qa‘ida Organization in Mesopotamia), 

the Tanzim Qa‘idat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Haramayn (alQa‘ida Organization in the Land of the Two Holy Places, i.e., the Arabian peninsula), and the Tanzim Qa‘idat 

al-Jihad fi al-Maghrib al-Islami (al-Qa‘ida Organization in the Islamic Maghreb), even though they often 

comprise elements from formerly independent jihadist groups (e.g., in the latter case, the GSPC, the GICM, 

and similar groups in Tunisia and Libya), whereas 

others still remain independent groups even though 

they have adopted the same global jihadist ideology. 

At the same time, these groups have not entirely abandoned their former local, national, or regional concerns 

and objectives, much less armed struggles against the 

“near enemy” in their respective areas. There is no 

doubt, for example, that self-proclaimed supporters of 

a global jihad such as factions of Jemaah Islamiyah (Islamic Association [JI]) in Indonesia, the Jaysh AdanAbyan al-Islami (Aden-Abyan Islamic Army [AAIA]) 

in Yemen, Lashkar-i Tayyiba and Jaysh-i Muhammad 

(Army of Muhammad) in Pakistan, the Juma‘a Abu 

Sayyaf (Bearer of Swords Group) in the Philippines, 

the Fath al-Islam (Conquest of Islam) group in Lebanese refugee camps, and the jihadist “combat jama‘ats” 

in the Caucasus are still interested in eventually overthrowing the “infidel” regimes in their own areas or 

countries, at times even more so than in engaging in 
40

global jihad. This should not come as a surprise, since 

despite his advocacy of a worldwide jihad, Bin Ladin 

himself had retained a particular interest in destabilizing the Saudi regime in his own homeland, the “Land 

of the Two Holy Places,” and Ayman al-Zawahiri still 

remains embroiled in Egyptian Islamist infighting despite having left Egypt and opted to merge his own 

“internationalist” faction of the Tanzim al-Jihad into 

the al-Qa‘ida organization.73

Second, as many analysts have argued, in recent 

years al-Qa‘ida has transmogrified from an actual, 

relatively delimited organization into the organizational expression of a diffuse ideological current that 

nowadays serves to inspire hundreds of thousands, if 

not millions, of people across the Muslim world.74 Although only a small segment of this radicalized population may end up having recourse to terrorism, the 

result is an ever-growing increase in the threat posed 

by alleged “self-starter” groups inspired by Bin Ladin’s ideology—which some have referred to as “Bin 

Ladinism”—but that seem at first glance to have few 

if any tangible organizational, operational, or logistical connections to al-Qa‘ida itself. For example, some 

have argued that the July 7, 2005, London bombings 

were carried out mainly by small self-starter cells 

composed of disaffected Muslim citizens or permanent residents who, inspired to respond by the exhortations of al-Qa‘ida and other jihadist spokesmen, 

endeavored to carry out devastating acts of violence 

against “infidel” Westerners at home.75 Note that Bin 

Ladin had always claimed, sometimes disingenuously 

in an effort to conceal the actual operational involvement of al-Qa‘ida, that his primary role was to function as an instigator rather than an actual organizer 

of jihadist actions.76 On the other hand, documentary 
41

materials recovered from Bin Ladin’s hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by the U.S. Navy’s Seal Team Six 

indicate that he was still involved in planning terrorist 

operations up until his death, and al-Qa‘ida Central 

has reportedly exerted an ever-increasing impact, direct and indirect, on both the ideological and operational characteristics of various Afghan and Pakistani 

jihadist groups.77

However that may be, three European terrorism 

analysts made an effort in 2007 to distinguish conceptually between three different types of jihadist terrorist 

operations in Europe. In an article in Studies in Conflict 

and Terrorism, Javier Jordán, Fernando M. Mañas, and 

Nicola Horsburgh differentiate between what they 

refer to as: 1) hit squads, members of foreign Global 

Jihad Movement (GJMV) terrorist organizations—like 

al-Qa‘ida, the GSPC, the GICM, or the Jama‘at alTawhid wa al-Jihad (Unity of God and Jihad Group) 

network established by Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi prior 

to his June 2006 death in Iraq—who enter Europe from 

abroad in order to carry out attacks; 2) local cells belonging to al-Qa‘ida or other foreign terrorist groups 

which are “autonomous at [the] tactical level” but part 

of a wider hierarchical organization at [the] strategic 

and operational levels”; and 3) grassroots jihadist networks (GJN), groups of individuals who “accept the 

strategic objectives of the Global Jihad Movement and 

attempt to contribute to these from their country of 

residence” but “do not belong formally to the hierarchical structure” of al-Qa‘ida or other GJMV groups.78

Nevertheless, there are arguably problems with this 

clear-cut categorization scheme inasmuch as some of 

these so-called “grassroots networks” have included 

individuals who were actually members of foreign 

GJMV groups and might have still been acting at the 
42

behest of those groups even if they were no longer 

in regular contact with or taking direct orders from 

them. Under these circumstances, it may be misleading to draw such a sharp separation between supposedly “grassroots networks” and bona fide “local cells” 

established in Western countries by foreign organizations. Very often, in fact, it remains unclear exactly 

where particular cells fall along this porous and sometimes shifting boundary between Jordán et al.’s second 

and third categories.

Indeed, in order to capture the full complexity of 

the situation on the ground, it is arguably necessary to 

make further refinements to the tripartite scheme delineated above. In that spirit, I propose the following 

categorization system, which expands considerably 

upon the aforementioned scheme.

1. Jihadist “hit teams” sent from abroad.

• jihadist “hit teams” sent to Europe from 

elsewhere by al-Qa‘ida Central, usually after 

having been provided with specialized instruction in training camps abroad (perhaps 

including bomb-making skills), in order 

to launch terrorist operations and attacks 

themselves;

• jihadist “hit teams” sent to Europe from elsewhere by al-Qa‘ida’s nominal or de facto regional affiliates, perhaps after obtaining specialized training in their respective countries, 

in order to carry out terrorist operations and 

attacks themselves;

• jihadist “hit teams” sent to Europe from 

elsewhere by other veteran jihadist organizations, perhaps after obtaining specialized 

training in their respective countries, in order to carry out terrorist operations and attacks themselves.
43

2. “Local” jihadist cells organized, supported, and/or 

directed from abroad.

• “local” jihadist cells recruited and trained by 

al-Qa‘ida operatives implanted in Europe for 

that very purpose, and thereafter receiving 

periodic assistance of various types from alQa‘ida Central or its regional affiliates;

• “local” jihadist cells recruited and trained 

by operatives sent by other veteran jihadist groups who were implanted in Europe, 

sometimes for that very purpose, and thereafter receiving periodic assistance of various 

types from their parent organizations.

3. Connected “self-generating” European jihadist cells.

• “self-generating” European jihadist cells that 

are in direct contact with operatives from alQa‘ida Central;

• “self-generating” European jihadist cells that 

are in direct contact with operatives from alQa‘ida’s regional affiliates;

• “self-generating” European jihadist cells that 

are in direct contact with operatives from 

other veteran jihadist groups;

• “self-generating” European jihadist cells that 

are connected indirectly, via intermediaries, 

to operatives from al-Qa‘ida Central, its regional affiliates, or other veteran jihadist 

groups;

• “self-generating” European jihadist cells that 

are in direct contact with operatives from 

other European “self-generating” cells;

• “self-generating” European jihadist cells that 

are connected indirectly, via intermediaries, 

to operatives from other European “self-generating” cells;
44

• “self-generating” European jihadist cells that 

include individuals who are members of alQa‘ida or other foreign terrorist networks.

4. Isolated or fully autonomous “self-generating” European jihadist cells that are not connected in any way to 

members of any other jihadist groups or cells.

This particular system, though perhaps overly 

elaborate, does permit subtler and more important 

distinctions to be made than the simpler tripartite 

scheme proposed by Jordán et al.

Nevertheless, a few additional points need to be 

highlighted. First, one of the problems surrounding 

the current debate about the nature of jihadist cells 

in Europe is that arguments are often framed in such 

a way as to suggest that those cells are either linked 

to and receiving direction from al-Qa‘ida Central itself or, alternatively, that they are fully autonomous. 

However, neither of these contrasting interpretations, 

which lie on opposite poles of a much broader spectrum of possible types and levels of interconnectivity 

or interaction, are necessarily—or even typically—accurate with respect to the situation of really existing 

European cells. It is crucially important to determine, 

for example, whether such cells are connected to alQa‘ida Central or instead, say, to other foreign jihadist groups. Second, the categorization system outlined 

above is somewhat artificial inasmuch as not all of the 

enumerated categories are necessarily discrete, much 

less mutually exclusive. For example, some European 

cells could conceivably be connected to al-Qa‘ida Central, to its regional affiliates, to other veteran jihadist 

organizations, and/or to other self-generating cells in 

Europe—factual questions that can only be answered 

by carrying out in-depth qualitative research. Indeed, 
45

it is undeniable that many local jihadist cells in Europe, 

whether their members were originally recruited by 

foreign operatives or whether they were initially selfgenerating, have in fact been connected, directly or 

indirectly, to terrorist groups based elsewhere. Conversely, it has rarely been the case that allegedly isolated self-generating jihadist cells made up entirely of 

amateurish “bunches of guys,” a phenomenon whose 

importance has surely been exaggerated by Sageman 

and his acolytes, have successfully carried out terrorist attacks in the West, including attacks with IEDs.

Hence the key issue is not so much to assess 

whether members of these European cells have been 

connected in various ways to other jihadist “brothers,” which has normally been the case thus far, but 

rather to identify exactly who they were connected 

to and, perhaps even more importantly, to determine 

precisely how they were connected to them. This is a 

task that is often not easy to carry out given the lack 

of detailed information that is presently in the public domain about particular jihadist plots.79 In such a 

complex and potentially confusing context it may thus 

be useful, before examining two IED case studies, to 

make some general observations about the Social Network Analysis (SNA) of terrorist organizations and 

networks, a technique that has recently become very 

faddish.

A social network can be defined as a social structure, however diffuse it may be, that is made up of 

nodes that are tied to each other by one or more specific types of interdependency.80 Broadly speaking, SNA 

involves the “mapping and measuring of relationships and flows between people, groups, [and] organizations.”81 In essence, this mapping and measuring 

is based on the tracking of nodes and links (or ties) in 
46

networks via visual and mathematical analysis. The 

key to this process is first determining the “location of 

actors in the network” and thence, by using various 

measuring techniques, assessing the “centrality” of 

the various nodes. There are, however, three different 

centrality measures: 1) degree centrality, or the number 

of direct connections each node has; 2) between-ness 

centrality, or whether nodes are positioned so that 

they can play “broker” roles vis-à-vis other nodes and 

networks; and 3) closeness centrality, or which nodes 

have the shortest paths to other nodes. On the basis of 

previous SNA analyses, it is now generally believed 

that shorter network paths are most important, since 

beyond a certain spatial distance particular nodes can 

no longer influence each other; that so-called “boundary spanners” on the between-ness centrality scale 

are more important to the overall network due to the 

bridging roles they can play; and that apparently peripheral nodes that are connected to other, as yet little 

known networks, may also be of great importance. In 

any case, according to the proponents of SNA, this approach can yield a great deal of information about the 

overall network structure by providing more “insight 

into the various roles and groupings in a network—

who are the connectors, mavens, leaders, bridges, 

[and] isolates, where are the clusters and who is in 

them, who is in the core of the network, and who is 

on the periphery?”82 Who could disagree, at least in 

theory?

Alas, just as the proponents of numerous other 

fashionable and not-so-fashionable theories and methodologies have flooded the terrorism field in the wake 

of 9/11, both in order to appear more relevant and to 

obtain access to enlarged counterterrorism funding 
47

streams, so too have the practitioners of SNA. As a 

result, there is an ever-growing stream of studies of 

diverse terrorist networks based on the application of 

SNA.83 Given this mad rush to be on the supposed cutting edge of methodological trends, however, some 

cautionary notes need to be sounded.

First, no methodological technique, no matter how 

useful, can substitute for subject matter expertise developed over the course of years of study. One of the 

things that never ceases to amaze serious scholars 

who have spent years or even decades doing in-depth 

qualitative research on extremist and terrorist groups 

is the abysmal ignorance of those subjects displayed 

by so many self-styled social science “experts,” who 

tend to be fixated on promoting their pet models and 

theories or who view certain favored methodologies 

as some sort of “magic bullet” that can allegedly explain and thereby help to resolve every social problem, 

not to mention predict future human behavior. These 

presumptions and claims are largely illusory. Despite 

the immense progress we have made in understanding the material world by applying (natural) scientific 

methodologies, the complex drivers of human behavior still remain opaque and even, in many fundamental respects, mysterious.84 Here we are dealing with a 

fundamental methodological divide within the “social 

sciences” or, to be more precise, between the “social 

sciences” and the “humanities.” The primary division 

is between the “social scientists,” those who believe 

that human behavior can best be investigated using 

the same techniques and methods that are employed 

in the natural or physical sciences, above all quantitative methods, and the “humanities scholars,” those 

who believe that these natural science methods are often inherently unsuited to studying and understand-
48

ing far more intangible but vitally important aspects 

of human behavior. These are complex philosophical 

and methodological issues that cannot be elaborated 

upon further in this context, but it is important to emphasize that not every scholar or terrorism researcher 

agrees that the best way to understand social phenomena and human behavior is to adopt the current social science emphasis on theory-and model-building, 

hypothesis testing, and quantification. Indeed, the 

two contrasting groups identified above even employ 

terms like “empirical” in radically different ways.

Second, the single-minded emphasis on determining the location and centrality of nodes and links in 

a given network can be very misleading, since many 

nodes and links that appear to be “central” from a spatial perspective may in fact play a minor functional 

role in the network. For example, some nodes that initially appear to be important network “hubs” may not 

turn out to be important at all. Suppose one was doing 

a “traffic analysis” of communications between purported members of a terrorist group, and one individual appeared to be making and receiving an unusual 

number of calls every Wednesday night. Without actually monitoring the contents of those phone conversations, there would be no way of knowing whether 

that individual was performing a vital function such 

as providing operational instructions to cell members, 

or whether he was the designated “food man” who 

was entrusted with calling several “brothers” to find 

out what they wanted to eat that evening before contacting a restaurant and placing their orders. Indeed, 

it is not so much the location of such network nodes 

but rather the functions that they actually perform for the 

network that are of decisive importance. In the context of terrorist networks, then, one should not con-
49

fuse apparent network “centrality” with operational 

significance.

Third, the only way to collect and evaluate the massive quantities of factual information that are needed 

to be able to accurately map a social network is to carry out in-depth qualitative research by systematically 

consulting a wide array of available primary sources. 

Based on the principle of “garbage in, garbage out,” 

any SNA mapping or measuring that is based upon 

seriously incomplete, inaccurate, or otherwise flawed 

sources of information is virtually guaranteed to be 

more misleading than illuminating, and thus potentially more harmful than beneficial to those acting on 

that information. In that sense, the cavalier display of 

complex diagrams with dozens of crisscrossing lines 

that purportedly indicate that certain people are linked 

in some way to others, absent any attempt to clarify 

the precise nature of those visually depicted links, is 

all too often confusing rather than enlightening. The 

hip bone may indeed be connected to the thigh bone, 

but what function does it actually perform within the 

skeletal system?

THE 3/11 MADRID TRAIN BOMBINGS

On the morning of March 11, 2004 (3/11), several 

members of a jihadist cell entered various train cars 

passing through the so-called “corridor of Henares,” 

i.e., a portion of the Red Nacional de Ferrocarriles 

Españoles (National Network of Spanish Railways 

[RENFE]) commuter train system in Madrid situated 

between the stations of Atocha-Madrid and Alcalá de 

Henares, where—before exiting from the trains—they 

deposited backpacks or sports bags filled with a gelatinous nitroglycol-based Spanish-made high explosive 
50

known as Goma-2 ECO, nails and screws to produce 

shrapnel, and industrial electric detonators connected 

by wires to cell phones. Between 7:37 and 7:40 a.m., 

someone then detonated 10 of the 13 devices they had 

left on the trains by means of cell phone signals, killing 191 people and injuring another 1,824, many of 

them very seriously.

The grim details are as follows.85 Four bombs were 

placed on Train 21431, which had stopped to let passengers in and out at the Atocha station: The first 

exploded on car six at 7:37, the second on car five at 

7:38, and the third on car four only 4 seconds later. 

The bomb in car one fortunately failed to explode and 

was found later; a squad from the Unidad de Técnicos 

en Desactivación de Explosivas (Technicians’ Unit for 

Deactivating Explosives [TEDAX]), the bomb disposal 

specialists from the Cuerpo Nacional de Policía (National Police Corps [CNP]) and the Guardia Civil (Civil Guard [GC]) paramilitary police, then attempted to 

deactivate it, but it was instead destroyed in a controlled explosion at 9:59 a.m. Four bombs were also 

placed on Train 21435, which was just leaving the El 

Pozo del Tío Raimundo station. Two exploded on the 

upper levels of cars four and five at 7:38, but two others 

that had been deposited in the lower levels of cars two 

and three were later found intact. One was detonated 

on the station platform some time after 9 a.m. that 

same day in a controlled fashion by TEDAX, whereas 

the other was inadvertently brought to the police station in the Puente de Vallecas district, where it was 

discovered the following day and then dismantled in 

Azorín de Vallecas Park. Meanwhile, one bomb was 

placed in car four of Train 21713, which was stopped 

at the Santa Eugenia station, where it too exploded at 

7:38. Finally, four bombs were placed on Train 17305, 
51

which was then 800 meters from the Atocha station 

parallel to the Calle Téllez rail line. These bombs (like 

those on Train 21431) had also been placed in cars one, 

four, five, and six, and all four exploded at 7:39.

Fortunately, the members of the terrorist cell had 

made numerous errors in tradecraft that enabled the 

Spanish police to track them down quickly. For example, three of the bombers had entered the train station 

at Alcalá de Henares after parking a white Renault 

Kangoo van in a parking lot on Calle Infantado de 

Alcalá. An alert doorman named Luis Garrudo who 

had spotted them called the police after learning of the 

bombings, and following a cautious but brief on-site 

investigation the responding officers from Madrid’s 

Brigada Provincial de Información (Provincial Intelligence Brigade [BPI], i.e., anti-terrorism specialists) 

and the Policía Científica (Forensic Police, i.e., technical specialists) from the Alcalá de Henares police station impounded the van. After a decision was made 

to transport it to the police station in the Canillas district at 3:30 p.m., the forensic police discovered crucial 

clues inside the abandoned vehicle, which was owned 

by José Garzón Gómez but had been stolen in front of 

his house on Calle Aranjuez on the evening of February 27-28. Among other items, they found seven unused detonators manufactured by the Union Esplosivos Ensign Bickford in a blue plastic trash bag under 

the passenger seat (similar to those found in the unexploded bombs and various sites linked to the bombers86), DNA evidence linking several cell members to 

the vehicle, and a cassette tape with Arabic-language 

inscriptions in the glove compartment containing recordings of passages from sura 3 (al-‘Imran: The Family of Amran) of the Qur’an that justified the killing of 

“infidels.”87
52

However, the bomb found intact in a blue sports 

bag that had been dismantled in Azorín Park was the 

single most important of the clues left behind by the 

perpetrators, since it provided the police with vital 

forensic details concerning the bombs. That particular device consisted of just over 10 kilograms (kg) of a 

white, jelly-like explosive (Goma-2 ECO), 640 screws 

and nails, one detonator marked “made in Spain,” 

copper wires connected to a Mitsubishi Trium T-110 

mobile phone, and an MA-0501 cell phone charger.88

Perhaps more importantly, the Amena SIM card in the 

mobile phone was soon traced to a batch of 30 sold on 

February 25, 2008, by Sindhu Enterprise to Jawal Mundo Telecom, located at the Siglo Nuevo shop at Calle 

Tribulete 17 in the Lavapiés neighborhood, which was 

owned by the Moroccan Jamal Zugham, one of the key 

terrorist cell members. It was then determined that 17 

of these 30 SIM cards were later activated: 14 of them 

were used by members of the cell or their associates 

to make calls, whereas seven were thereafter inserted 

into 7 Trium T-110 mobile phones, 10 of which had 

been purchased in early March from the Bazar Top 

store in Avenida Real de Pinto 42.89 Those seven SIM 

cards were turned on the night before the bombings in 

a small makeshift house in Chinchón on the outskirts 

of Madrid—where the explosive devices had actually 

been fabricated—and then utilized on March 11 to receive signals to detonate the bombs.90 By tracing the 

seller, buyer, and users of this batch of SIM cards and 

the phones they were placed in, the police were soon 

able to attribute the bombings definitively to Islamists, 

abandon the unlikely Euskadi ta Askatasuna (Basque 

Fatherland and Freedom [ETA]) trail that was then 

being publicly promoted by the conservative Partido 

Popular (People’s Party [PP]) government, and rapidly identify several of the actual terrorists.
53

The Islamist provenance of the bombings was 

soon after “officially” confirmed, when at 7:38 p.m. on 

March 13, a call was made by a man speaking Spanish with an Arabic accent to the Telemadrid TV channel, which informed them that a video cassette tape 

had been deposited in a trash container near the M-30 

mosque, one of the largest Islamic mosques in Europe 

(and, not coincidentally, the locale where Imad alDin Barakat Yarkas and his associates had previously 

recruited several worshippers into the al-Qa‘ida network in Spain, together with several other individuals 

who were thence sent to wage jihad on various foreign 

fronts). When the Panasonic mini-video tape was retrieved from the trash container, wrapped in a blue 

silk glove and marked “very important” by hand, it 

turned out to be a video claiming responsibility for 

the 3/11 attacks.91 On the video was a man dressed in 

white with his face covered, wearing a hat, and carrying a machine pistol, standing in front of a green 

banner with an Arabic inscription of the shahada (the 

profession of Muslim faith, viz., “There is no God but 

Allah, and Muhammad is His Prophet”), who identified himself as Abu Dujan[a] al-Afghani, the spokesman for the military wing of Ansar al-Qa‘ida fi Urubba 

(The Partisans of al-Qa‘ida in Europe).92 The individual 

reading this message was later identified as a Moroccan born in Tetuan named Rashid Awlad, who then 

read out a message in classical Arabic claiming that 

the bombings were carried out in response to Spain’s 

participation in the war being waged against Islam 

by “international terrorist organizations” headed by 

U.S. President George W. Bush and his followers, 

and warned that more bloody attacks were to come 

unless Spain ceased its “killings” of and “injustices” 

against Muslims. He reiterated the standard jihadist 
54

rhetoric to the effect that the mujahidin would keep 

fighting until they achieved victory or martyrdom 

because they loved death more than the nonbelievers 

loved life, and concluded by reading a verse from the 

Qur’an.

93 This video was followed up by two more jihadist claims of responsibility, one from the Kata’ib 

Abu Hafs al-Masri (Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades) that 

was faxed to al-Hayat and emailed to al-Quds al-‘Arabi, 

two London-based Arab newspapers, on March 15, 

and another that was faxed on April 3 at 6:05 p.m. 

to the Spanish newsweekly ABC and signed by Abu 

Dujan al-Afghani on behalf of the so-called Death Brigade (Brigada de la Muerte, probably Katiba al-Qatl in 

Arabic) of Ansar al-Qa‘ida in Europe, which reiterated 

his previous threats.94

In any case, it turned out that Zugham himself was 

already well known to investigators from both the 

Unidad Central de Información Exterior (Central Unit 

for Foreign Intelligence [UCIE]) and the Centro Superior de Información de la Defensa (Higher Center for 

Defense Intelligence [CESID]), two security services 

that had been closely monitoring Islamist activists in 

Spain since 1995.95 Not only was he a member of Imad 

al-Din Barakat Yarkas’ al-Qa‘ida network in Spain, 

one of the largest and most important in Europe, he 

was also a personal friend and confidant of Barakat 

Yarkas (better known as Abu Dahdah). Indeed, in response to a request from French anti-terrorist magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguière in the summer of 2001, the 

police had surreptitiously entered Zugham’s flat and 

found important material related to jihadist activities. 

Later on, his name surfaced in connection with the 

investigation of the May 16, 2003, bombings in Casablanca, five suicide attacks carried out by jihadists 

linked to the GICM. Moreover, both real and would-
55

be jihadists had used his Siglo Nuevo store on a regular basis to make calls home to Morocco or to other 

countries, and he had long been intimately associated 

with a close-knit network of jihadist sympathizers in 

Lavapiés. Once his name surfaced in connection with 

the SIM card purchases, Zugham and two employees 

in his shop were quickly arrested in the late afternoon 

on March 13, only 2 days after the attacks.96

On March 16, another key trail was uncovered.97

After tracing more of the calls made from the mobile 

phones with the SIM cards and their locations at the 

time, agents from the Unidad Central de Apoyo Operativo (Central Operational Support Unit [UCAO]) 

who were working at the behest of the UCIE determined that a March 4 call had been made by a cell 

member from a phone booth in Avilés to the home of 

Carmen María Toro Castro, the wife of a 27-year-old 

former miner named José Emilio Suárez Trashorras. 

Suárez Trashorras was a petty criminal who, after 

having been arrested for possession of drugs, Goma-2 

explosives, and 94 detonators in “Operación Pipol,” 

had been recruited in July 2001 as a confidential informant by Manuel García Rodríguez (nicknamed 

Manolón), a police officer who had previously worked 

for an anti-terrorist unit but had then become head of 

the Brigada de Estupefacientes (Illicit Drug Squad) 

in the Avilés police station. Over the years Suárez 

Trashorras had then provided certain inside information that had led to the arrest of other petty criminals 

for drug trafficking. Indeed, right after the 3/11 attacks, Suárez Trashorras told Manolón that it had 

been the “Moors,” not ETA, who were responsible. 

This was confirmed after a March 17 phone conversation between Rafa Zuhayr, a Moroccan petty criminal 

and confidential informant of the GC, and a member 
56

of the GC’s Unidad Central Operativa (Central Operational Unit [UCO]) named Víctor—a conversation 

monitored by the Madrid anti-drug police—revealed 

vital details about a key individual involved in the 

3/11 attacks, Jamal Ahmidan (nicknamed “El Chino,” 

i.e., “the Chinaman”).98 This small lead eventually enabled the police to reconstruct the activities of a group 

of radicalized Moroccan criminals who obtained the 

explosive materials and detonators from some Spanish counterparts in Asturias in exchange for drugs and 

then arranged for them to be transported to the house 

in Chinchón, where the members of the operational 

cell used them to fabricate the bombs. 

On March 22, officers from the UCAO finally located that small house in Chinchón, which was situated not far from Alcalá de Henares, at kilometer 14 

on Road 313, which links Morata de Tajuña and Titulcia.99 After keeping it under surveillance for 3 days, 

the police broke down the door and entered the domicile on March 25, where they found residues of nitroglycol and ammonium nitrate, two components of 

dynamite; materials from detonators; 105 cartridges; 

DNA traces from several cell members; and other important forensic evidence.100 It turned out that Ahmidan had rented the ramshackle property on January 

18 under the false name of Yusuf ibn Salah, and that 

it had subsequently been used to hold meetings, store 

explosives and detonators, and construct the actual 

bombs.101 By then, the police had correctly identified 

key figures in the two main components of the 3/11 

cell, Ahmidan and Zugham, and it was only a matter 

of locating and arresting Ahmidan and the other remaining members of the group before they succeeded 

in carrying out further bloody attacks. This became all 

the more imperative on April 2, when a bomb similar 
57

to those used in the 3/11 train car attacks was found 

alongside the tracks of the Alta Velocidad Española 

(AVE: Spanish High Speed) train line between Madrid 

and Seville, in the Mocejón zone near Toledo. Apparently, the device had been placed there between 7:20 

and 10 a.m. that morning, and contained 12 kilograms 

of Goma-2 ECO and an electric detonator attached to a 

long-distance 136 meter cable, but no attached battery 

or cell that could be used to ignite the detonator.102

Meanwhile, after following several more leads 

and arresting a few other cell members, on April 3 the 

UCAO tracked several of the key remaining plotters 

to a first floor apartment at Calle de Martín Gaite 40 

in the Leganés district in southern Madrid. By tracing and monitoring certain mobile phones in which 

the SIM cards of interest had been inserted, including 

that of Rashid Awlad, they learned that this particular 

apartment had been rented on March 8 by a Moroccan 

GICM leader named Yusuf ibn al-Hajj. At around 4 

p.m., a couple of dozen policemen converged on the 

apartment building, and one of them then rang the 

bell of the targeted apartment on a bogus pretext in order to determine whether persons with Arab accents 

were residing there.103 This brief interchange on the 

intercom raised the suspicions of the occupants, who 

sent a trained sprinter named ‘Abd al-Majid Abu Shar 

downstairs to check out the situation. When Abu Shar 

saw the police, he immediately ran off at full speed 

but apparently also managed to alert his colleagues 

upstairs, one of whom suddenly appeared on the 

porch of the apartment and fired machine gun bursts 

at a group of policemen below. As a result, between 

5:30 and 6:30 p.m. heavily-armed anti-terrorist police from the Grupo Especial de Operaciones (Special 

Operations Group [GEO]) arrived on the scene and, 
58

together with dozens of other policemen and intelligence officers, established a security cordon around 

the building as well as a field hospital and listening 

posts. From inside the apartment, voices and chanting 

in Arabic could be heard, which fueled concerns that 

the occupants might suddenly charge out of the apartment with explosive vests on and blow themselves 

up. Efforts by the GEO to initiate negotiations commenced around 8 p.m., but in response the terrorists 

simply threatened to blow up the building. At 8:30, 

several GEO men ascended the stairs, blew open the 

door, and fired smoke canisters into the apartment, 

but the inhabitants still refused to come out. Instead, 

they made several phone calls to loved ones or other 

“brothers.” Finally, at 9:03 p.m. the terrorists sat down 

in a circle together and detonated a huge explosion, 

destroying a substantial part of the building, “martyring” themselves, and killing a GEO officer named 

Francisco Javier Torronteras. In the ruins of the apartment, the Forensic Police found much vitally important evidence, including the body parts of seven cell 

members, 236 detonators, 30 kilograms of Goma-2 

ECO, four machine pistols, jihadist written and audio 

materials, plans prepared for the carrying out of future terrorist attacks, and a videotape of three of the 

cell members transmitting a belligerent message to the 

Spaniards about their motivations and future plans.104

This siege was the most dramatic event that occurred during the actual search for the terrorist 

bombers. After the death of most of the material perpetrators at Leganés, the police followed additional 

evidentiary trails, examined residences in various locales which the cell members had rented, and arrested 

several other individuals who were implicated in the 

plot, including the remaining Spanish petty criminals 
59

in Asturias who had provided the explosive materials and detonators to the jihadists. Meanwhile, the 

lengthy judicial investigations and proceedings began 

which eventually culminated in the controversial verdict that was issued in 2007.

Links Between 3/11 Cell Members and Other 

Jihadist Organizations.

Many knowledgeable observers of the jihadist milieu, above all within Europe, were astounded when 

Judge Javier Gómez Bermúdez issued the court’s final verdict concerning the Madrid train bombings on 

October 31, 2007. For one thing, many of the defendants got off with very light sentences, to the chagrin 

of members of the 11-M Asociación Afectados de 

Terrorismo (Association of Persons Affected by 3/11 

Terrorism) and most other victims’ associations.105 For 

another, the court severely punished various “small 

fry,” including some of the petty criminals who had 

procured the explosives and detonators, but ended 

up dropping the most serious charges against certain 

“bigger fish” in the jihadist milieu who were arguably 

far more responsible for instigating, encouraging, and 

perhaps even helping to plan the operation.106 As noted above, most of the actual bomb placers blew themselves up when the police surrounded their apartment 

in Leganés, which prevented them from being arrested 

and prosecuted for their crimes. Hence it was incumbent upon the court to uncover and prosecute some of 

the instigators and planners behind the attacks, a task 

they arguably failed to perform adequately, especially 

given the damning information gathered in the course 

of the investigation that was reflected in the initial indictment and thence informed the public prosecutor’s 
60

written statement. Even granting that various peculiarities of the Spanish judicial system may have made 

it difficult to prosecute those who were not material 

perpetrators or more advisable not to do so in order to 

forestall endless appeals, it is difficult to understand 

why the attacks were characterized as being “without intellectual authors” or why the serious charges 

against key al-Qa‘ida- or GICM-linked figures such as 

Rabi‘ ‘Uthman al-Sayyid Ahmad (alias “Muhammad 

al-Masri [the Egyptian]”) and ‘Amir al-‘Azizi ended 

up being dropped altogether or reduced to lesser 

charges. 

Long before the final verdict was issued, there had 

been an ongoing debate among terrorism analysts concerning the extent to which the 3/11 terrorist cell was 

autonomous or, alternatively, whether it was linked 

to and operating at the behest of foreign terrorist organizations. Perhaps not surprisingly, attitudes on 

this issue were generally influenced by whether those 

analysts already viewed al-Qa‘ida primarily as an organization, however networked, horizontal, diffuse, 

and “franchised” it might have been, and those who 

viewed it essentially as the high-profile vanguard and 

self-proclaimed mouthpiece of a much broader “social 

movement.” Those in the former camp were more apt 

to view the Madrid bombings as an action sponsored 

or at least supported in some way by al-Qa‘ida and/

or its affiliates, whereas those in the latter camp were 

prone to view the 3/11 cell as a self-generating and 

rather amateurish group of friends and kinsmen who, 

though inspired by al-Qa‘ida’s global jihadist ideology, undertook violent actions on their own initiative 

without any meaningful assistance from al-Qa‘ida 

itself or from other professional terrorist organizations.107 Similarly, the former generally viewed the Oc-
61

tober 2007 3/11 trial verdict as severely problematic, if 

not as a miscarriage of justice, whereas the latter tended to see it as a belated legal confirmation of their own 

prior perspective.108 Unfortunately, a good deal of this 

debate has missed the point inasmuch as it has grossly 

oversimplified, if not inadvertently mischaracterized, 

the diverse and complex nature of the links that have 

often existed in the past—and are perhaps also likely 

to exist in the future—between al-Qa‘ida and local jihadist cells. Before offering further thoughts on this 

matter, however, it is necessary to survey the historical development and identify the functional components of the 3/11 cell.

According to the public prosecutor, high-ranking 

policemen, attorneys representing the relatives of 

the victims, and certain independent journalistic or 

academic investigators, the cell responsible for the 

Madrid bombings had two main components.109 The 

first was the operational group that actually carried 

out the bomb attacks, which was composed of Sirhan 

ibn ‘Abd al-Majid Fakhit (nicknamed “the Tunisian”), 

Zugham, Jamal Ahmidan, Rashid Awlad, his brother 

Muhammad Awlad, ‘Abd al-Nabi‘ Kunja‘a, Anwar 

Asrih Rifa‘at, and ‘Ali Kamal al-Amari, as well as their 

direct helpers, such as Da‘ud Awnani, Abu Shar, and 

Muhammad al-Falah.110 The second was the logistical 

support group that procured the explosives and detonators used in the attacks as well as providing other 

necessary resources and services, such as financing 

(derived largely from illicit activities like theft, fraud, 

and drug trafficking), false documents, stolen cars, safe 

houses, etc. This group consisted of actual jihadist cell 

members like Jamal Ahmidan, ‘Uthman al-Ghanawi, 

Rashid Akhlif, and ‘Abd al-Ilah al-Fadl al-Akil, as well 

as other petty criminals who worked with them but 
62

were seemingly unaware of the scope and/or details 

of the planned attacks, such as Hamid Ahmidan, Nasr 

al-Din Abu Sabah, Mahmud Sulayman A‘un, and Rafa 

Zuhayr.111 Note that Jamal Ahmidan participated in 

both of these types of activities, and was thus a key 

liaison man between the operational and logistical 

support groups, whereas Zuhayr was the individual 

who brought Jamal into contact with the Spanish petty criminals in Asturias who provided the cell with 

Goma-2 ECO and industrial detonators that they had 

pilfered from a mine. Having identified the principal 

culprits, the next desideratum is to discuss the backgrounds of some of these individuals in order to demonstrate that the 3/11 terrorist cell does not conform 

to the widely disseminated notion, peddled by Atran 

and Sageman, that it was a “self-generating” group of 

amateurs without significant connections to al-Qa‘ida 

or other jihadist organizations.

Beginning with the operational group members, 

the first point that needs to be emphasized is that 

the two key personnel in that group—Fakhit and 

Zugham—were previously members of Abu Dahdah’s al-Qa‘ida network in Spain.112 So, too, were 

eight other individuals who were allegedly involved 

in the 3/11 plot. These included a purported mastermind of the attack, the Moroccan Sa‘id ibn al-Arraj; 

two men who are believed to have helped inspire 

or instigate it, the Moroccans ‘Amir al-‘Azizi (alias 

‘Uthman al-Andalusi) and Mustafa al-Maymuni; two 

others who participated in meetings along with cell 

members where jihad was glorified and/or where 

preliminary attack plans were hatched, the Moroccans 

Sa‘id al-Shadadi and Idris al-Shabli; and three who 

performed certain minor tasks in relation to the renting of the house in Chinchón, the Syrians Muhammad 
63

Nidal, Walid al-Taraki al-Masri (despite his appellation “the Egyptian”), and Muhammad Badr al-Din 

al-Akkad.113 Al-Maymuni and al-‘Azizi were likewise 

important figures, respectively, in the Moroccan jihadist groups al-Salafiyya al-Jihadiyya (Jihadist Salafism) 

and the GICM, whose ‘amir Nur al-Din Nafi‘yya had 

sworn a personal oath of loyalty (bay‘a) to Bin Ladin 

in 1999 and thereafter formed a pact with al-Qa‘ida.114

Even this cursory summary should serve to cast some 

doubt on the confident assertions by Atran and Sageman concerning the supposed “self-generating” nature and organizational autonomy of the 3/11 attackers, but as soon as one becomes more familiar with 

the extensive activities and contacts of Abu Dahdah’s 

earlier network and examines the background of some 

of these individuals in more detail, such a portrayal 

appears even more untenable.

As mentioned above, the al-Qa‘ida network in 

Spain was among the most important components 

of the infrastructure that Bin Ladin’s lieutenants had 

implanted in the European continent.115 This network 

first began to coalesce in the early- to mid-1990s under the leadership of a Palestinian militant named 

Anwar Adnan Muhammad Salih (alias Shaykh Salih) 

and two former members of the Syrian branch of the 

Muslim Brotherhood, Abu Dahdah and—in the initial 

stages—Abu Mus‘ab al-Suri.116 In 1994 Abu Dahdah 

and Shaykh Salih began actively peddling the radical global jihadist ideas of ‘Umar Mahmud ‘Uthman 

(alias Abu Qatada)—who is generally regarded as 

al-Qa‘ida’s “spiritual leader” in Europe—at the Abu 

Bakr mosque, located in Madrid’s Tetuan neighborhood at Calle Anastasio Herrero 7, in order to spot 

and vet suitable worshippers there for induction into 

a radical grouping known as the Alianza Islámica (Is-
64

lamic Alliance, probably al-Hilf al-Islami in Arabic). 

The youngest and most radical members of that group 

were thence recruited into an even more militant, secretive, and activist group known as the Soldados de 

Alá (Soldiers of Allah, Jund Allah in Arabic), which 

thereafter became the core of al-Qa‘ida’s network in 

Spain. Several members of the Soldados, along with 

other likely candidates, were then recruited and sent 

to fight on various jihadist fronts abroad, in particular 

Bosnia and Chechnya.

This situation persisted until October 1995 when, 

at the orders of al-Qa‘ida’s Saudi logistics chief Zayn 

al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn (alias Abu Zubayda), 

Shaykh Salih departed for Peshawar to manage the 

local office of Bin Ladin’s Maktab al-Khidamat li alMujahidin (MAK: Services Bureau for the Mujahidin), 

leaving Abu Dahdah in charge of the Spanish network. 

The latter continued his work of recruiting mujahidin

and, with the help of Shaykh Salih and Abu Zubayda, 

arranging for their logistical needs, e.g., the provision 

of documents, transportation to camps in Afghanistan for training, sustenance, equipping with weapons, and eventual transit to jihadist battlefields where 

Muslims were in open conflict with non-Muslims.117

However, a schism developed within the Soldados 

when a puritanical fanatic named ‘Abd Allah Khayat 

Kattan (alias Abu Ibrahim) joined the group, which 

was then engaged in proselytizing at the Centro Islámico de Madrid inside the huge M-30 mosque, and 

decided to challenge the leadership of Abu Dahdah. 

The bitter infighting between the two factions within 

the organization abruptly ended in 1997 when Abu 

Ibrahim left Spain and went to Jordan, thereby leaving Abu Dahdah as its sole leader.
65

Apart from being actively engaged for years in 

indoctrinating and radicalizing alienated Muslims in 

Spain, recruiting and training suitable candidates to 

go abroad and wage jihad on various fronts, and providing medical care and refuge for returning jihadist 

veterans, another noteworthy feature of the Abu Dahdah network was that its key personnel maintained 

extensive ongoing interactions with “fraternal” alQa‘ida branches and affiliated jihadist networks, both 

in other European countries and abroad.118 Indeed, it 

was largely because of this elaborate spider web of personal and organizational connections which they had 

nurtured that Abu Dahdah and his lieutenants were 

able to perform their vital recruitment and logistical 

services for the global jihadist cause. Among the numerous groups that Alianza Islámica personnel regularly interacted with were al-Qa‘ida branches in Britain 

(through Abu Qatada, Abu Mus‘ab al-Suri, and Khalid 

al-Fawaz of the CDLR), Germany (through Ma’mun 

Darkazanli and Muhammad Haydar Zammar, two 

Syrian Muslim Brotherhood members, and the Moroccan Sa‘id bin al-Hajji, all three of whom were linked to 

the 9/11 plotters), and Italy (through Muhammad the 

Egyptian), as well as groups such as the Algerian Jabha al-Islamiyya li al-Inqadh/Front Islamique du Salut 

(Islamic Salvation Front [FIS]) and GIA; the Jama‘a alMuqatila al-Tunisiyya/Groupe Combattant Tunisien 

(Tunisian Fighting Group [GCT]), the military wing 

of the FIT (through Tariq Ma‘arufi in Belgium); the 

Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam (Partisans of 

Islam) through Shaykh Mahar; jihadist organizations 

in the Balkans and Chechnya; and many others.

Of most interest to American readers, of course, is 

the fact that individuals connected to the Abu Dahdah network were apparently aware of and may have 
66

helped to facilitate the 2001 visits of Muhammad 

‘Ata’ and Ramzi bin al-Shayb to Spain. Between July 

9 and July 16 of that year, the two 9/11 conspirators 

met near the city of Tarragona to discuss further operational details and potential pitfalls concerning the 

forthcoming “planes operation,” details that were 

subsequently transmitted by al-Shayb to al-Qa‘ida 

Central.119 Al-Shayb likewise flew to Madrid on September 5 and rented a room for 2 days prior to flying 

to Dubai via Athens on September 7. According to the 

Spanish indictment, four members of the Abu Dahdah 

network may have provided cover and support for 

these activities—the Algerian Muhammad ibn al-Fatmi, al-Shabli, al-‘Azizi, and Abu Dahdah himself.120 On 

May 26, al-Fatmi called Abu Dahdah and made several cryptic remarks suggesting that he may have had 

foreknowledge of major operations to come, such as 

“the brothers have to hurry” and “you should consign 

the stuff soon.” In June al-Fatmi moved to an apartment in Tarragona, very near to the area where ‘Ata’ 

and al-Shayb met the following month, and shortly 

after those meetings he began making preparations to 

move to Karachi, where he flew on September 3, along 

with three other Algerian jihadists linked to the 9/11 

cell, including Sa‘id bin al-Hajji (whose address book 

contained Abu Dahdah’s old phone number). Furthermore, al-‘Azizi’s close associate al-Shabli phoned Abu 

Dahdah on September 5, the same day that al-Shayb 

arrived in Madrid, and made a comment about “Muhammad the Algerian” (i.e., al-Fatmi) before being cut 

off by Abu Dahdah, who was concerned that he might 

make compromising remarks. In the months before 

9/11, there were also a series of suggestive phone 

calls between someone named “Shakur” (the alias of a 

Moroccan based in the United Kingdom [UK] named 
67

Fakhit Hilali) and Abu Dahdah, in which allusions 

were seemingly made to the planned hijackings, e.g., 

one on August 27, 2001, in which Shakur said, “In 

our lessons, we have entered the field of aviation and 

have cut the bird’s throat.”121 In any event, the role of 

the Abu Dahdah network in this and other al-Qa‘ida 

operations was considered sufficiently important that, 

after years of being closely monitored by the Spanish police, its key cadres were arrested in “Operación 

Dátil” on November 13-14, only 2 months after the 

9/11 attacks.

Some remarks must now be made about certain 

key members of the two components of the 3/11 cell, 

beginning with individuals in the operational cell who 

had documented affiliations with other jihadist organizations and networks. The first of these was Fakhit, 

whose social and educational background was quite 

elevated in comparison to that of most other members 

of the cell.122 Fakhit was born in Tunis in 1968 into a 

Westernized upper middle class family.123 His father 

and mother both worked for the Tunisian foreign 

ministry, and helped arrange for Fakhit, an outstanding student, to obtain a scholarship administered by 

the Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional 

(Spanish Agency for International Cooperation) so that 

he could study Economics at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Fakhit arrived in Madrid in 1996 to 

commence his studies and, thanks to a substantial academic stipend and financial assistance from his family, was able to live very well. When he first arrived, 

the shy, culturally conservative Tunisian sometimes 

joined his fellow students in attending discotheques 

and other “infidel” social outings, but he soon shifted 

gears and began publicly criticizing Western policies 

towards Islam, spending more of his free time wor-
68

shipping at the Saudi-funded M-30 mosque, studying 

the Qur’an intensively there, and becoming increasingly prominent in mosque activities. This enabled 

him to visit Mecca in 1998, after which he became even 

more religiously devout. Eventually, Fakhit became 

an “inflexible Islamist and assiduous orator” at the 

M-30 mosque.124 However, he soon began gravitating 

towards more radical personalities who sought to use 

the mosque as a recruiting ground, and over time he 

and his new associates grew increasingly hostile to the 

relatively moderate Wahhabi imam of the mosque, the 

Egyptian Mahmud al-Munir.125

In 1999 and 2000, Fakhit began attending periodic weekend picnics along the Alberche River with 

Syrian Islamists Muhannad al-Mallah Dabas and his 

brother Mu’taz (who was directly connected to Abu 

Qatada and other al-Qa‘ida’s leaders in Europe), al-

‘Azizi, Abu Dahdah, and various mosque-goers, gettogethers where he and these latter attendees were 

further exposed to jihadist propaganda. The regular 

members of this group, one of whose leaders was the 

veteran mujahid al-‘Azizi, eventually began referring 

to themselves as the Ikhwan al-Shuhada (Brotherhood 

of Martyrs). Meanwhile, Fakhit began inviting select 

mosque-goers to an apartment at Virgen del Coro 

14, where Muhannad al-Mallah and other extremists 

played “atrocity” and pro-jihadist videos in an effort 

to anger and radicalize them. According to the police, 

moreover, by 2001 Fakhit had converted his own residence into a “place of lodging and cover for young 

Muslims undergoing a process of radical conversion,” 

but in exchange the lodgers had to abide by strict 

Taliban-style regulations against listening to music or 

watching television.126 After the 9/11 attacks, Shuhada 

and al-Qa‘ida members openly broke with the imam 
69

of the M-30 mosque, who had publicly condemned the 

devastating attacks that the former instead referred to 

positively as “white Tuesday,” white being the color 

associated by Muslims with purity. Indeed, they eventually accused al-Munir, in true takfiri fashion, of being a “hypocrite” and an “infidel.”127

After the arrests of Abu Dahdah and his main lieutenants, Fakhit and other less prominent members of 

the network assumed a low profile for a while before 

coalescing and resuming their plotting anew. In 2002 

the Tunisian joined a new group headed by al-Maymuni that was known as the Harakat al-Salafiyya alJihadiyya (Jihadist Salafist Movement).128 This small 

group, whose members included al-Maymuni, Fakhit, 

al-Shabli, Muhammad al-Arbi bin Salam, al-Falah, 

and others, began holding lengthy regular meetings, 

both at the residence of Faysal al-‘Ush and during 

excursions to the Alberche River, where intense discussions continued about how, when, and where to 

best attack the “Crusaders.” The most important issue 

was whether group members should go off to fight 

on foreign battlefields or instead wage jihad directly 

against the “infidel” societies where they resided; this 

latter option was eventually chosen after Spain sent 

troops to participate in the U.S. invasion of Iraq.129 Key 

members of this Salafiyya group then hooked up with 

another small group of militants that had been formed 

in Spain by Muhammad the Egyptian, which included the Syrian ex-engineering student Basil Ghalyun, 

Muhannad and Mu’taz al-Mallah, and a Moroccan 

student of aeronautical engineering named Fu‘ad alMurabit Amghar.130 Personnel from these two groups 

subsequently formed the kernel of the operational 

component of the 3/11 cell. Last but certainly not least, 

in the latter half of 2003, in the course of frequenting 
70

various Maghribi locales in the Calle Tribulete area 

in Madrid’s Lavapiés district, including the Tanger 

barbershop (where many cell members collectively 

drank water that had been blessed and brought from 

Mecca by its proprietor, ‘Abd al-Wahid ibn al-Arraj), 

the al-Manara halal butcher shop, the Alhambra Cafeteria and Restaurant, and Zugham’s Siglo Nuevo 

phone shop, Fakhit developed a close friendship with 

Jamal Ahmidan.131 Their growing collaboration soon 

brought Fakhit’s group into the orbit of Ahmidan’s 

own criminal network, which thence provided key 

logistical support for the 3/11 attacks. In fact, both 

men were later accused of placing explosive devices 

inside trains on that tragic day, and both then ended 

up “martyring” themselves in the Leganés apartment.

Most importantly in this context, Fakhit’s transformation into an Islamist extremist was facilitated 

personally and directly, at various stages, by key individuals linked to al-Qa‘ida. One of these was Ahmad 

Ibrahim, a Moroccan whose daughter Nura for a time 

became Fakhit’s fiancée. Ibrahim made his living for 

over a decade by selling recreational boats in Palma 

de Mallorca, wore a waist-length beard, and forced 

both his Finnish wife and their daughter to wear a 

black burqa. He was arrested in 2002 near Barcelona 

by the GC after Judge Ismael Moreno accused him of 

being al-Qa‘ida’s main financial operative in Spain. 

During several trips to Palma between 2000 and 2002, 

Fakhit had received personal ideological instruction 

from Ibrahim.132 A second important influence in 

Fakhit’s transformation was the Afghan returnee al-

‘Azizi, who became the leader of the Shuhada group 

in whose social activities Fakhit regularly participated, and also provided frequent guidance on ideological matters.133 A third was Abu Dahdah himself, an-
71

other regular Shuhada group attendee whose network 

Fakhit later joined, thereby becoming increasingly 

integrated into that milieu prior to its decapitation 

and partial dismantling in late 2001.134 A fourth was 

al-Maymuni, who also attended or hosted gatherings 

of the Shuhada group. Fakhit and al-Maymuni, both 

acolytes of al-‘Azizi, later became so close that the 

Tunisian allowed al-Maymuni’s wife Nayat to move 

into his apartment and married al-Maymuni’s daughter Hanani.135 In 2002, a confidential police informant 

nicknamed “Cartagena” (who was later identified as 

‘Abd al-Qadir al-Farsawi, the imam of the al-Taqwa 

mosque in the Villaverde district in southern Madrid), 

reported that al-Maymuni had formed and become 

the leader of the aforementioned Salafiyya group, 

which included Fakhit. Indeed, when al-Maymuni left 

Spain in early 2003 in order to organize jihadist cells 

in Morocco (activities for which he was arrested by 

the Moroccan authorities in the wake of the May 2003 

Casablanca bombings), Fakhit replaced him as the 

new leader of the group.136 A fifth was Muhammad 

the Egyptian. In the wake of the flight from Spain of 

several important members of al-Qa‘ida’s European 

network, including al-‘Azizi, Fakhit not only became 

a de facto leader of remnants of Abu Dahdah’s group 

but also a disciple of the Egyptian’s, who had returned 

to Spain in the summer of 2002.137 In short, the primary 

animator of the 3/11 cell had long operated within the 

orbit of leading al-Qa‘ida figures in Spain, who had 

personally overseen his ongoing religious, political, and 

ideological indoctrination and radicalization. How, then, 

can anyone seriously argue that the 3/11 cell was a 

“self-starter” group that had no meaningful connections to al-Qa‘ida?
72

Another important member of the 3/11 operational cell was Jamal Zugham, who as noted above had become a member of the al-Qa‘ida network in Spain and 

a close personal friend of Abu Dahdah’s.138 On March 

13, 2003, after the two Indian shopkeepers who had 

sold the phones and SIM cards to the plotters identified Zugham as the individual who had purchased 

the latter, investigators from the UCIE immediately 

became alarmed given that he was already very wellknown to the anti-terrorist police.139 Zugham was 

born in 1973 in Tangiers, and was the eldest son of the 

mu’adhdhin at the mosque in the city’s Shar ibn Dibani 

neighborhood. In 1985 he arrived in Spain, where he 

initially found work as a fruit dealer in the San Fernando market on Calle Tribulete. Like many immigrants, 

he eventually opened up his own small shop, drifted 

into various semi-licit economic activities, and found 

it more comforting to associate with other North Africans in Lavapiés, including his relatives and countrymen, than to interact socially with Spaniards. As 

a result, he ended up befriending several individuals 

in the area who had joined Abu Dahdah’s network, 

including Sa‘id al-Shadadi, or thence found their way 

into its bastard offspring, the 3/11 cell, such as Rashid 

Akhlif.140

Zugham’s increasing involvement in the activities 

of various components of al-Qa‘ida’s network in Europe was confirmed on August 10, 2001, when UCIE 

agents surreptitiously entered and searched his apartment at Calle de Sequillo 14.141 They did so at the request of French judicial authorities after David Courtailler, a French convert to Islam who joined a jihadist 

cell that had planned to attack the American embassy 

in Paris, admitted that he had had a meeting with 

Zugham in a Madrid mosque in 1998.142 In the course 
73

of that search, the policemen discovered that Zugham 

possessed the phone number of al-‘Azizi. Similarly, 

in Abu Dahdah’s appointment book confiscated during the “Dátil” investigation, Zugham’s number was 

listed under the heading “Jamal from Tangiers.” This 

and several other indicators led investigators to conclude that Zugham functioned as the virtual dauphin

(heir apparent) of Abu Dahdah.143 Whether or not that 

is true, there is no doubt that the former had “extensive international connections with figures involved 

in some way or another with the jihad,” including 

the Norway-based “spiritual leader” of the Kurdish 

jihadist group Ansar al-Islam, Najm al-Din Faraj Ahmad (alias Mullah Krikar), and several militants who 

played important roles in Moroccan jihadist groups.144

For that very reason, Zugham was subsequently investigated by Judge Garzón in connection with the 

multiple May 16, 2003, terrorist attacks carried out in 

Casablanca by a cell from al-Salafiyya al-Jihadiyya, 

since he was closely linked to a member of that network, ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ibn Ya‘ish, who the Moroccan 

authorities believed was involved in those bombings 

and therefore sought to have extradited from Spain. 

Zugham also was inspired by and had personal interactions with Muhammad al-Fizazi, an extremely 

radical Moroccan imam who had not only previously 

exerted a powerful ideological influence on ‘Ata’ and 

several future 9/11 hijackers during his stint preaching at the al-Quds (Jerusalem) mosque in Hamburg, 

but was also widely regarded as one of the spiritual 

leaders of al-Salafiyya al-Jihadiyya and other terrorist 

groups in his homeland.145 Later, in the weeks before 

the Madrid bombings, Zugham reportedly attended 

gatherings together with other 3/11 cell members at 

the Chinchón house.146 After the attacks, Zugham was 
74

quickly arrested when the SIM card found in the unexploded bomb at the El Pozo station was traced to 

the batch purchased by his store. He was subsequently identified by two surviving train passengers as the 

individual they had seen leaving a bag on the train car 

they were riding in, which then blew up. 

A third figure who played a vital role in the 3/11 

bombings was Jamal Ahmidan. Although much—

arguably too much—has been made about the poor 

slums in Moroccan cities as alleged breeding grounds 

of jihadism, Ahmidan was born in 1970 in Tetuan into 

a relatively well-off middle class family and had 13 

siblings.147 His father Ahmad had worked in Holland 

for several years in order to make his fortune, leaving 

his wife at home, but when he returned he had sufficient funds to set up a fabric business and eventually was able to buy a second house on the beach in 

Tangiers. He was religious and hoped that his sons 

would be inspired by his own example, but Jamal 

was always very headstrong, hotheaded, and impulsive, and ended up dropping out of high school. Both 

he and his elder brother Mustafa loved their mother 

Rahma but had a strained relationship with their father, and as a result, both began engaging in drug trafficking rather than following in Ahmad’s respectable 

footsteps. At first they made money selling Moroccan 

hashish directly in Spain, or instead selling it in Holland in exchange for cocaine and MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine or “ecstasy”), which 

they then sold in Spain. In 1991 Jamal followed two 

of his brothers to Madrid, but managed to enter Spain 

only by falsely claiming to be an Algerian seeking 

asylum. After settling in the Spanish capital, he soon 

formed his own criminal network that was composed 

largely of friends and kinsmen from home. As time 
75

progressed, he expanded the range of his criminal activities, and eventually became involved in car theft, 

burglaries, robberies, selling false documentation, and 

other illicit transactions in addition to drug trafficking, not only in Madrid but also in Bilbao and southern Spain. Quick to anger and resort to violence, Jamal 

always carried weapons with him and very quickly 

developed a fearsome reputation on the street that 

only facilitated his dirty business activities. He also 

drank, popped pills, snorted drugs himself, and initially spent time partying, both with Spanish women 

and in Moroccan discotheques. That temporary hedonistic phase was curtailed somewhat in the summer of 

1992, when he met and fell in love with a Spanish heroin addict named Rosa, whom he thenceforth doted 

on to the point that he helped her kick her drug habit 

and reconcile her with her estranged mother. During 

a visit home in 1993, he stabbed a lad who was trying 

to steal from him while he was asleep in a taxi, but fled 

back to Spain before he could be prosecuted.148

How did this troubled criminal end up embracing 

Islamism and being associated with the jihadist cell that 

carried out the Madrid bombings? Some have suggested that, after being arrested for trafficking in December 

1993 and then sentenced to 2 years in the Carabanchel 

and Valdemoro prisons, where he became temporarily addicted to heroin, he first sought solace in Islam 

in an effort to end his drug dependency.149 When he 

was released in October 1995, he became increasingly 

religious, stopped taking drugs, and pressured other 

Arabs near the local garage mosque not to get high.150

Moreover, he started spending time discussing Islam 

with the imam at that same mosque, as well as paying a portion of the proceeds from his illicit activities 

in the form of alms (zakat) to the M-30 and Abu Bakr 
76

mosques in Madrid.151 However, it seems to have been 

his growing anger and ever-increasing sense of victimization after successive arrests that really led to his 

radicalization. In 1998, he emerged from a stint in a 

French prison with a beard and a temporary desire to 

pray five times per day, and began obsessing about 

the plight of the Chechens and Palestinians.152 On a 

1999 business trip to Amsterdam, he was further radicalized by the imam of a small mosque, to which he 

then made a charitable contribution.153 In March 2001 

he was arrested with false documents and imprisoned 

again, this time in the Centro de Inmigrantes Extranjeros (Center for Foreign Immigrants[CIE]) in Madrid, 

which prompted him to become the de facto leader of 

the other prisoners and to adopt an increasingly hostile 

attitude towards his “infidel” country of residence.154

He actually managed to escape from the CIE on April 

16, 2000, at which point he went out of his way to call 

his former guards to threaten and taunt them. In December 2000 he returned to Morocco to straighten out 

his identity documentation problems, but was arrested there within a few days for the murder of the boy 

he had stabbed years before.155 He spent over 3 years 

in a Moroccan prison, during which time—like many 

other Muslim petty criminals who have gone through 

similar experiences—he completed his radicalization 

process and began nursing a desire to kill the enemies 

of Allah. He was also apparently angered by the U.S. 

invasion of Iraq. 

Hence by the time he was released from prison in 

the summer of 2003, Ahmidan was ideologically and 

psychologically primed to join a jihadist cell, and his 

fortuitous encounter with Fakhit later that year soon 

led to his active involvement in the 3/11 plot. Moreover, despite his frequently reckless behavior, even in 
77

the weeks before the attacks,156 he was a great asset 

to the cell because he possessed good organizational 

skills, had considerable experience conducting clandestine activities, and had the sort of personal charisma that made him a good leader who could inspire 

others.

It again needs to be emphasized that the first two 

of the three above figures, all of whom played important roles in the 3/11 cell, had been affiliated for 

years with jihadist networks in Spain and beyond. As 

a result, they were heavily influenced by and often 

interacted personally with a host of veteran jihadists, 

including those who were associated with al-Qa‘ida, 

the GICM, and other terrorist groups. Indeed, these 

webs of interconnections, both among cell members 

and between them and other jihadists, were so dense 

and extensive that the 2004 Spanish indictment against 

the surviving plotters devoted over 500 pages to tracing the cell members’ phone contacts and interactions 

(since many of their phone calls were by then being 

monitored and recorded by the police).157 The indictment then spent another 100 pages tracing their contacts with jihadists in Belgium, France, Italy, and Morocco, including details about the post-attack flights 

of al-Falah and al-Hajj, on the basis of information 

found in judicial investigations carried out in those 

countries.158 It is precisely because of their extensive 

contacts and frequent interactions with jihadist operatives linked to al-Qa‘ida, the GICM or al-Salafiyya 

al-Jihadiyya, and the GIA that many observers have 

concluded, rightly or wrongly, that the attacks were 

secretly sponsored, guided, or directed by higher-ups 

within those veteran organizations.159 Since the general impact of al-Qa‘ida operatives on the recruitment 

and radicalization of certain cell members has been 
78

discussed above, and the cell’s main link to the GIA 

was through al-Amari, about whose importance there 

is considerable debate, a bit more information should 

be provided on the cell’s Moroccan connections.

In this context, the key figures involved are alMaymuni, al-‘Azizi, al-Hajj, and Hasan al-Haski. As 

has been noted, the role of al-Maymuni was central 

to the development of the 3/11 cell since he was the 

leader of the Spanish al-Salafiyya al-Jihadiyya group, 

one of the two intersecting groups from which that 

cell emerged. Had he not gone to Morocco to organize new jihadist cells and plan attacks there, perhaps 

including the 2003 Casablanca suicide bombings, he 

may well have ended up as an integral member of the 

Madrid operational cell. Like Abu Dahdah, al-Maymuni had earlier helped recruit volunteers to wage 

jihad in Afghanistan and Chechnya, and according 

to his close comrade al-‘Azizi, after Abu Dahdah’s 

arrest he formed two cells that were integrated into 

al-Qa‘ida, one in Spain (presumably the al-Salafiyya 

al-Jihadiyya group) and one in the Moroccan town of 

Kanitra, which was later implicated in the 2003 Casablanca attacks.160

As for al-‘Azizi, he was a veteran mujahid who had 

received training in terrorist camps, first in the Bosnian 

industrial town of Zenica and then later in Afghanistan.161 Indeed, according to some accounts, he served 

as Abu Mus‘ab al-Suri’s protégé at the al-Ghuraba’ 

camp in Afghanistan, or as an instructor (together 

with al-Suri) in the Abu Khabab camp in the Darunta 

complex.162 Whatever the specifics, he was regarded as 

a “big fish” who had direct connections with al-Qa‘ida 

Central and later became Abu Dahdah’s right-hand 

man in Spain.163 He has also been portrayed as “the 

leader of the GICM,” which many regard as Moroc-
79

co’s primary al-Qa‘ida affiliate.164 Some have further 

claimed that he provided organizational and logistical assistance to the 9/11 plotters during their summer 2001 meetings in northeastern Spain—of interest 

in this context is that his phone number was found 

in the phone book of Zakariyyas Musawi, a projected 

participant in “second wave” al-Qa‘ida attacks inside 

the United States in the wake of “blessed Tuesday”—

and he subsequently exerted a strong influence over 

the group headed by al-Maymuni after Abu Dahdah’s 

arrest.165 Moreover, he was a key participant at an 

important February 2002 jihadist summit in Istanbul, 

where the representatives of numerous North African 

terrorist groups, including several that were affiliated 

with al-Qa‘ida, gathered to devise a new strategy in 

response to the American overthrow of the Taliban 

regime. At that meeting, a decision was reportedly 

made to launch new waves of terrorist attacks, including inside Western countries. Some have argued 

that plans to attack Spain, which later materialized on 

3/11, were hatched at that meeting.166

Yusuf bin al-Hajj was yet another member of the 

GICM with close links to al-Qa‘ida who was later 

suspected of being the mastermind of the 3/11 bombings. He set up a base of operations in Belgium, and 

regularly used a network he had established there to 

repatriate Afghan veterans to their countries of origin or find them refuge elsewhere, as well as to help 

fugitive terrorists escape from European police dragnets.167 Among other things, he helped facilitate the 

post-3/11 flight from Spain of both his own brother 

Muhammad (who had been in the apartment at Leganés but had left before the police cordoned it off 

and laid siege to it) and al-Falah, and also the latter’s 

subsequent transit to Iraq.168 In 2001, Yusuf had held 
80

several meetings in a mosque in Leganés with alFalah, his brother Maymun, his nephews the Musatin 

brothers, and Abu Shar to discuss jihad and going to 

fight in Afghanistan. However, the oddest fact in the 

accusations leveled against al-Hajj is that on October 

19, 2003, 1 day after al-Jazira broadcast a public statement by Usama bin Ladin threatening Spain for its 

involvement in Iraq, he bought a new Belgian mobile 

phone, for which he provided a false name and the 

incorrect birth date of March 11, 1921, information 

that was then entered into the phone’s SIM card. Not 

only did al-Hajj know that this particular month and 

day fell shortly before the following year’s Spanish 

elections, but he also apparently believed that it was 

exactly 2 1/2 years after the 9/11 attacks. One might 

assume that it was a sheer coincidence that the month 

and day happened to correspond to those of the future 

3/11 attacks had not al-Hajj provided another false 

date of birth that was entered into the SIM card of his 

other cell phone—May 16, 1985—the month and day 

of which happened to correspond, also in advance, to 

those of the Casablanca bombings in 2003.169 Whether 

he intentionally selected those dates in order to secretly alert his contacts in Madrid, including cell member 

Abu Shar, about exactly when their projected attacks 

were to be launched, as the public prosecutor claimed, 

is unclear.

A final GICM operative who was accused at one 

point of being the “planner” of the Madrid bombings 

was Hasan al-Haski. Between 2000 and 2002, al-Haski 

lived in the Canary Islands in Las Palmas, but at the 

end of 2002 he went to Syria, ostensibly to deepen his 

knowledge of Islamic theology.170 However, in his capacity as a GICM leader, he spent much of his time 

there indoctrinating a group of Syrians, Algerians, 
81

and Moroccans whom he was preparing to send to 

Iraq via Turkey. While in Syria he also met with Muhsin Khaybar, who was later implicated in the 2003 

Casablanca bombings, to discuss the future leadership of the GICM, and later attended a meeting in the 

Belgian town of Genk, at which ‘Abd al-Qadir Hakimi 

and other representatives of the organization allegedly devised a common strategy and discussed who 

would succeed its current ‘amir. In February and early 

March of 2004 al-Haski stayed with various “brothers” in France, but appeared to be very nervous and 

restless, perhaps because he knew about the forthcoming attacks. After 3/11 he suddenly became calm, 

claimed that the train bombings had been carried out 

by his “group” (jama‘a), and openly expressed both 

pride and satisfaction about the successful results of 

the operation. Nonetheless, between mid-April and 

early May, he traveled back to the Canaries.171

Given that so many GICM operational leaders 

were linked, at various points, to members of the 3/11 

cell, it is no wonder that both the GICM itself and the 

transnational network it had affiliated itself with, that 

of al-Qa‘ida, were both depicted as the sponsors or 

masterminds of the Madrid bombings. Nor were such 

charges leveled solely against Moroccan extremists. 

The same was also true of Rabi‘ ‘Uthman al-Sayyid 

Ahmad (Muhammad the Egyptian), a key figure in alQa‘ida’s logistical network in Italy who had extensive 

interactions with the “brothers” in the Abu Dahdah 

network, its reconfigured successors, and the 3/11 cell 

itself, right up until a few weeks before the attacks. 

His long-standing role in radicalizing, recruiting, and 

then transferring European militants to jihadist fronts 

elsewhere has been thoroughly documented in the 

course of a series of Italian judicial investigations and 
82

trials. He was born in Egypt in 1971, had a degree in 

electronics from an Egyptian technical school, and 

served in the Egyptian army—specifically the specialized Explosives Brigade in Port Said—for 5 years. 

However, he was also secretly a member of the Tanzim al-Jihad al-Islami, and was therefore imprisoned 

during the mid-1990s in Abu Zaba‘al jail.172 He later 

made his way to Europe, and was arrested in Germany in 1999 after trying to cross the border into France 

without proper papers. He then falsely claimed to be 

a Palestinian refugee and was sent to a camp in Lebech for asylum seekers whose applications were being processed, where he became the principal imam, a 

position he used to spread radical Islamist doctrines. 

He managed to escape from the lightly guarded camp, 

and then made his way, first to Spain in January 2001 

to find a wife, then to France to make contact with jihadist circles, then back to Spain to continue radicalizing and recruiting jihadists, and still later to Italy to 

establish a new base of operations.173

Following the arrest of his collaborator Abu Dahdah, Muhammad the Egyptian assumed a much greater leadership role in Spanish jihadist circles after gathering some of the former’s men together and forming 

a new group in Lavapiés, one that included several of 

the later 3/11 cell members, including Ghalyun and 

Amghar. Members of his group also increasingly interacted with the “brothers” in the above-mentioned 

group led by al-Maymuni, which included Fakhit. 

Indeed, Ahmad and al-Maymuni had both spent considerable time recruiting and radicalizing militants at 

the M-30 mosque.174 Although Ahmad left Spain at the 

very end of January 2004, only a few weeks before the 

train attacks, a witness claimed that he had previously 

seen him at the Chinchón house.175 This in turn caused 
83

some analysts to speculate that Ahmad was not only a 

key planner behind the bombings, but also that he may 

have provided instructions on how to fabricate bombs 

directly to certain 3/11 cell members.176 Several phone 

calls that were subsequently intercepted by the Italian 

police seemed to support the interpretation that Ahmad was involved in planning the action. For example, in a May 24, 2004, conversation with a would-be 

Moroccan “martyr” living in Belgium named Murad 

al-Shabaru (whom he had known since they first met 

in Tarazona in 2002), Ahmad made an allusion to the 

Madrid bombers and referred to them as “the boys,” 

“our friends,” “my brother” Sirhan [Fakhit], and the 

rest of “the brothers,” all of whom “went to Allah.”177

Two days later, in a conversation with a young Palestinian protégé named Yahya Bayuni, who Ahmad was 

grooming to be a martyr, the latter said:

There is one thing that I am not going to hide from 

you: [lowering his voice] the attack in Madrid was 

my project and those who died [as] martyrs are my 

very dear friends. . . . I am the thread of Madrid, when 

the deed happened I wasn’t there, but I’ll tell you the 

truth, before the operation, on the 4th, I had contacts 

with them . . . keep your mouth shut . . . I go around 

alone, [but] they worked in [a] group. . . . Five [sic] 

died martyrs and eight have been arrested; they are 

the best friends, dearest friends, very loyal . . . already 

on the 4th I began to plan, but at a high level, I wanted 

to plan it so that it was something that was unforgettable. . . . I wanted a big load but I couldn’t find the 

means. The plan cost me a lot of money and patience, 

it took me 2 1/2 years . . . beware!! . . . Don’t you ever 

mention anything. . . .178

Even if one assumes that Ahmad was simply a 

blabbermouth and a braggart who exaggerated his 
84

own role rather than one of the actual planners of the 

attack or instead concludes, as the Spanish judges did, 

that the translation of this last conversation was flawed 

and that he had really said something else,179 there can 

no doubt whatsoever that members of the group he 

led in Spain, along with members of the group headed 

by al-Maymuni, later went on to join forces and carry 

out the 3/11 attacks. Hence at the very least, Ahmad 

played a significant role in helping to reorganize elements of Abu Dahdah’s recently decapitated al-Qa‘ida 

network in Spain into a new cell, as well as in instigating, directly or indirectly, the attacks that followed by 

incessantly urging his followers to wage jihad.

Be that as it may, the identification by investigators, both official and unofficial, of a seemingly endless succession of alleged “intellectual authors” of the 

Madrid bombings has given free rein to cynical or 

conspiratorially-minded critics of the constantly shifting official version. For example, De Pablo has sardonically noted that the prosecutors and judges had 

identified no less than 10 individuals as the “masterminds” of the attacks, but that none of them were actually charged (and many were not even mentioned) in 

either the 2007 sentence or that of the Appeals Court 1 

year later.180 However, the failure to definitively identify such a person or group, at least thus far, does not 

necessarily mean that there were no intellectual authors behind the material perpetrators. Indeed, such 

intellectual authors must have existed, even if they 

were to be found among the material perpetrators 

rather than hypothesized secret sponsors or behindthe-scenes controllers.

Unfortunately, the problems involved in tracing 

the ultimate sponsors or masterminds of the 3/11 attacks—if indeed they exist—are formidable and there-
85

fore difficult to resolve, simply because of the complex 

and fluid nature of the web of linkages and interconnections between different networks, organizations, 

and cells that make up the global jihadist milieu. Perhaps the best summary of these problems, in reference 

to the relationships between al-Qa‘ida, the GICM, and 

local cells, has been provided by Malika Zeghal:

The logic that nowadays governs the constitution and 

evolution of jihadist terrorism is that of looser and 

looser networks. They are made up, on the one hand, 

of branches that are not necessarily structured, and 

about which one knows little concerning their extension, and are formed by means of individual movements and unexpected encounters in an era of [extensive] migratory movements throughout the world; 

and, on the other hand, of ‘nodes’ emerging from 

these encounters, which are so many cells organized 

in a flexible manner. These can either follow external 

orders or become independent; and they can easily 

mutate and multiply independently of any command 

center, such as that of al-Qaida, while still remaining 

inspired by it.181

This concise but shrewd characterization accurately describes the ongoing organizational shift away 

from the sort of hierarchically-structured terrorist 

groups that constituted the norm in the late 1960s and 

1970s towards more decentralized, diffuse, and loose 

network structures.

The decentralized and compartmentalized GICM 

network shares those very same traits, since its nodes 

are effectively led by different ‘umara operating in the 

field rather than by its nominal supreme leaders. As 

one Spanish journalist described the situation:
86

It is extremely difficult, not only to determine the configuration of the operational leadership of the GICM, 

but also to identify its structure, its degree of national 

implantation, and its international connections, of 

which tentacles have been detected in Spain, Great 

Britain, Belgium, Italy, Turkey, and Denmark. It is a 

design with a special role [protagonismo] for insulated 

cells and independent elements with a scant or nonexistent level of knowledge concerning the “grand 

strategy” of [the parent] organization, which recruits 

operatives who have been tied to Salafism, both in 

Morocco and in the Muslim community implanted in 

Europe.182

Moreover, the GICM, which was initially formed 

(as the Harakat al-Islamiyya al-Maghribiyya [Moroccan Islamic Movement]) in Peshawar in 1993 by Moroccan veterans of the Afghan war, trained Moroccan 

operatives in the Abu Khabab camp, and endeavored 

to forge a common North African jihadist front with 

the GIA, GSPC, and the Tanzim al-Jihad, was reconstituted in 1998, in part to facilitate the execution of 

attacks encouraged or sponsored by al-Qa‘ida Central 

within its own geographic spheres of operation. The 

GICM’s cells in North Africa and Europe were not part 

of the organic structure of al-Qa‘ida, but could nonetheless act in support of that organization’s broader 

objectives or aid al-Qa‘ida operatives logistically.183

Hence, according to Merlos, Spanish Socialist Workers Party (Partido Socialista Obrore Espanol [PSOE]) 

leader José Luis Rodríguez Zapateros oversimplified 

greatly when he claimed that the 9/11 and 3/11 attacks were completely different in terms of their motivational, organizational, and operational matrix. 

On the contrary, all of the different levels of jihadist 

networks intermingled in complex ways in the period 
87

leading up to the 3/11 attacks.184 This does not mean, 

however, that one can trace a clear line of authorship 

behind those attacks leading from al-Qa‘ida Central 

to the leaders of the GICM to the members of the Madrid cell, since we are dealing with a decentralized alQa‘ida network, a decentralized GICM network, and 

individual cells that were linked to elements of both in 

a very convoluted and confusing fashion.

However that may be, Zeghal’s above-cited description does not quite conform to John Arquilla’s 

interesting notions about “all-channel” or “swarming” networks, much less to other theories postulating 

the primacy of “leaderless resistance” or autonomous 

“self-generating” cells with no meaningful links to 

other organizations and networks.185 This is because in 

the real world, various jihadist cells or groupuscules 

(i.e., “grouplets”) that suddenly coalesce—whether in 

accordance with pre-established plans or spontaneously and unexpectedly—may in some instances end 

up following orders issued by other, more influential 

and resource-rich organizations or networks to which 

they have become affiliated, on other occasions decide 

to collaborate on an ad hoc basis with other cells in order to facilitate the carrying out of particular actions, 

and at still other times be acting entirely on their own 

initiative. Indeed, the very same grouplet may well 

shift back and forth between these distinct and seemingly antithetical behavioral patterns. Since those 

three patterns are not necessarily mutually exclusive, 

either in time or in space, the resulting organizational 

and interactive fluidity makes it all the more difficult 

for outsiders to determine exactly when particular 

cells may be acting independently and when they may 

be cooperating with or acting at the behest of other 

parties. This is certainly the case with the Madrid 

bombings. 
88

For that very reason, it is possible to view the 3/11 

plot as either the product of schemes hatched by elements from veteran foreign terrorist organizations 

with which several cell members had been or still 

were linked, including al-Qa‘ida and the GICM, or 

to view it as an action that was undertaken more or 

less independently and on the personal initiative of 

key figures within that cell. Thus, there is a fairly wide 

spectrum of reasonable interpretations that could conceivably be derived from the existing facts, but the 

truth surely lies between the two opposite poles on 

that interpretive spectrum. Indeed, the two interpretations that are the least likely to be true are those at the 

termini of this wide spectrum of possibilities: 1) that 

the majlis al-shura of al-Qa‘ida (i.e., al-Qa‘ida Central) 

directly ordered the attacks, or 2) that they were carried out independently by a “self-starter” cell without 

assistance of any kind from jihadists in other organizations. Unfortunately, this latter view has currently 

become the accepted wisdom, in part because it has 

been reinforced by the excessive caution of certain 

trial and appellate judges, who ended up concluding 

that the 3/11 attacks were not only “without intellectual authorship,” an absurd claim, but also that there 

was no meaningful involvement at all by personnel 

from other jihadist cells or networks. While the more 

extravagant claims attributing sponsorship or planning of the bombings to the leadership directorates 

of al-Qa‘ida or the GICM remain unconvincing, since 

the evidence cited in support of those claims is at best 

only suggestive, it is also difficult if not impossible to 

accept the seemingly naïve verdicts rendered by the 

two courts, which in the end concluded that there was 

no form of external involvement in the 3/11 operation—despite the wealth of documented connections 
89

between cell members and other jihadist circles, both 

in the recent past and even, in some cases, in the days 

leading up to the attacks.

In this context, it should be emphasized that judicial decisions should never be regarded as infallible 

or as “the gospel truth.” After all, judges frequently 

make errors in judgment and other types of mistakes, 

like professionals in all other fields, and at times they 

resort to legal reasoning that is not only tortuous but 

also seems bizarre or even perverse.186 Moreover, their 

ability to remain disinterested or objective has often 

been undermined by a host of other factors, such as 

highly politicized judiciaries (especially in countries 

with proportional representation) in which ideological biases of varying sorts are often blatant,187 political 

pressures exerted overtly or covertly by the executive 

branch,188 the corrosive impact of unofficial patronage systems marked by behind-the-scenes exchanges 

of reciprocal favors, flaws, or loopholes built into the 

structures of their nation’s legal institutions,189 and 

even feelings of collective societal guilt in countries 

with formerly dictatorial regimes (like Germany, Italy, 

and Spain) that abused their power egregiously and 

thereby destroyed the rule of law. Under such circumstances, it has all too often been the case that courts in 

Europe have failed to convict suspected jihadist terrorists, despite the existence of considerable amounts 

of evidence that pointed to their guilt, usually on the 

basis of seemingly spurious reasoning or by throwing 

out cases on the basis of technicalities.190

In any event, having briefly surveyed the innumerable interconnections between members of the 3/11 

cell and jihadists associated with other organizations 

and networks, it should already be apparent that the 

notion that the Madrid cell was an essentially autonomous, “self-generating” cell composed of amateurish 
90

jihadist “newbies” is utterly absurd. Nor can one claim, 

as Atran has, that this particular cell had no significant 

connections, operational or otherwise, to elements of 

al-Qa‘ida or other jihadist terrorist organizations. On 

the contrary, it was made up of numerous veteran 

militants, including several who were associated with 

Abu Dahdah’s al-Qa‘ida network in Spain. Yet Atran 

and others, including certain judges associated with 

the case, have sarcastically asked where al-Qa‘ida was 

in the context of 3/11. This seems to be a case of ideologically- or conceptually-driven perceptual blindness, willful or otherwise, since the influence of elements of al-Qa‘ida and other jihadist Salafist groups 

was present, in a multitude of ways, during the entire 

historical evolution of the cell. Several points need to 

be emphasized in this regard.

First, it is ridiculous to argue that, unless a particular cell is receiving its marching orders or extensive 

financial subsidies directly from Bin Ladin, al-Zawahiri, or other high-level figures from al-Qa‘ida Central, it has no links to al-Qa‘ida at all other than those 

of an inspirational albeit vague ideological nature. To 

make such an argument is fundamentally to misunderstand the role of al-Qa‘ida Central, including its 

operational role, in relation to that of its affiliates and 

local cells. In fact, even in cases where al-Qa‘ida sent 

its own “hit teams” or intentionally implanted agents 

from overseas to form cells, recruit locals, and thence 

organize attacks in the West, it usually did not exercise close supervision or direct command, control, 

and coordination over the activities of its operatives 

in far-flung theatres. Far from endeavoring to micromanage the activities of its operatives, even those 

who were carrying out strategic strikes that it had explicitly authorized and partially planned, it typically 
91

left many of the actual tactical or operational details 

to them. This was even partly true of the spectacular 

9/11 attacks, since ‘Ata’ was given a certain amount 

of leeway in planning various logistical and operational details inasmuch as he, being in the field, was 

in a better position to be able to adjust and adapt to 

new, sometimes unexpected developments that might 

affect the overall success of the “planes operation.” 

In certain instances, of course, Bin Ladin insisted that 

his operatives abroad follow a certain pre-established 

plan more or less closely, but even in those cases he 

was not usually able to prevent them from making periodic changes or personally to exert a high degree of 

de facto operational control over them.

Since this has been the normal pattern, even in relation to those attacks overseas that were planned and 

subsidized by al-Qa‘ida Central, why would anyone 

assume that the group’s majlis al-shura would necessarily exercise direct operational control over the activities of local cells, including those that were linked 

to its affiliates, whose specific activities it did not even 

endeavor to guide or control? And why, for that matter, would they further assume that every cell that 

did not receive such close levels of central supervision, guidance, or support was entirely autonomous, 

unconnected, and made up of amateurish “bunches 

of guys”? In short, drawing a hard and fast “either/

or” distinction between cells which were supposedly 

micromanaged by al-Qa‘ida Central and those which 

were totally independent has unfortunately had the 

effect of creating a false dichotomy that rarely if ever 

conforms to the fluidity and complexity of the linkages within the jihadist milieu in the real world. 

Second, the view of Sageman that local jihadist cells 

were often formed after the bottom-up recruitment 
92

by “born again” jihadists of their friends and kinsmen—or perhaps after their top-down recruitment by 

professional jihadist spotters, who found it easier to 

induce such “bunches of guys” to join together—has 

in my opinion been granted far too much explanatory 

power. It is hardly surprising that recent Muslim immigrants living in the West, like most émigrés from 

a particular region of the world who end up settling 

in societies that are very different culturally, would 

initially prefer to associate with their countrymen, 

co-religionists, kinsmen, and friends than with alien 

members of their new societies, a tendency which 

almost always produces self-segregating social patterns that initially act to inhibit assimilation and acculturation. To the extent that those same immigrants 

are also subjected to some level of socio-economic discrimination, as they often are, this will only act to further alienate them from their host societies and cause 

them to associate and identify even more closely with 

those with whom they share a common background. 

These tendencies are arguably even more common 

among Muslims, most of whom arrive in Europe from 

societies that are essentially tribal in nature, where 

large clans and extended families are the norm, and 

where there is a pronounced, sometimes fierce loyalty 

to kinsmen. Hence it should come as no surprise to 

learn that when individual Muslims become so alienated that they adopt an adversarial attitude towards 

their host societies and/or suffer an identity crisis that 

leads them to view themselves as members of the real 

or virtual umma, sometimes to the point of wanting to 

wage jihad against the infidel societies they reside in, 

that they should first approach some of their kinsmen 

and friends for support and aid. Moreover, unless 

they join cults whose leaders encourage them to break 
93

their previous social ties, people are often inclined to 

tell their closest associates the “good news” when they 

have suddenly become religiously devout, and then to 

try to convert them to their new worldview.

This reliance on kinsmen and friends is likewise 

true of those individuals who had embraced an Islamist worldview even before arriving in the West, 

since they were already ideologically conditioned to 

view their new land as a part of the dar al-harb, i.e., 

as a “satanic” society filled with “infidel Crusaders” who were out to destroy Islam. For this very 

reason, they often eschew unnecessary contact with 

non-Muslims, whom they view as inherently corrupt 

if not thoroughly evil. At times, however, they may 

well seek to manipulate and make instrumental use 

of certain unwitting unbelievers in pursuit of their 

radically anti-Western objectives. It is also common 

for individuals who intend to engage in illicit or subversive clandestine activities to have recourse first to 

friends and kinsmen, which is why one so often finds 

close kinship relations to be characteristic of criminal 

gangs, organized or otherwise. It is surely no accident that criminals tend to organize themselves along 

ethnic lines, e.g., into the Sicilian, Corsican, Russian, 

Chechen, Nigerian, or Turkish mobs, the Japanese 

yakuza, the Chinese triads, etc. After all, inviting absolute strangers to join them in illegal activities would 

entail dangerous risks, whereas kinsmen and close 

friends are less likely to alert the authorities even if 

they opt not to participate in those types of activities. 

Why, then, should one find it so surprising and significant that both jihadist cells and Muslim criminal 

gangs in Europe are often composed largely of kinsmen and close friends from the same villages or towns 

in their countries of origin? In short, although Sage-
94

man is perfectly correct to point out this social fact, 

in the final analysis it is a rather banal observation.191

Moreover, in and of itself this particular phenomenon 

is only tangentially related to the key issues involved 

in assessing jihadist capabilities, including both their 

overall operational effectiveness and their possession 

of the technical skills necessary for IED fabrication: (1) 

whether the members of such cells are rank amateurs 

or experienced veterans, and (2) whether those cells 

are autonomous and self-generating or are instead 

connected to established jihadist organizations.

What, then, are the salient facts about the members 

of the 3/11 operational cell? First, after Abu Dahdah’s 

Spanish al-Qa‘ida network was dismantled due to police action in November 2001, the members of that network who had escaped arrest during the sweeps either 

took flight or laid low until the initial crackdown had 

run its course. It was not long, however, before they 

began coalescing, reorganizing, re-establishing contact with al-Qa‘ida and Moroccan jihadist operatives 

elsewhere in Europe, and resuming their anti-Western 

plotting and activities. Angered by the arrests of their 

“brothers” and what they perceived to be attacks on 

Islam at home and abroad, al-Maymuni, Fakhit, and 

their associates in Madrid’s so-called Harakat alSalafiyya al-Jihadiyya began meeting regularly and 

engaging in a series of intense debates about what 

actions to undertake in support of the global jihad. 

The key question was whether to continue recruiting and sending mujahidin from Europe to battlefields 

elsewhere (as the Abu Dahdah network had done for 

years), whether to go off themselves to fight on other 

fronts, or whether to carry out attacks in the European 

countries where they resided. In the end, angered by 

the invasion of Iraq and other international events and 
95

further inspired both by certain public exhortations of 

Bin Ladin and online statements by other global jihadist militants, sometime in 2003 they definitively opted 

to carry out attacks inside Spain itself.192 Like many 

other countries in Europe, Spain was therefore transformed from a jihadist logistical “rearguard” base into 

a jihadist “frontline” objective or target of attack.193 In 

short, what occurred was essentially a restructuring 

of previously existing jihadist networks, including the 

one that had originally been formed by al-Qa‘ida operatives, not—as Atran and Sageman keep insisting—

the “self-generation” of an entirely new organization 

by “bunches of guys” with no tangible connections to 

veteran past or present jihadist networks.

It should also be pointed out, parenthetically, that 

not even Ahmidan’s criminal gang, or components 

thereof, could be fairly described in 2003 as a selfgenerating organization, since Ahmidan had initially 

formed his network of Moroccan criminals almost a 

decade earlier and still continued to direct it, even 

though the scale of its activities and its precise membership fluctuated over time, due in large part to periodic police crackdowns that resulted in the arrests of 

Ahmidan or his men. Even if that network could justly 

have been characterized as a self-generating criminal 

group way back in the mid-1990s, when it was first 

established, all “the Chinaman” had to do was reconstitute it when he was released from a Moroccan 

prison in 2003. Apart from Ahmidan’s imposition of 

new, religiously-derived strictures on his thugs, the 

main change was that, in the months leading up to the 

bombings, some of the most trustworthy members of 

his crew were made aware of the projected jihadist attacks and thus became bona fide members of the 3/11 

logistical cell, whereas others remained mere grunts 
96

who performed ancillary tasks but were unaware of 

Ahmidan’s true purposes. 

Second, many observers have argued that if Fakhit 

and his group had not befriended and collaborated 

with Jamal Ahmidan and his criminal gang, they would 

never have had the wherewithal to carry out a major 

terrorist attack in Spain.194 It is of course a historical 

fact that the increasing interaction between Fakhit and 

Ahmidan did in fact initiate a sequence of events that 

ultimately resulted in the 3/11 train bombings, but 

that is no reason to draw the conclusion that Fakhit’s 

group would have otherwise never been able to carry 

out such an attack. It is true that the operational group 

was temporarily short of resources, so much so that 

both Fakhit and Ahmidan made efforts to collect past 

debts in the weeks before 3/11,195 but this was mainly 

due to the crackdown on and resulting disruption of 

the al-Qa‘ida network and other jihadist groups in 

Europe in the wake of 9/11. At that particular juncture, it was indeed fortuitous that Fakhit befriended 

Ahmidan, and that one of Ahmidan’s men put the cell 

members in touch with Zuhayr, who then functioned 

as their intermediary with the Spanish criminals selling explosives in Asturias. However, when clever extremists really have the will, they usually manage to 

find a way to actualize their plans, however ineptly—

especially if they have had prior operational experience or receive direct guidance from others who are 

more operationally and technically proficient. No one 

can accurately predict the future course of events in 

an alternate history scenario that never unfolded, but 

the notion that Ahmidan and his crew were the only people 

in Spain or Europe who could have arranged for Fakhit’s 

acquisition of explosives is clearly unwarranted. Indeed, 

given the extensive contacts that various cell mem-
97

bers continued to maintain with other jihadists, it is 

entirely possible that they would have been able to exploit those contacts to find another supplier of explosives even if Ahmidan had never entered the picture. 

Whether obtaining dynamite and detonators from another source would have resulted in an IED attack on 

the Spanish railway system similar to that on 3/11 is, 

of course, anyone’s guess. 

Lastly, it is necessary to return to the categorization scheme devised and outlined above, which highlighted the fact that there are many possible levels of 

interaction between local cells and networks linked to 

al-Qa‘ida or other jihadist groups, and then endeavor 

to place the 3/11 cell within that framework. It seems 

clear that the Madrid bombers straddled two of the 

main categories listed in the scheme first delineated 

above. Many of the members of that cell had, in fact, 

originally been indoctrinated and recruited by operatives implanted in Europe by al-Qa‘ida or affiliated 

networks, above all the GICM. Even so, the cell does 

not fall unambiguously into the second category, since 

it may not have received ongoing assistance, however 

sporadic, from those parent organizations. However, 

it does not fall neatly into the third category either, i.e., 

a self-generating cell connected directly or indirectly 

to members of foreign jihadist networks, precisely because it was actually formed by several individuals who 

had previously been recruited by or otherwise associated 

with cells that had been implanted by foreign organizations. Hence, in order to fit the 3/11 case snugly into 

the above scheme, a new primary category needs to be 

added to it: jihadist cells formed by individuals who 

were previously recruited by and/or collaborating 

closely with operatives of foreign jihadist organiza-
98

tions. The revised scheme, with a new third category, 

is as follows:

1. Jihadist “hit teams” sent from abroad.

a. jihadist “hit teams” sent to Europe from elsewhere by al-Qa‘ida Central, usually after 

having been provided with specialized instruction (perhaps including in bomb-making skills) in training camps abroad, in order 

to launch terrorist operations and attacks 

themselves;

b. jihadist “hit teams” sent to Europe from elsewhere by al-Qa‘ida’s nominal or de facto regional affiliates, perhaps after obtaining specialized training in their respective countries, 

in order to carry out terrorist operations and 

attacks themselves;

c. jihadist “hit teams” sent to Europe from 

elsewhere by other veteran jihadist organizations, perhaps after obtaining specialized 

training in their respective countries, in order 

to carry out terrorist operations and attacks 

themselves;

2. ”Local” jihadist cells organized, supported, and/or 

directed from abroad.

a. “local” jihadist cells recruited and trained by 

al-Qa‘ida operatives implanted in Europe for 

that very purpose, and thereafter receiving 

periodic assistance of various types from alQa‘ida Central or its regional affiliates;

b. “local” jihadist cells recruited and trained 

by operatives sent by other veteran jihadist groups who were implanted in Europe, 

sometimes for that very purpose, and thereafter receiving periodic assistance of various 

types from their parent organizations;
99

3. Local jihadist cells formed by militants who had previously been radicalized and recruited by, or otherwise closely 

associated with, earlier local cells established by operatives 

working for foreign terrorist groups.

a. local jihadist cells formed by militants who 

were previously members of earlier local 

cells established by operatives working for 

al-Qa‘ida Central;

b. local jihadist cells formed by militants who 

were previously members of earlier local 

cells established by operatives working for 

al-Qa‘ida’s regional affiliates;

c. local jihadist cells formed by militants who 

were previously members of earlier local 

cells established by operatives working for 

other veteran jihadist groups;

4. Connected “self-generating” European jihadist cells.

a. “self-generating” European jihadist cells that 

are in direct contact with operatives from alQa‘ida Central;

b. “self-generating” European jihadist cells that 

are in direct contact with operatives from alQa‘ida’s regional affiliates;

c. “self-generating” European jihadist cells that 

are in direct contact with operatives from other veteran jihadist groups;

d. “self-generating” European jihadist cells that 

are connected indirectly, via intermediaries, 

to operatives from al-Qa‘ida Central, its regional affiliates, or other veteran jihadist 

groups;

e. “self-generating” European jihadist cells that 

are in direct contact with operatives from 

other European “self-generating” cells;
100

f. “self-generating” European jihadist cells that 

are connected indirectly, via intermediaries, 

to operatives from other European “self-generating” cells;

g. “self-generating” European jihadist cells that 

include individuals who are members of alQa‘ida or other foreign terrorist networks;

5. Isolated or fully autonomous “self-generating” European jihadist cells that are not connected in any way to 

members of any other jihadist groups or cells.

Hence, the 3/11 cell best conforms to category 3, the 

new intermediate category that has now been added 

to this scheme. Under no circumstances does it fit into 

category 5, as some have suggested.

The 3/11 Cell and Bomb-Making Expertise.

In the context of IED capabilities, the one question 

that might be even more important than the issue of 

whether the Madrid terrorist cell was linked to other 

jihadist organizations, from which they might have 

obtained expert assistance directly or indirectly, is 

whether any individual cell members had previously 

acquired hands-on personal experience or expertise 

in manufacturing explosive devices. Unfortunately, 

despite the voluminous information available in the 

judicial materials relating to the Madrid bombings, 

including the exhaustive forensic detail provided in 

the indictments and sentences about the bombs themselves and the remains and materials found in various 

locales used by cell members, this is not a question 

that can be definitively answered. Indeed, it is not 

even clear exactly who actually fabricated the devices 

that were later placed on the trains. Hence the best 
101

that one can do at the present time is to draw tentative 

conclusions about these crucial matters based on the 

incomplete information that is currently available in 

the public record.

The first place to begin, however, is with a brief 

reconstruction of the process by which the cell members managed to acquire the explosives and detonators that were used in the 3/11 attacks. The main point 

that needs to be made is that virtually all of the Goma2 ECO dynamite used in the train attacks and later 

detonated in the apartment in Leganés was obtained 

from the Conchita Mine in Asturias, which was owned 

by the Caolines de Merillés Company and situated in 

Calabazos near the Soto de la Barca dam.196 The course 

of events that resulted in the use of these materials in 

terrorist attacks began in September 2001, when Rafa 

Zuhayr and Antonio Toro Castro, two petty criminals 

imprisoned in the Centro Penitenciaro in Villabona 

(Asturias), befriended each other. After being released 

from prison, Toro introduced Zuhayr to his brotherin-law, José Emilio Suárez Trashorras. Unbeknownst 

to Toro, Zuhayr had been recruited as a confidential 

informant by the UCO of the GC in November 2001, 

prior to his release, and his UCO controller was the 

aforementioned Víctor. In exchange for a lighter sentence, Zuhayr had agreed to provide information on 

various illicit criminal activities to the GC. Initially he 

fingered some low-level dealers, who were then investigated and arrested by the police. In February 2003, 

however, he told Víctor that Toro intended to sell 150 

kilograms of explosives, which had been supplied to 

him by Suárez Trashorras, a former mineworker at 

the Conchita site. After tracing and locating the two 

men, the GC asked Zuhayr to tell the two Spaniards 

that he had possible buyers in Madrid, and to obtain a 
102

jar from them with some plastic explosives, which the 

Moroccan then delivered to GC officers at a commercial center in Madrid’s Las Rozas district. Later that 

year, however, when he was asked to broker a deal 

for those explosives, Zuhayr did not inform his UCO 

handler because he saw it as an opportunity to make 

a good profit.197

Meanwhile, in the autumn of 2003 Jamal Ahmidan 

asked some of his trusted associates to find someone 

who could obtain explosives, although he did not 

tell them that a jihadist cell he was involved with 

needed them to carry out bomb attacks. Rashid Aklif 

(nicknamed “El Conejo,” i.e., “the Rabbit,” due to his 

pronounced front teeth) remembered Rafa Zuhayr, 

a well-connected former associate of his with whom 

he had collaborated on previous drug deals.198 When 

Akhlif told Zuhayr that he needed explosives, Zuhayr 

offered to put him in contact with some criminals he 

knew in Asturias who trafficked in explosives and 

other illicit materials. After Zuhayr informed Toro 

that he had an interested customer, Toro and Suárez 

Trashorras drove to Madrid in early October and provided Zuhayr with a detonator, which the latter then 

displayed to Akhlif and Ahmidan at a meeting in his 

home on October 5, a meeting during which he accidentally triggered the detonator by applying a live 

wire to it, thereby slightly injuring everyone present. 

Three weeks later, on October 28, a meeting was arranged at a McDonald’s restaurant in Madrid’s Carabanchel district to finalize the deal. At that locale, Zuhayr brought Akhlif, Ahmidan, and an unidentified 

person to meet with Suárez Trashorras, Carmen Toro, 

and their friend Pablo Álvarez Moya; at the meeting 

Akhlif offered to make an exchange, whether of money 

or drugs, for 60 kilograms of dynamite. On November 
103

17, a second meeting occurred, this time between Antonio Toro, Carmen Toro, Suárez Trashorras, Ahmidan, Zuhayr, and Akhlif at another McDonald’s in the 

Moncloa district. Although the participants all subsequently claimed that they only spoke of drug deals at 

these meetings, this is scarcely believable given their 

frequent subsequent phone interactions and the fact 

that in just over a month, some of the Asturians’ “couriers” began bringing explosives to Madrid.199

In fact, in January and early February of 2004, three 

shipments of explosives were transported from Asturias to Madrid.200 On January 4, Suárez Trashorras 

asked one of his subordinates, Sergio Álvarez Sánchez 

(nicknamed “Amocachi”), to deliver a 40-kilogram 

bag the next day to someone who would be waiting at 

the Madrid bus station for it. In the mid-afternoon of 

January 5, Amocachi transferred the bag to Ahmidan 

and then boarded a bus to return to Oviedo, where he 

was paid in 700 euros’ worth of hashish. Four days 

later, Suárez Trahorras sent another of his underlings, 

Antonio Iván Reis Palicio (nicknamed “Jimmy”), to 

deliver a bag of hashish to a “Moor” in Madrid, in exchange for which he would cancel an existing 3,000 

euro drug debt. In this case, however, Ahmidan became annoyed with Jimmy during the exchange process, threatened to punch him, and took his mobile 

phone and the briefcase from him. Jimmy then returned to Oviedo empty-handed and, fearing retaliation despite Suárez Trashorras’ reassurances, took 

off for the Canary Islands. After further interchanges 

with Ahmidan and the refusal of another underling 

named Iván Granados Peña (nicknamed “Piranha”) to 

transport dynamite, on February 6 Suárez Trahorras 

sent Gabriel Montoya Vidal (nicknamed “El Gitanillo,” i.e., the “Little Gypsy”) to Madrid to deliver a bag 
104

full of explosives (in exchange for 1,000 euros). After 

arriving at the bus station, Montoya went to the Bar 

Virrey and called Ahmidan, using a prearranged code 

phrase, after which the latter arrived in a dark Opel 

Astra and took the bag. These and the larger quantities of explosives later sold to Ahmidan were pilfered 

from the Conchita mine with the connivance of certain 

employees there, including a security guard named 

Emilio Llano Álvarez, who helped “cook the books” 

to cover the missing explosives, and others who accepted bribes for allowing them into the mine and letting them steal various items.

Suárez Trashorras and Carmen Toro got married 

in mid-February, and thence went to the Canaries for 

their honeymoon (even though the groom continued to 

maintain regular phone contact with Ahmidan). This 

vacation, however, was rudely interrupted on February 26, when the newlyweds flew precipitously back 

to Madrid to meet with Ahmidan, who picked them up 

at the airport and drove them to the Chinchón house. 

Apparently, Ahmidan now wanted to acquire the rest 

of the explosives all at once rather than continuing to 

receive them in small increments. After discussing 

various matters, which led to a trivial spat over Mecca 

Cola between Carmen and Ahmidan that precipitated an Islamist rant by the latter, the parties agreed 

to exchange 6,000 euros and 35 kilograms of hashish 

for 200 kilograms of Goma-2 ECO. Suárez Trashorras 

and his wife then flew back to Asturias.201 Two days 

later, Ahmidan drove from Madrid to Asturias with 

Muhammad Awlad and Kunja‘a. After hooking up 

with Suárez Trashorras in Avilés, they followed the 

latter and Montoya to the area of the Conchita mine. 

Ahmidan and Suárez Trashorras then walked along a 

dangerous, icy path until they reached a certain loca-
105

tion near the mine, after which they came back and the 

three Moroccans drove to the nearby Carrefour commercial center, where they bought backpacks, sports 

bags, flashlights, gloves, batteries, food, and other 

items. The trio then returned by car to that same spot 

followed by Montoya, who waited nearby in his freezing car, and then spent several hours going back and 

forth up and down the path in order to collect the stolen explosives that had been placed there, which they 

then stored in their vehicle. All four men then drove 

to Avilés, where they stored the materials in Suárez 

Trashorras’ garage. They then returned to Conchitas 

and collected more explosives, after which they returned to the garage and transferred everything they 

had gathered into another car.202

The following day, instead of traveling directly 

from Asturias to the Chinchón house to unload his dangerous and illegal cargo, Ahmidan called al-Ghanawi 

and asked him to drive north towards Burgos and 

bring Rifa‘at, Rashid Awlad, and a “large nail” (the 

cell’s code word for a rifle) with him. Ahmidan and 

his two companions then drove, in very treacherous 

winter conditions, in a caravan of two cars towards 

Burgos. On the way, in Sotopalacios, Ahmidan was 

recorded driving too fast and was pulled over by GC 

officers who—astonishingly given that the car was 

stolen and had false registration, that Ahmidan had a 

forged Belgian passport, and that knives and other incriminating materials were found in the car—simply 

issued fines for three minor offenses and let him go 

on his way. The three cars full of Ahmidan’s men then 

rendezvoused in Burgos, for reasons unknown. Later 

that evening, they drove down from Burgos together in a three-car “caravan of death” to the Chinchón 

house, where they unloaded a substantial portion of 
106

the bomb materials they had collected.203 In order to 

facilitate the storage and concealment of those materials, Ahmidan’s brother Hamid and al-Ghanawi dug 

a large hole in the ground under a shed next to the 

house, which they lined with a synthetic expanded 

polystyrene (EPS) material called “porespán” and 

then covered it in such a way that it was indistinguishable from the soil around it.204

It is at this crucial point that vital details about the 

fabrication of the bombs become somewhat murky, 

in particular exactly when this process commenced 

and precisely who actually constructed the devices 

that were used on 3/11. There is no doubt, however, 

that the Chinchón house had been owned since 1997 

by Nayat Fadl Muhammad, the wife of Muhammad 

Nidal, a Syrian who was arrested along with Abu 

Dahdah and other al-Qa‘ida cell members in November 2001, or that it had thence been rented by Nidal’s 

brother Walid al-Taraki to the Moroccan jihadist alMaymuni in 2002. After he moved out, the property 

was listed for rent by the Arconsa company (owned 

by the Rustam brothers from Syria), where Fakhit 

worked selling real estate.205 Apparently, Ahmidan 

himself began hanging out at the property as early as 

November 2003, although he did not officially rent it 

(under the pseudonym Yusuf ibn Salah) until January 

2004. At some point he also began holding weekend 

get-togethers there with his friends and co-conspirators, including Fakhit, Zugham, the Awlad brothers, 

Amghar, and ‘Abd al-Rahim al-Zabak (nicknamed 

“El Químico,” i.e., “the Chemist”), another Moroccan 

from Tangiers who had an academic background in 

the chemical sciences.206 The general consensus of the 

Spanish police investigators is that it was not until a 

week or so before the attacks that members of the cell 
107

actually began manufacturing the IEDs, and it was not 

until the night before that the phones were activated 

and the timers and detonators tested. In this connection, some have claimed that Ahmidan told many of 

his closest associates to stay away from the Chinchón 

house in the 2 weeks prior to the 3/11 attacks.207 Nevertheless, both eyewitness testimony and forensic 

evidence of various kinds, including fingerprints and 

DNA residues, demonstrated that several associates 

of Ahmidan and Fakhit had spent time at that locale 

in recent months. Among these were Ahmidan and 

Fakhit themselves, Jamal’s brothers Hisham and Hamid, Zugham, al-Zabak, Awnani, Abu Shar, and alGhanawi.208

However that may be, a lack of specific and verifiable information, due in part to the fact that those who 

might have shed light on these matters “martyred” 

themselves in Leganés, has made it practically impossible for outsiders to determine exactly who was 

entrusted with building the bombs. As a result, there 

has been an understandable degree of unconfirmed—

and perhaps unconfirmable—speculation about who, 

in fact, was directly involved, whether by serving as 

the primary bomb maker(s) or by carrying out various 

peripheral tasks, which has in turn led to the promulgation of contrasting theories, conspiratorial or 

otherwise. For example, certain Spanish policemen 

operated under the assumption that unscrupulous 

miners who were familiar with explosives, like Suárez 

Trashorras, showed Ahmidan how to make bombs.209

In contrast, two Spanish journalists have suggested 

that once the cell members had acquired the dynamite 

and detonators, all they had to do was follow the instructions found in an online al-Qa‘ida manual that 

they had downloaded from the Internet, just as the 
108

2003 Casablanca bombers had earlier done.210 Other 

analysts, instead, have implied that certain individuals within the jihadist milieu that seem to have had 

the requisite levels of technical knowledge—such as 

Muhammad the Egyptian or Sa‘ad Husayni, head of 

the GICM’s military committee and an explosives expert—may have provided guidance if not hands-on 

assistance.211 On the other hand, some observers with 

a more conspiratorial mindset have hypothesized that 

the cell members had obtained such technical assistance from professional bomb makers outside of the 

jihadist milieu, whether a group of etarras or personnel associated with various secret services.212 Alas, as 

noted above, it is not presently possible to identify 

who actually fabricated the explosive devices used 

in the Madrid bombings. Hence it is also not yet possible to use the 3/11 case to test our tentative general 

hypothesis that, in the absence of experienced bomb 

makers, it is far less likely that jihadist cells will be 

able to carry out highly destructive IED attacks, much 

less longer-term IED campaigns.

Nevertheless, despite these important factual lacunae concerning the bomb-making process and the key 

participants in it at various stages, the Madrid case still 

serves to highlight many of the issues that are—and 

are likely to remain—vitally important for assessing 

the operational capabilities of jihadist cells in Western countries, including the potential IED threat that 

they might end up posing. This is especially true with 

respect to the importance of their direct and indirect 

connections to components of other jihadist networks, 

whether they are based in Muslim countries abroad 

or elsewhere in Europe itself. In the process, as emphasized above, it enables us to undermine, though 

not entirely demolish, certain problematic notions 
109

currently being peddled by Sageman and his acolytes 

concerning the supposedly amateurish, unconnected 

nature of jihadist cells in the West.

At the same time, the Madrid case also illustrates 

just how important blind luck and a host of other serendipitous factors might be in leading to successful 

or unsuccessful attacks. After all, the members of the 

3/11 cell made numerous mistakes in tradecraft, ranging from engaging in reckless behavior on the eve of 

the attacks that could easily have resulted in the derailment of the entire plot due to leaving vital evidence, 

both at the scene of the attacks and elsewhere. In the 

final analysis, it was perhaps only the much greater 

blunders committed by the security forces, including 

repeatedly ignoring or failing to act upon vital information obtained from confidential informants or during the course of the decade-long close surveillance 

of many of the cell members, that made it possible for 

the attacks to be carried out successfully on March 11. 

One point that must always be kept in mind is that “to err 

is human,” for oftentimes the success or failure of a particular terrorist plot is primarily determined by which side 

makes more errors, or more serious errors, or errors at more 

crucial junctures. Since in these contexts one is always 

dealing with intrinsically flawed human beings and 

not perfectly-functioning machines, predictive efforts 

undertaken in the counterterrorism realm must never 

ignore or minimize human foibles and fallibilities—either our enemies’ or our own.

THE JULY 2006 GERMAN TRAIN BOMBINGS

At 11:00 am on July 31, 2006, two young Lebanese 

Islamists residing in Germany exited an apartment 

on Peter-Bauer-Strasse and took a train from the Eh-
110

renfeld district in Cologne to the city’s central train 

station. One of them, Yusuf Muhammad al-Hajj Dib, 

then boarded Train RE 12519 from Mönchengladbach 

to Coblenz, placed a suitcase with an IED inside in one 

of the cars, and then exited the train. The other, Jihad 

Hamad, took Train RE 10121 from Aachen to Hamm, 

deposited a second suitcase bomb in the car he was 

riding in, and exited the train at the Deutz station. AlHajj Dib had set the timing devices in the bombs for 

2:35 p.m., at which point RE 12519 would have been 

in the vicinity of the Urmiz-Rhein bridge stop and RE 

10121 would have been passing the Kamen station. 

Had the explosives detonated, 50-60 people who were 

in the same car in the former train would likely have 

been killed instantly, whereas about 15 would have 

been immediately killed in the latter train. However, 

a minor mistake made by al-Hajj Dib in the process of 

constructing the bombs caused both devices to fail to 

detonate, thereby inadvertently saving the lives—according to the German authorities—of perhaps hundreds of people. At 2:55 that same afternoon, both 

men left Germany on Turkish Airlines’ flight TK 1672, 

bound for Istanbul. They then proceeded to Tripoli, 

where al-Hajj Dib’s older brother Khalid Khayr al-Din 

al-Hajj Dib (alias Abu ‘Abd al-Rahman) waited for 

them. Both terrorists planned to go on to Iraq to wage 

jihad against the Americans, but 7 days after the attempted bombings al-Hajj Dib’s father persuaded his 

son Yusuf to return to Germany to complete his studies. Two weeks later, the Bundeskriminalamt (Federal 

Criminal [Police] Office [BKA]) released the surveillance videos from the Cologne train station, which 

apparently caused al-Hajj Dib to panic. Fortunately, 

a message sent by the BKA’s liaison officer in Beirut 

at 8:51 that same evening to his colleagues back home 
111

revealed that a Lebanese student in Kiel was planning 

to leave Germany hastily and travel to Sweden to stay 

with his sister. A special police unit then arrested alHajj Dib in the Kiel central station at 3:53 a.m. After 

his arrest, the police searched his student residence at 

Steenbeker Weg 20 and found various incriminating 

materials.213 His partner Hamad was then arrested in 

Lebanon.

It soon became clear that Yusuf al-Hajj Dib and his 

brother Khalid had been radicalized quite some time 

before, since the police found last wills and testaments 

on the former’s computer prepared by both of them, 

in the latter’s case dating to the end of 2005. Indeed, 

Khalid’s home in Sweden was said to be a meeting 

place for Islamist extremists.214 On the other hand, 

Yusuf seems to have played an instrumental role in 

radicalizing Hamad and involving him in this failed 

terrorist plot. According to the testimony of Hamad, 

he first became acquainted with al-Hajj Dib through 

his cousin, after which the duo began exchanging 

emails and phone calls. In April 2006 Hamad traveled 

from Cologne to Kiel, where al-Hajj Dib was taking 

a university preparatory course for foreign students, 

and temporarily moved in with him. Al-Hajj Dib immediately began showing the impressionable Hamad 

jihadist propaganda, including videos of mujahidin in 

combat, speeches by Bin Ladin broadcast on al-Jazira, 

fatwas condemning both the U.S. invasions of Muslim 

countries, and the publication of the cartoons of Muhammad by a Danish newspaper (which Hamad had 

never seen before).215 He then began urging him to join 

the struggle, insisting that his services were needed 

and asking if he would be willing to participate in 

an attack. By the late spring of 2006, Hamad himself 

had fully embraced al-Qa‘ida’s global jihadist ideology, crammed his laptop with jihadist materials, and 
112

was posting messages on a jihadist blogsite under the 

name “deutscherhamad” (“German Hamad”), using a 

picture of Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi to identify himself. 

As Hamad later put it, “Yusuf had me in his thrall.”216

Moreover, according to Hamad, al-Hajj Dib was already trawling the Internet for instructions about how 

to make bombs, and by mid-May the pair had begun 

planning terrorist attacks in Germany. Their original 

plan had been to set off bombs in a packed stadium 

during the June-July Fédération International de Football Association (International Federation of Association Soccer [FIFA]) World Cup matches, or perhaps (if 

photos found in Hamad’s cell phone are indicative) 

in Cologne’s city center. In June, al-Hajj Dib showed 

Hamad a video in Arabic, entitled “The Use of the 

Gas Canister as an Explosive Charge,” that he had 

downloaded from a jihadist website, a video that provided relative amateurs with instructions about how 

to use materials obtained from building supply stores 

to make bombs that would be cheap to manufacture 

and highly destructive in their effects.217 The two then 

endeavored to follow those instructions by purchasing two canisters of propane gas labeled “Tyczka” 

from Bauhaus stores (one in Cologne and the other 

in Frechen), alarm clocks, and batteries in a One Euro 

department store in their neighborhood, and four and 

a half liters of gasoline and diesel fuel from a nearby 

Shell garage. They then used the assembled ingredients to fabricate bombs that Hamad initially admitted 

were designed “to kill as many people as possible.”218

Finally, al-Hajj Dib attached an alarm clock to a cable 

to test whether the Christmas light bulbs he had gotten would light up, which they did, thereby seemingly 

demonstrating that the clock could ignite the device. 

Tests later conducted by the Bundesanstalt für Ma-
113

terialforschung und-Prüfung (Federal Institute for 

Material Research and Testing [BAM]) revealed the 

devastating impact that such devices could potentially have, since if they were also filled with oxygen, 

they could produce a fireball with a diameter of up to 

15 meters and discharge shrapnel that could reach as 

far as 100 meters. If diesel was added to the mixture, 

as al-Hajj Dib and Hamad had done, the size of the 

fireball could be further augmented.219 To make matters worse, the pair had added bags of corn starch to 

one of the suitcase bombs so that the powder therein 

would be transformed by the explosion into a type of 

napalm that would have covered the passengers with 

a scorching oil film.220 That is why the German authorities concluded that, had the two devices exploded, it 

could have been one of the worst Islamist terrorist attacks on European soil.

Unlike in the case of the Madrid bombings, fortunately, there are far fewer mysteries about the provenance of the information used by the German train 

bombers to fabricate their suitcase bombs, and there 

was no doubt at all that they themselves constructed 

the devices. However, chemists at the BKA believed 

that the video lacked certain vitally important information that limited its usefulness for novices unfamiliar with pressurized gases. As a result, due to the 

way the devices were constructed, it would have been 

impossible for them to detonate because the mixture 

of gasoline and oxygen that was needed to ignite 

them was absent. In short, the two would-be jihadists 

were unable to insert a specific oxygen mixture into 

the bottles (a technique shown in the video), so there 

was only “one fuel and one adequate ignition source,” 

which in lieu of an oxidizing agent is not enough for 

a functioning bomb.221 Indeed, according to Bodo Ple-
114

winsky, an explosives expert, “the bombs were built 

rather amateurishly.”222 Later, Hamad contradicted 

his earlier testimony by claiming that the pair had intentionally placed nonfunctioning suitcase devices in 

the trains as a protest against the Danish publication 

of the Muhammad cartoons, but this belated claim is 

scarcely credible, given all of the other indicators that 

he and al-Hajj Dib had planned to carry out a mass 

casualty attack.

Hence it is clear that the bomb plot initiated by the 

two men failed simply because they had made a crucial technical mistake that prevented the devices they 

had constructed from exploding. This case therefore 

suggests that, in the absence of requisite levels of technical proficiency, it will remain difficult for would-be 

jihadists to carry out successful IED attacks, which 

is exactly what one would expect. On the one hand, 

experts often find technical mistakes in the bombmaking manuals posted on the Internet, which would 

obviously create problems even if particular individuals followed those recommendations precisely. On 

the other, rank amateurs may not be able to follow 

the instructions in manuals to the letter, especially if 

they are somewhat complicated, even if the information therein turns out to be accurate. In short, if a combination of deficiencies in operational tradecraft and 

built-in technical limitations is likely to undermine the 

ability of inexperienced jihadist cell members to carry out even one highly destructive IED attack, these 

same obstacles would surely inhibit their prosecution 

of longer-term IED campaigns.

A few final remarks should be made about the apparent international connections of the two German 

train bombers, even though those connections might 

have had no direct relevance, at least in this particular 
115

instance, to their efforts to fabricate IEDs. Hamad initially claimed that their bomb attacks were motivated 

by anger over the publication of the Muhammad cartoons. However, it soon became clear that this was a 

bogus rationale, given that al-Hajj Dib and several of 

his relatives, even those back in Lebanon, had long 

embraced radical Islamist and pro-jihadist ideologies. 

At most, then, the cartoons simply provided one more 

pretext, not that any were needed given their worldview, to justify their pre-existing desire to carry out 

attacks on the “infidels.” In actuality, as journalist 

Hubert Gude notes, al-Hajj Dib and Hamad can “no 

longer be assumed to be two simple-minded Lebanese 

students who had mutated into extremists in Germany 

on their own initiative,” since “[a]ccording to Hamad, 

the militant duo maintained close contacts with radical warriors of God [Gotteskriegern], both at home and 

abroad.”223

Among the groups that al-Hajj Dib may have been 

indoctrinated and/or influenced by, both in Lebanon 

and in Germany, was the Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Liberation Party [HT]), which was originally 

founded in Jordan in the 1950s but is now headquartered in London and has branches throughout Europe and Central Asia. The ultimate agenda of this 

cult-like group is extremely radical and thoroughly 

anti-democratic and anti-Western: to re-establish the 

Caliphate and thence complete the Islamization of the 

dar al-harb through a combination of da‘wa (missionary 

work) and armed jihad.224 Although the organization 

publicly claims to be nonviolent, its actual view is that 

it is permissible for Muslims to wage “defensive jihad” anytime that Islam comes under attack, whereas 

“offensive jihad” can only be undertaken after the reestablishment of the Caliphate, since only a legitimate 
116

Caliph can authorize it. Moreover, there is evidence 

that HT has frequently served as an ideological incubator for individual Muslims who thence went on 

to join jihadist groups, which raises the question of 

whether the organization functions, inadvertently or 

consciously, as a kind of de facto “transmission belt” 

for jihadist organizations. However that may be, the 

German authorities were sufficiently alarmed about 

HT’s openly anti-Semitic activities that they officially 

banned the group on January 15, 2003.225 Nevertheless, no evidence has yet been forthcoming that HT, 

as an organization, played a direct role in radicalizing 

al-Hajj Dib or Hamad, although its extremist doctrines 

may have indirectly exerted an impact upon them.226

In any case, al-Hajj Dib was an Islamist fanatic who 

already admired the 9/11 hijackers when he first arrived in Germany, so much so that in the fall of 2004 he 

visited the al-Quds mosque in Hamburg, where ‘Ata’ 

and several of his fellow plotters had once prayed. 

Afterwards, when al-Hajj Dib returned to Kiel, he reportedly mimicked the recruitment methods adopted 

by the 9/11 terrorists, e.g., by organizing a prayer 

circle with like-minded students and making contacts 

with Islamists at the ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab mosque on 

Kiel’s Diedrichstrasse, a notorious meeting place for 

Islamist radicals that drew its ideological inspiration 

from the teachings of Yusuf al-Qaradawi. At that same 

mosque, he met German-Moroccan shop owner Ridwan al-H., an alleged al-Qa‘ida courier who had links 

to militants in London and was reportedly entrusted 

with delivering messages to the ex-wife of Sa‘id bin alHajji, a member of the Hamburg terrorist cell.227 There 

are also many indications that al-Hajj Dib and Hamad 

were subsequently inspired by the brutal campaigns 

of violence carried out in Iraq by al-Zarqawi, whose 
117

al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad organization had established 

an elaborate support network in Europe, above all in 

Germany. Indeed, one of their proclaimed motives for 

attempting the suitcase bomb attacks was supposedly 

to avenge the recent death of al-Zarqawi at the hands 

of the Americans. There is no evidence, however, that 

the pair had tangible links to the Zarqawi network in 

Germany. Even so, the German authorities have come 

to believe that the attempted train bombings might 

have been a test of the commitment of al-Hajj Dib 

and Hamad, who in the event of success could have 

qualified themselves to participate in future al-Qa‘ida 

missions in Iraq. The evidence cited in support of this 

claim was that, in an email he sent to Hamad 6 weeks 

before the attack, al-Hajj Dib wrote that they would 

need to be patient for a little longer “until we have totally made it and passed the initiation test. Then we’ll 

travel to Iraq together.”228

Lastly, some have suggested that the German suitcase bomb plot was covertly initiated or sponsored by 

a Sunni Lebanese jihadist organization called Fath alIslam (Islamic Conquest), which broke away from a 

pro-Syrian jihadist group called Fath al-Intifada (Uprising Conquest) and established its base in the Nahr 

al-Barid Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut.229 The reason is that Yusuf’s brother Saddam al-Hajj Dib was 

not only a jihadist militant and a suspect in the train 

bombing scheme, but also a very high-ranking member of the Fath al-Islam group who was killed in May 

2007 in the course of fighting against the Lebanese 

Army.230 The problem with this theory is that the Fath 

al-Islam group appears not to have been officially established until several months after the summer 2006 

train bombings, although it is possible that jihadist elements from earlier Lebanese organizations that later 
118

coalesced in Fath al-Islam might have played some 

behind-the-scenes role which is presently unclear. 

At the time of this writing, however, this hypothesis 

lacks evidentiary support. 

Whatever organizational connections these two 

suitcase bombers might have had, it is clear from their 

eventual failure that none of those connections provided them with sufficient wherewithal—in the form 

of professional bomb-making instruction or handson training—to enable them to resolve the technical 

glitches that prevented their artisanal devices from exploding. Hence it must be assumed that the sum total 

of their bomb-making knowledge was derived from 

the aforementioned video (and perhaps other materials) that they downloaded from the Internet. In that 

sense, it might be irrelevant whether this particular 

duo did or did not constitute a genuine self-generating 

jihadist cell, and also whether there were other German or Lebanese members of their small group (some 

of whom had at various points been dubbed the “third 

man” and the “fourth man” by the German press), 

questions that cannot yet be answered with certainty. 

Even so, this case highlights the fact that, in lieu of 

at least a minimal amount of bomb-making training 

or experience, would-be jihadists will generally find it 

difficult to fabricate effective IEDs.
119

PART IV:

CONCLUSION

At the risk of disappointing readers, it should be 

emphasized at this juncture that the purpose of the 

above analysis has not been to answer definitively the 

question of whether small jihadist cells in the West will 

normally be capable of carrying out highly destructive 

improvised explosive device (IED) attacks or, worse 

still, a series of such attacks that effectively constitute 

a veritable IED campaign. Given the uniqueness of 

every case, and the varying skill and capability levels 

of the perpetrators who may be involved, especially 

with respect to IED fabrication, it is not possible to 

make such a general determination, much less—as social scientists often futilely presume to do—actually 

predict the course of future events. Hence it would be 

problematic, to say the least, to offer the sort of unequivocal recommendations that purport to provide 

an actionable guide for policymakers or intelligence 

personnel. In the final analysis, there are probably 

far too many contingent factors involved to be able 

to draw definitive conclusions that will be applicable 

in every context, so the most that one can reasonably 

hope to do is help illuminate and identify the crucial 

factors involved, not all of which will necessarily be 

operative in particular cases, and thereby hopefully 

make a small contribution to the formulation of better educated guesses about likely probabilities. (Note, 

moreover, that quantifying these sorts of “guesstimates” does not necessarily make them any more accurate or predictive, i.e., “scientific,” despite their superficial façade of precision.) In short, the aim herein 

has been far more modest: to examine two recent cases 
120

of attempted IED attacks in Europe, operations which 

had very different results, in an effort to highlight and 

illustrate some of the key factors that might affect the 

effectiveness of future jihadist IED attacks in the West.

Yet even though no formal hypothesis testing or 

predictive claims are involved, a number of provisional conclusions can hopefully be drawn that may 

prove useful. First, small groups of amateurs without 

tangible connections to experienced terrorist groups are 

unlikely to be able to carry out sustained campaigns of IED 

attacks over a significant period, even if they do successfully manage to launch one or two very destructive attacks.

In general, their built-in limitations in terms of access 

to resources and technical capabilities, coupled with 

probable deficiencies in tradecraft, will seriously inhibit their operational effectiveness, including their 

ability to carry out an extended series of IED attacks. 

In fact, such limitations might prevent them from carrying out even a single successful IED attack, as the 

example of the German train bombers indicates. This 

is not, however, a certainty, since such amateur groups 

might be unusually lucky or simply end up making 

less egregious blunders than their counterparts in the 

security forces. Moreover, if even one cell member 

happens to possess the requisite levels of bomb-making experience or expertise, the group might be able to 

pull off one or more bloody attacks despite its general 

lack of professionalism. In such a context, serendipity 

often plays a role.

Second, jihadist cells whose members are linked in 

various ways to veteran terrorist organizations, or perhaps 

even to experienced criminal networks, are arguably much 

more likely to be able to carry out successful IED attacks 

and campaigns than those who are members of unconnected 

or unaffiliated groups. This is because it is more prob-
121

able in these situations that they will establish more 

contacts and interactions with people who can muster sufficient resources, operate well clandestinely, 

or perhaps even provide hands-on training in bomb 

making, all of which could augment their capabilities 

far beyond what might normally be expected.

Third, small cells that happen to include or interact directly with individuals with bomb-making experience are 

more likely to be able to carry out destructive IED attacks 

and longer-term IED campaigns. This would appear to 

be a self-evident proposition, though many other factors are of course also involved.

Fourth, one can never overlook the possibility that, in 

certain instances, lucky or talented amateurs might nonetheless succeed in launching devastating IED attacks or 

campaigns despite all of the odds against them, not the least 

of which are those related to their own likely commission of 

serious errors in tradecraft. The probabilities of this occurring, however, are relatively low. That is the good 

news.

It would be much more reassuring, from a security standpoint, if one could conclude that only jihadist cells made up of veteran terrorists who are linked 

directly and organically to wider networks would be 

able to carry out successful IED attacks or campaigns 

in Western countries. Although these connected cells, 

all things being equal, are surely more likely to be able 

to do so than small groups of amateurs, such a smug 

assumption would be rash and premature. Indeed, it 

should instead be assumed that, in at least a few cases, 

amateur “bunches of guys” without any connections to 

foreign terrorist networks, and thus relatively deficient in 

terms of resources and expertise, will nevertheless succeed 

in perpetrating bloody mass casualty attacks with IEDs. 

After all, the historical record provides examples of 

just such attacks. That is the bad news.
122

However, that same historical record has repeatedly revealed, in contradistinction to the claims of 

Sageman and especially Atran, that as yet there have 

been very few actual examples of successful attacks, IED or 

otherwise, being carried out in the West by unconnected, 

fully autonomous cells composed entirely of amateurs. Indeed, such a characterization of the recent and present jihadist threat is in my opinion largely a myth or, 

to put it another way, a “ridiculous distortion.”231 As 

terrorist plots planned or carried out in Britain have 

repeatedly illustrated, information has eventually surfaced that only serves to confirm the interconnections 

between local European jihadist cells and veteran terrorist organizations abroad, up to and including the 

provision of operational assistance by the latter to the 

former—despite official and unofficial initial claims 

to the contrary.232 Indeed, most of the cases that have 

previously been cited as examples of unconnected 

“bottom-up” or “self-generating” jihadist groups, 

such as that of the Hofstadgroep (Capital City Group) 

in the Netherlands, do not fully conform to this overly 

simplistic portrayal, since if nothing else those groups 

usually turn out to have extensive linkages to other 

jihadist cells in Europe.233 At the very least, such formulations have often been premature and exaggerated since, as has been emphasized above, most such 

cases in Europe have in reality been characterized by 

a complex combination of bottom-up and top-down 

processes.
123

ENDNOTES 

1. See Committee on Defeating Improvised Explosive Devices, Countering the Threat of Improvised Explosive Devices: Basic 

Research to Interrupt the IED Delivery Chain, Washington, DC: National Academies, 2007, p. 1-1.

2. This is justly noted in Ibid., p. 1-6.

3. The definition of terrorism that I have been using for the 

past 25 years is as follows: “the use or threatened use of violence, 

directed against victims selected for their symbolic or representative value, as a means of instilling anxiety in, transmitting one or 

more messages to, and thereby manipulating the perceptions and 

behavior of wider target audience(s).” In short, terrorism is nothing more than a violent technique of psychological manipulation, 

and like all other techniques or tactics it can be—and historically 

has been—employed by all sorts of protagonists and for a vast 

array of causes (e.g., by states, on behalf of states, and in opposition to states, by leftists, rightists, and centrists, by the religious 

and the irreligious, etc.). One qualification that needs to be made, 

however, is that the term “terrorism” should only be applied to 

asymmetric conflicts lest it be confused or conflated with efforts 

to influence wider audiences in the context of conventional military operations. Note also, in the interests of terminological precision, that the term “terror” refers to a psychological state marked 

by fear and anxiety, and must therefore be distinguished from 

terrorism. There is no such thing as a “terror network,” only a 

“terrorist network.” 

4. Countering the Threat of Improvised Explosive Devices, p. 1-2.

5. Chris Quillen has noted that many “traditional” terrorist 

groups were either “not capable of or not interested in causing 

mass casualties” (italics added), an important point that needs 

to be kept in mind when considering the potential diffusion and 

adoption of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) even though 

“too many groups have failed to follow this tradition.” See Chris 

Quillen, “A Historical Analysis of Mass Casualty Bombers,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 25, No. 5, 2002, p. 284.
124

6. As noted, the Nuclei Territoriali Antiimperialisti (NTA) did 

carry out several bombings, normally by placing IEDs under the 

parked vehicles of American servicemen. However, rather than 

being used to cause mass casualties or even to kill carefully selected individuals, they were instead generally detonated in the 

very early mornings when no one was inside the vehicles and few 

people were walking around, and were thus essentially intended 

as warnings. Yet despite its avoidance of mass casualty attacks, 

the NTA sought to link its own actions to those of the “fighting 

revolutionary vanguards that, under the guidance of the antiimperialist Bin Laden through [their] exemplary [1998] attacks 

on the [African] embassies of the U.S. enemy, had known how to 

capitalize on years of hard work and promote the international 

anti-imperialist front” within the overall context of the confrontation between the forces of imperialism and anti-imperialism. The 

relevant excerpts from this Brigate Rosse (BR) document are cited 

by Gianni Cipriani, Brigate Rosse: La minaccia del nuovo terrorismo

(Red Brigades: The Threat of the New Terrorism), Milan, Italy: Sperling & Kupfer, 2004, p. 253, note 40. This may have been related 

to the new BR’s broader efforts to forge what they referred to as 

a “Fighting Anti-Imperialist Front” with other terrorist groups. 

See Otello Lupacchini, Il ritorno delle Brigate rosse: Una sanguinosa 

illusione (The Return of the Red Brigades: A Bloody Illusion), Rome, 

Italy: Koinè, 2005, pp. 239-49. It is clear that there were significant 

differences of opinion within this milieu about whether Islamists 

should be viewed as allies in the struggle. 

7. See, e.g., Qur’an 9:73, 9:123, and 8:60 (explicit justification 

for terrorizing infidels).

8. Cf., e.g., Qur’an 2:194 and 16.126; Usama bin Ladin, October 

21, 2001, interview with Taysir Alluni of al-Jazira, and an alleged 

member of the al-Qa‘ida network in Spain, reproduced in Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden, Bruce Lawrence, ed., London, UK, and New York: Verso, 2005, p. 114; the 

statements by Sulayman Abu Ghayth, a Qa‘idat al-Jihad spokesman who argued that Muslims have the right to kill four million 

Americans to compensate for the crimes and casualties allegedly 

perpetrated against Muslims by their “satanic” government; and 

pro-jihadist Saudi shaykh Nasir ibn Hamid al-Fahd, who issued 

a fatwa claiming that the use of weapons of mass destruction 

(WMD) against the United States to kill 10 million Americans was 
125

justified. See, respectively, Sulayman Abu Ghayth, “In the Shade 

of Lances, Part I: Why We Fight America,” June 12, 2002, which 

originally appeared on al-Qa‘ida’s al-Nida (The Call) website before the site was hacked and shut down, quoted in translation and 

available from www.memri.org/bin/printerfriendly/pf.cgi; and Nasir 

ibn Hamid al-Fahd, “Risala fi hukm istikhdam ‘aslihat al-damar 

al-shamil didh al-kuffar” (“A Treatise on the Legal Status of Using Weapons of Mass Destruction against Infidels”), May 21, 2003, 

originally available from www.al-fhd.com/rsayl/doc/rsayl.damar.doc.

9. See, e.g., Usama bin Ladin, “Why We Are Fighting You,” 

translated in The Al Qaeda Reader, Raymond Ibrahim, ed., and 

trans., New York: Broadway, 2007, esp. pp. 200-201; Ayman alZawahiri, “Jihad, Martyrdom, and the Killing of Innocents,” 

translated in Ibid., pp. 141-71. One of the arguments frequently 

employed by jihadists is that American civilians are legitimate 

targets because, by living in a democracy and voting, they are 

directly complicit in their elected government’s “crimes” against 

Muslims.

10. For an emphasis on Qa‘idat al-Jihad’s less than fully conscious and rational or “expressive” behavioral drivers, see Jeffrey 

M. Bale, “Jihadist Ideology and Strategy and the Possible Employment of ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’,” in Jihadists and Weapons 

of Mass Destruction, Gary Ackerman and Jeremy Tamsett, eds., 

New York: CRC Press, 2009, pp. 3-59. Therein I also argue that 

the transnational jihadists have utopian, delusional, expansionist, and frankly imperialistic agendas that cannot possibly be appeased, not—as Michael Scheuer and certain other analysts keep 

stubbornly insisting—defensive, limited, and pragmatic goals 

that are negotiable. In marked contrast, nationalist, tribally-based, 

and Ba’athist insurgents in countries like Iraq can be negotiated 

with and offered deals of various kinds, as was illustrated by the 

growing cooperation between elements of these groups and U.S. 

troops against the Tanzim Qa‘idat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (alQa‘ida in Mesopotamia). On the Afghan-Pakistan frontier, there 

also seem to be many opportunities for making deals, at least temporarily, with tribal groups and warlords.

11. Cf., in the European context, see Lorenzo Vidino, Al Qaeda 

in Europe: The New Battleground of International Jihad, Amherst, NY: 

Prometheus, 2006, who emphasizes the interconnections between 
126

wider networks and various jihadist plots in Europe, without 

claiming that they are centrally directed by al-Qa‘ida; Marc Sageman, Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century, 

Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania, 2008, who promotes the localized “bunch of guys” interpretation that he first 

elaborated in Understanding Terror Networks, Philadelphia, PA: 

University of Pennsylvania, 2004.

12. See, e.g., Luke Harding and Rosie Cowan, “Pakistan militants linked to London attack,” The Guardian [London], July 19, 

2005.

13. See Part III below.

14. For a relatively well-known example, see Dominique 

Thomas, Le Londonistan: La voie du jihad, Paris, France: Michalon, 

2003; and Jeffrey M. Bale, “Hiding in Plain Sight in ‘Londonistan,’” in Michael Innes, ed., Denial of Sanctuary: Understanding 

Terrorist Safe Havens, Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007, pp. 139-151, 

192-198. In this instance, unfortunately, jihadists from throughout 

the Muslim world were apparently able to establish external support apparatuses in London and other British cities thanks in part 

to a tacit “covenant of security” that they brokered with elements 

of the British security services.

15. As has recently been emphasized by, e.g., Michael Kenney, From Pablo to Osama: Trafficking and Terrorist Networks, Government Bureaucracies, and Competitive Advantage, University Park, 

PA: Pennsylvania State University, 2007. See further Section II 

of this monograph. For evidence of learning and adaptation, see 

also the various jihadist “strategic” treatises that have appeared 

online, such as those of Abu Mus‘ab al-Suri and ‘Abd al-‘Aziz alMuqrin. For analyses of two of these treatises, see, respectively, 

Brynjar Lia, Architect of Global Jihad: The Life of Al-Qaeda Strategist 

Abu Mus‘ab al-Suri, New York: Columbia University, 2008; and 

Norman Cigar, Al-Qa‘ida’s Doctrine of Insurgency: ‘Abd al-‘Aziz 

al-Muqrin’s A Practical Course for Guerrilla War, Washington, DC: 

Potomac, 2009.

16. See Kenney’s valuable unpublished report prepared for 

the U.S. Department of Justice, “Organizational Learning and Islamic Militancy,” September 29, 2008, p. 34.
127

17. Ibid., p. 21.

18. Among the first to emphasize this distinction between explicit and tacit knowledge was economic historian and philosopher Karl Polanyi in Knowing and Being: Essays by Michael Polanyi, 

Marjorie Grene, ed., Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1969.

19. Brian A. Jackson et al., Aptitude for Destruction, Volume 1: 

Organizational Learning in Terrorist Groups and its Implications for 

Combating Terrorism, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2005, pp. 14-15.

20. Ibid., p. 15.

21. For more on techne, see Kenney, “Organizational Learning 

and Islamic Militancy,” pp. 6, 16-17.

22. For more on mētis, see Ibid., pp. 6, 17-19.

23. Ibid., p. 19.

24. Ibid.

25. Kenney, From Pablo to Osama, esp. chap. 5. Note, however, that most of these adaptations by terrorist organizations 

involve making “incremental adjustments to daily practices and 

tasks” rather than “substantial changes in organizational behavior,” much less to the reconsideration or altering of “basic beliefs 

and assumptions underlying collective action.” See Kenney, “Organizational Learning and Islamic Militancy,” pp. 87-88; cf. also 

pp. 125-126.

26. Jackson et al., Aptitude for Destruction, vol. 1, p. 9, a definition purportedly derived from that of Danny Miller, “A Preliminary Typology of Organizational Learning: Synthesizing the Literature,” Journal of Management, Vol. 22, No. 3, 1996, pp. 485-505. 

However, Miller’s definition (Ibid., p. 486) is rather different: “the 

acquisition of new knowledge by actors who are able and willing 

to apply that knowledge in making decisions or influencing others in the organization.”
128

27. Jackson et al., Aptitude for Destruction, Vol. 1, p. 9 (italics mine). Moreover, the “effectiveness of a terrorist group that 

lacks the ability to learn will be determined largely by chance—

the chance that its members already have the necessary skills, 

the chance that its current tactics are effective against desirable 

targets and against current countermeasures, and the chance that 

any accidental or arbitrary shifts the group makes will prove to be 

beneficial.” See Ibid., p. 17 (italics again mine).

28. Ibid., pp. 10-14.

29. Ibid., pp. 17-26.

30. Ibid., p. 21.

31. It is perhaps significant that the case studies examined 

by these authors in Volume 2 of their study are (with one exception, the radical environmental movement), relatively large, 

structured, hierarchical organizations with extensive resources, 

viz., Aum Shinrikyo, Hizballah, Jemaah Islamiyah, and the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA). See Brian A. Jackson et 

al., Aptitude for Destruction, Volume 2: Case Studies of Organizational 

Learning in Five Terrorist Groups, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2005.

32. Kenney, “Organizational Learning and Islamic Militancy,” p. 6. Note, however, that there is a slight but potentially important discrepancy between two diagrams presented by Kenney. 

In Figure 1, p. 31, a “process model of organizational learning,” 

the process is depicted as one of acquiring, sharing, and applying information, whereas in Figure 2, p. 36, a “bounded process 

model of organizational learning,” it is depicted as one of acquiring, interpreting, and applying (“acting upon”) information. If one 

regards “interpreting” and “sharing” as separate processes, then 

Kenney’s model could conceivably end up with four steps, much 

like that of Jackson et al.

33. Ibid., p. 31. Therein he cites Marc Sageman and other scholars in support of this assessment. The problem, however, is that 

Sageman and others tend to overemphasize the importance of 

social networks while seriously underestimating the importance 

of ideological attraction in inducing individuals to join extremist groups, including those that rely primarily on terrorism as a 
129

tactic. See Jeffrey M. Bale, “Analysis of Marc Sageman’s Leaderless 

Jihad,” unpublished March 2007 report prepared for components 

of the U.S. intelligence community, pp. 1-2, 8-11.

34. Kenney, “Organizational Learning and Islamic Militancy,” 

p. 30. Note, however, that these three processes are not necessarily carried out in a strictly linear sequential fashion, but instead 

are engaged in “concurrently” and “haphazardly,” since learning 

tends to be “fluid, messy, and subject to numerous constraints.” 

See Ibid., p. 35.

35. Ibid., p. 32.

36. Ibid., pp. 33-34, 101-124, 129-131.

37. Ibid., p. 35. 

38. Ibid., pp. 35-36.

39. Here I do not mean to imply that the jihadist threat is not 

serious, as all too many partisan or naïve academicians have incorrectly and sometimes disingenuously claimed. For examples 

of works that downplay the threat of Islamist terrorism, sometimes to absurd lengths, see John Mueller, Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and 

Why We Believe Them, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006; John L. 

Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? New York: Oxford 

University, 1999; Bruce B. Lawrence, Shattering the Myth: Islam 

Beyond Violence, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 1998; Fariba 

Adelkhah and Alain Gresh, eds., Un péril islamiste? (An Islamic 

Threat?), Brussels, Belgium: Complexe, 1994; W. A. R. Shadid 

and P. S. van Koningsveld, De mythe van het islamitische gevaar: 

Hindernissen bij intergratie (The Myth of the Islamic Threat: Obstacles 

to Integration), Kampen, Germany: J. H. Kok, 1992; and—worst of 

all—Emran Qureshi and Michael A. Sells, eds., The New Crusades: 

Constructing the Muslim Enemy, New York: Columbia University, 2003, a polemical work that echoes delusional jihadist propaganda. At the same time, it would also be a grave mistake to 

portray jihadists as uniquely-talented “super-terrorists” because: 

a) it is not generally true, b) it will only serve to demoralize opponents of the jihadists, and c) it will further bolster the jihadists’ own, already inflated self-images and optimism about their 

eventual success.
130

40. Kenney, “Organizational Learning and Islamic Militancy,” pp. 41-44. For simpler attacks, terrorist-related information 

in the form of techne is more readily available on the Internet.

41. Ibid., pp. 44-45.

42. Ibid., p. 45.

43. Ibid., pp. 45, 49, quote. Cf. also pp. 126-127.

44. Ibid., p. 50.

45. Ibid., pp. 50-52.

46. Ibid., p. 55.

47. Ibid., pp. 55-56, e.g., in Britain experienced jihadists were 

intimately involved in the July 7, 2005, London bombings (Muhammad Siddiq Khan), the 2004 plot uncovered by the “Operation Crevice” counterterrorist operation (‘Umar Khayyam), and 

the fertilizer bomb plot interdicted that same year (Dhiren Barot).

48. See Ibid., pp. 57-86, wherein several examples are provided. Cf. also James Brandon, “Al-Qa‘ida’s Involvement in Britain’s ‘Homegrown’ Terrorist Plots,” CTC [Combating Terrorism 

Center] Sentinel, Vol. 2, No. 3, March 2009, pp. 10-12.

49. Vidino, Al Qaeda in Europe, pp. 19-51. For the European 

converts, see also Alison Pargeter, The New Frontiers of Jihad: 

Radical Islam in Europe, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008, chap. 10.

50. It should be emphasized, however, that these “successive” 

stages were not always entirely discrete or fully sequential. Indeed, in many cases they were commingled chronologically. In 

the mid-1990s, for example, at a time when the majority of exiled jihadists in Europe were busy building support networks for 

groups elsewhere, some cells that were linked to the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) began carrying out a series of terrorist attacks 

within France.
131

51. See Vidino, Al Qaeda in Europe, pp. 43-44; Pargeter, New 

Frontiers of Jihad, pp. 1-7.

52. The same, of course, was true of many members of the 

Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (MB) who had taken refuge in 

Europe, beginning in the 1950s but especially after Jamal ‘Abd 

al-Nasir’s harsh crackdown on the group in the 1960s. However, 

instead of engaging in jihadist activities, those earlier MB émigrés 

adopted a gradualist “Islamization from below” strategy to implant themselves institutionally, acquire religio-cultural hegemony over Muslim communities in Europe, and ultimately Islamize 

European host societies. See, e.g., Lorenzo Vidino, The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West, New York: Columbia University, 2010.

53. Lia, Architect of Global Jihad, esp. chaps. 2, 3, and 5.

54. Pargeter, New Frontiers of Jihad, chap. 4.

55. For more information on these support networks, cf. 

Thomas, Londonistan, esp. pp. 147-84; Ali Laïdi with Ahmed 

Salam, Le jihad en Europe: Les filières du terrorisme islamiste (Jihad 

in Europe: The Networks of Islamist Terrorism), Paris, France: Seuil, 

2002, pp. 43-61, 169-192, 225-242; Antoine Sfeir, Les réseaux d’Allah: 

La nébuleuse Ben Laden (The Networks of Allah: The Bin Ladin Web),

Paris, France: Plon, 2001, chap. 13; Julien Lariège, Islamistes algériens au coeur de l’Europe: La menace djaz’ariste (Algerian Islamists 

in the Heart of Europe: The “Algerianist” Threat), Paris, France: Ellipses, 2005; Hassane Zerrouky, La nébuleuse islamiste en France et 

en Algérie (The Islamist Web in France and Algeria), Paris, France: 

Éditions 1, 2002, pp. 104-116; Claude Moniquet, Le djihad: Histoire 

secrète des hommes et des réseaux en Europe (Jihad: Secret History of 

the Persons and the Networks in Europe), Paris, France: Ramsay, 

2004, chaps. 2, 8; Mamoun Fandy, Saudi Arabia and the Politics of 

Dissent, New York: Palgrave, 1999, pp. 115-47; Sean O’Neill and 

Daniel McGrory, The Suicide Factory: Abu Hamza and the Finsbury 

Park Mosque, London, UK: Harper, 2006, part I; and Berndt Georg 

Thamm, Terrorbasis Deutschland: Die islamistische Gefahr in unserer 

Mitte (Terrorist Base Germany: The Islamist Danger in Our Midst), 

Munich, Germany: Diederichs, 2004, chap. 2.
132

56. See, e.g., Evan Kohlmann, Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe: The 

Afghan-Bosnian Network, New York: Berg, 2004, esp. chap. 9.

57. See, e.g., Vidino, Al Qaeda in Europe, pp. 135-136, 140-142, 

147, 172-175.

58. On 9/11, see National Commission on Terrorist Attacks 

Upon the United States, Final Report, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2002; and Terry McDermott, Perfect Soldiers. 

The 9/11 Hijackers: Who They Were, Why They Did It, New York: 

Harper, 2005.

59. Among these actions was the assassination 2 days before 

9/11, of anti-Taliban Afghan commander Ahmad Shah Mas‘ud. 

See, e.g., Jean-Marie Pontaut and Marc Epstein, Ils ont assassiné 

Massoud: Révélations sur l’International terroriste (Massoud Has Been 

Assassinated: Revelations about the Terrorist International), Paris, 

France: Robert Laffont, 2002, a “martyrdom” operation carried 

out by, among others, jihadists based in Belgium. See also Vidino, 

Al Qaeda in Europe, Part II, who provides an excellent overview 

of the many terrorist plots and actions in Europe attributed to 

Algerian networks during this period.

60. Ibid., chap. 11; Pargeter, New Frontiers of Jihad, chaps. 8-9.

61. This interpretation has been promoted by Marc Sageman 

in two influential books, Understanding Terror Networks and, with 

even more force, Leaderless Jihad. For similar claims, expressed 

even more categorically, see Olivier Roy, “Al Qaeda: A True Global Movement,” in Jihadi Terrorism and the Radicalisation Challenge 

in Europe, Rik Coolsaet, ed., Aldershot, UK, and Burlington, VT: 

Ashgate, 2008, p. 113: “Al Qaeda is not a centralized, hierarchical, Leninist type of organisation. [Author’s note: This is a straw 

man, since no one has ever claimed that it was.] It now consists 

of bottom-up networks.” Sageman and others, e.g., Jason Burke, 

are in effect arguing that al-Qa‘ida is less an actual organization 

and more the high-profile figurehead or voice of a diffuse “social movement.” However, I have argued elsewhere that it is very 

problematic to characterize al-Qa‘ida’s sympathizers as a “social movement,” which suggests a much more structured, massbased, or explicitly articulated worldwide phenomenon than is 

presently observable. In my opinion al-Qa‘ida instead constitutes 
133

the principal organizational expression, effectively the self-styled 

vanguard (tali‘a), of a globally-oriented jihadist Salafist ideological milieu that is focused on targeting the “far enemy,” i.e., the 

United States and its Western allies. See Bale, “Analysis of Marc 

Sageman’s Leaderless Jihad,” pp. 10-11.

62. Bruce Hoffman, “The Myth of Grass-Roots Terrorism: 

Why Osama bin Laden Still Matters,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 

3, May-June 2008, pp. 133-138.

63. Ibid., esp. pp. 134-135.

64. See, e.g., the publicly released summary of the June 21, 

2007, National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), National Intelligence 

Council, “The Terrorist Threat to the US Homeland,” p. 6, available from www.c-span.org/pdf/nie_071707.pdf, which emphasizes 

that al-Qa‘ida “is and will remain the most serious terrorist threat 

to the homeland,” and that its “central leadership continues to 

plan high-impact plots” and “enhance its capabilities...through 

greater cooperation with regional terrorist groups.” However, the 

report also warns (Ibid., p. 7) of the “growing number of radical, 

self-generating cells in Western countries.” Cf. also former intelligence officer Bruce Riedel, “Al Qaeda Strikes Back,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 86, No. 3, May-June 2007, p. 24, which begins as follows: 

“Al Qaeda is a more dangerous enemy today than it has ever been 

before.”

65. Marc Sageman, “The Reality of Grass-Roots Terrorism,” 

Foreign Affairs, July-August 2008, pp. 163-165; and “The Homegrown Young Radicals of Next-Gen Jihad,” Washington Post, 

June 8, 2008.

66. Will McCants, “Smackdown! Sageman vs. Hoffman,”

Jihadica website, June 8, 2008, available from www.jihadica.com/

smackdown-sageman-vs-hoffman/.

67. See the comments of several interviewees, including U.S. 

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and European judges and investigators, in Elaine Sciolino and Eric Schmitt, “A Not Very Private 

Feud Over Terrorism,” New York Times, June 8, 2008. Cf. also the 

account of their feud by Stephen Tankel, “The Hoffman-Sageman 
134

Dustup Goes Mainstream,” Kings of War website, June 8, 2008, 

available from kingsofwar.wordpress.com/2008/06/08/the-hoffman-

%E2%80%93-sageman-dustup-goes-mainstream/.

68. As Phil Williams rightly notes in “In Cold Blood: The Madrid Bombings,” Perspectives on Terrorism, June 2008, a special issue on “Under-Investigated Topics in Terrorism Research,” p. 19. 

He goes on to add that “in a complex world, the integration of 

multiple models is likely to offer a much closer approximation 

to reality than models which claim exclusivity and universality.” 

69. To be more precise, al-Qa‘ida is relatively small by comparison to many insurgent organizations, but rather large by comparison to most terrorist organizations.

70. This is somewhat misleading, however, insofar as it suggests that the other committees of the majlis al-shura are concerned 

primarily with “nonmilitary” affairs. In fact, what the military 

committee is concerned with are operational matters, whereas 

the financial committee and training committees are both concerned with logistical matters and the so-called fatwa committee 

is concerned with evaluating the religious appropriateness of the 

tangible actions to be undertaken by the group. For the general 

organizational structure of al-Qa‘ida and its majlis al-shura before 

9/11, see the February 6, 2001, testimony of high-ranking Sudanese insider Jamal al-Fadl in United States District Court, Southern District of New York, USA v. Usama bin Laden (S, 7) 98 Cr. 

1023, February 6, 2001, pp. 204-211. Cf. Devin R. Springer, James 

L. Regens, and David N. Edger, Islamic Radicalism and Global Jihad, 

Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2009, pp. 103-

107, esp. Figure 3.4, p. 105. There is every reason to believe, however, that Bin Ladin’s group still retains its majlis al-shura structure despite its post-U.S. invasion flight from Afghanistan into 

Pakistan. It is primarily beneath that upper leadership level that 

the greatest organizational changes have since occurred, probably 

less for abstract theoretical reasons than for purely practical reasons. Hence the claims by some observers that al-Qa‘ida has since 

officially adopted Abu Mus‘ab al-Suri’s networked “leaderless resistance” model are premature, since they not only exaggerate the 

influence of the Syrian jihadist strategic thinker on Bin Ladin and 

his closest collaborators, but also minimize the influence of other 

jihadist theoreticians who have advocated consolidation rather 

than decentralization. See the discussion in Ibid., pp. 108-131.
135

71. The precise number of rank-and-file members has fluctuated considerably over time, and probably reached its lowest ebb 

after the U.S. military and its Afghan allies toppled the Taliban 

regime and drove the surviving al-Qa‘ida fighters across the Afghan frontier into the Pashtun tribal zones of Pakistan.

72. See, e.g., Springer et al., Islamic Radicalism and Global Jihad, 

pp. 102-103. This has in turn produced friction between members 

from different nationalities and ethnicities, generating internal 

divisions and fissures that counterterrorist forces should be exacerbating or otherwise exploiting. See, e.g., Fawaz A. Gerges, Far 

Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005, esp. pp. 101-109; al-Fadl testimony in USA v. 

Usama bin Laden, February 7, 2001, pp. 321-324.

73. Bin Ladin’s obsession with the apostasy of the Saudi regime and its ongoing persecution of radicals is frequently reflected in his public statements. Likewise, to this day al-Zawahiri 

is engaged in polemics with former jihadist comrades in Egypt 

over tactics and their decision to renounce violent struggle. See, 

e.g., his bitter polemics with Muntasir al-Zayyat, which can in 

part be followed by comparing Montasser al-Zayyat, The Road to 

Al-Qaeda: The Story of Bin Laden’s Right-Hand Man, London, UK: 

Pluto, 2004, especially chaps. 4-8; and al-Zawahiri, Fursan tahta 

rayat al-nabi‘ (Knights under the Prophet’s Banner), serialized in AlSharq al-Awsat in December 2001, parts 8-9. Compare also Gerges, 

Far Enemy, especially chaps. 3 and 4.

74. See, e.g., Jason Burke, Al Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror, 

London, UK: I. B. Taurus, 2003, pp. 7-22; Erik Schechter, “Generic 

Jihad,” Jerusalem Post, December 5, 2003; and Jerry Mark Long, 

“Strategic Culture, al-Qaida, and Weapons of Mass Destruction,” 

Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) report 

prepared for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, November 

20, 2006, pp. 3-4.

75. However, it is now clear that some of the July 7, 2005 

(7/7), London bombing plotters received specialized training 

at jihadist camps in Pakistan run by Lashkar-i Tayyiba, a group 

with close links to al-Qa‘ida Central. Hence it is highly misleading to characterize this cell as an autonomous “self-starter” group 

composed of amateurs, as it is with many other United Kingdom (UK) and Europe-based cells. For more on the 7/7 bomb-
136

ings, see the official report by the British authorities, House of 

Commons, Intelligence and Security Committee, Report of the 

Official Account of the Bombings in London on 7 July 2005, 11 May 

2006, London, UK: Stationery Office, 2006. See further O’Neill and 

McGrory, Suicide Factory, esp. pp. 269-76; Crispin Black, 7/7, the 

London Bombs: What went Wrong? London, UK: Gibson Square, 

2005; and Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed, The London Bombings: An 

Independent Inquiry, Woodstock, NY: Overlook, 2006, which, despite the author’s political biases, provides much useful material.

76. For examples of Bin Ladin’s public and indeed proud 

claims to function as an instigator of jihadist terrorism, see Bruce 

Lawrence, ed., Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin 

Laden, London, UK, and New York: Verso, 2005, pp. 69, where he 

says it is his duty is to motivate the umma to wage jihad against 

the United States, Israel, and their allies, and pp. 107-108, where 

he admits that he incited “martyrs” to carry out the September 11, 

2001 (9/11), attacks in “self-defense,” as well as inciting other attacks on Americans and Jews, which is a religious duty, and says 

that if this makes him a terrorist, so be it.

77. See, respectively, Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane, “Bin 

Laden was active in planning attacks,” New York Times, May 6, 

2011; and Syed Saleem Shahzad, Inside Al Qaida and the Taliban: 

Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11, London, UK: Pluto, 2011.

78. Javier Jordán, Fernando M. Mañas, and Nicola Horsburgh, 

“Strengths and Weaknesses of Grassroots Jihadist Networks: The 

Madrid Bombings,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 31, 2008, 

pp. 18-19. Others have referred to these latter types of cells using 

slightly different but comparable terms, e.g., as “self-generating” 

or “freelance” jihadist groups or as “local autonomous cells and 

networks.” See, respectively, Springer et al., Islamic Radicalism and 

Global Jihad, pp. 132-133, 164-166, in the context of recruitment 

and radicalization; and Algemene Inlichtingen-en Veiligheidsdienst (General Intelligence and Security Service [AIVG]), Violent Jihad in the Netherlands: Current Trends in the Islamist Terrorist Threat, 

The Hague, The Netherlands: AIVD Communications Department, 2006, esp. pp. 37-39. Whatever terminology is employed, 

these cells purportedly “lack direct links to al-Qa‘ida Central but 

rely on the same overall strategy and shared goals.” See Springer 

et al., Islamic Radicalism and Global Jihad, p. 139.
137

79. E.g., it is currently very difficult to obtain trial materials 

dealing with jihadist plots in many European countries, including 

France, Belgium, Germany, and the UK. The short official reports 

that are sometimes made available, such as the reports on the 7/7 

bombing, generally lack sufficient detail to permit detailed reconstructions of the events, in particular the systematic tracing of 

linkages between members of the implicated networks.

80. Ironically, the definition provided in a Wikipedia article 

on which the above definition is based seems vastly preferable to 

the original definition provided by J. A. Barnes in the 1950s, “[a]n 

association of people drawn together by family, work, or hobby.”

81. “Social Network Analysis: A Brief Introduction,” undated, 

available from www.orgnet.com/sna.html.

82. Ibid.

83. See, e.g., Valdis E. Krebs, “Uncloaking Terrorist Networks,” First Monday, Vol. 7, No. 4, April 1, 2002, available 

from firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view

/941/863; “Social Network Analysis of the 9/11 Terrorist Network,” 2002, available from www.orgnet.com/hijackers.html; “Connecting the Dots: Tracking Two Identified Terrorists,” 2002 (but 

with more recent updates), available from www.orgnet.com/tnet.

html; Justin Magouik, Scott Atran, and Marc Sageman, “Connecting Terrorist Networks,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 31, 

No. 1, 2008, pp. 1-16; and Jordán et al., “Grassroots Jihadist Networks.” For a more skeptical perspective on the efficacy of social 

network analysis (SNA), one which in my opinion is largely justified, see Patrick Radden Keefe, “Can Network Theory Thwart 

Terrorists?” New York Times, March 12, 2006, available from www.

nytimes.com/2006/03/12/magazine/312wwln_essay.html?_r=1.

84. That is why we historians sometimes sardonically quip 

that the only way the future can be accurately predicted is retrospectively.

85. For these details, cf. the accounts in Administración de 

Justicia, Juzgado Central de Instrucción No. 6, Audencia Nacional, Madrid, Sumario No. 20/2004, Auto de procesamiento (Indict-
138

ment), April 10, 2006 (hereafter Auto 10/04/06), pp. 1-6, 47-74, 110-

113; Administración de Justicia, Juzgado Central de Instrucción 

No. 6, Audencia Nacional, Madrid, Spain, Sumario No. 20/2004, 

Declaración del Fiscal (Public Prosecutor’s Statement), November 7, 

2006 (hereafter Declaración 07/11/06), pp. 46-60; Administración de 

Justicia, Juzgado Central de Instrucción No. 6, Audencia Nacional, Madrid, Sumario No. 20/2004, Sentencia (contra Jamal Zougam 

+ 28) (Sentence) número 65/2007, July 31, 2007 (hereafter Sentencia 

31/07/07), pp. 172-177; and Casimiro García-Abadillo, 11-M: La 

venganza, Madrid, Spain: Esfera de los Libros, 2004, pp. 16-30.

86. Auto 10/04/06, pp. 132-141.

87. Auto 10/04/06, pp. 144-61; Declaración 07/11/06, pp. 95-9; 

Sentencia 31/07/07, pp. 177-181.

88. Auto 10/04/06, pp. 130-2; Declaración 07/11/06, pp. 101-109.

89. Declaración 07/11/06, pp. 109-10; García-Abadillo, 11-M, pp. 

106-107. This particular shop was run by an Indian named Rakesh 

Kumar and co-owned by his brother Suresh Kumar and Vinay 

Kholi. The former and Kholi were also the co-owners of Sindhu 

Enterprise, the store that had sold the SIM cards to Zugham’s Siglo Nuevo shop. Also of potential significance is that Rakesh had 

paid Ayman Mawsili Kalaji, the owner of the Test Ayman mobile phone shop, located at Calle Santa María de la Cabeza 177, to 

change the codes of 12 of those phones so that they would accept 

a different SIM card. Curiously, Kalaji was also a Spanish policeman who at one point had served as a bodyguard for anti-terrorist 

judge Baltasar Garzón, which later provided fuel for several conspiracy theorists, who were claiming that the 3/11 attacks were a 

state-sponsored “false flag” terrorist operation. For more on Kalaji, see Fernando Mugica, “El policía que preparó las bombas?” 

(“The Policeman who prepared the bombs?”), El Mundo, August 

22, 2005, available from kickjor.blogspot.com/2005/08/los-agujerosnegros-del-11-m-xxi-el.html.

90. Declaración 07/11/06, pp. 110-120; Sentencia 31/07/07, pp. 

184-189.

91. For the information on this video cassette, see Declaración 

07/11/06, pp. 87-89.
139

92. However, the jihad name Abu Dujan[a] al-Afghani may 

actually have been the moniker of a logistical operative of the 

Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain (GICM) based in Belgium named Yusuf ibn al-Hajj. See Ibid., p. 69. The term ansar, 

meaning “partisans,” “helpers,” or “supporters,” has a special 

significance in Islamic history since it originally referred to Muhammad’s earliest followers in Medina, in contradistinction to the 

dedicated companions from Mecca who accompanied him on the 

hijra or “emigration” to Medina, who are instead known as the 

muhajirun or “émigrés.” Hence one now finds that many jihadist 

groups incorporate the terms ansar or muhajirun into their names. 

The name “Abu Dujan” was probably derived from that of Abu 

Dujana, an especially brave companion of Muhammad’s who was 

particularly skilled in using weapons in melees and who distinguished himself at the Battle of Uhud (625 CE).

93. Ibid., p. 89. A reproduction of two shots from that video 

cassette appear in García-Abadillo, 11-M, on the third page of illustrations following p. 128.

94. Declaración 07/11/06, pp. 90-91. For an analysis of the Abu 

Hafs al-Masri Brigades statement, see Yigal Carmon, “The Alleged 

Al-Qa‘ida Statement of Responsibility for the Madrid Bombings: 

Translation and Commentary,” MEMRI website, Inquiry and 

Analysis #166, March 12, 2004, available from www.memri.org/bin/

latestnews.cgi?ID=IA16604. Note that the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades were named after the “jihad name” of Egyptian militant 

Muhammad ‘Atif, one of Usama bin Ladin’s chief lieutenants and 

the head of the Military Committee of al-Qa‘ida’s majlis al-shura

prior to his death in an American air strike in 2001. This particular 

group has often claimed responsibility for jihadist attacks in the 

West, but it is unclear (and perhaps doubtful) whether it is a real 

organization and, if so, whether it is, in fact, linked to al-Qa‘ida. 

Note further that in an October 2003 videotape (which the CIA 

considered authentic), Bin Ladin had explicitly included Spain in 

a list of countries that could be legitimately attacked by jihadists.

95. In 2002, Centro Superior de Información de la Defensa 

(CESID) was renamed the Central Nacional de Inteligencia (National Intelligence Center [CNI]).
140

96. For the information in this paragraph, see José Maria Irujo, El agujero: España invadida por la yihad (The Opening: Spain Invaded by the Jihad), Madrid: Santillana, 2005, pp. 

64-65, 148, 243-244, 332-335; and García-Abadillo, 11-M, 

pp. 91-95.

97. For the information in this paragraph, see Ibid., pp. 95-101.

98. For this call, see further Irujo, Agujero, pp. 346-348.

99. Ironically, the day before, several of the terrorists and their 

families had been at that very site to attend a party, and had then 

(unsuccessfully) tried to remove traces of their activities before 

leaving to take refuge elsewhere. See Ibid., pp. 351-352.

100. For the materials found therein, see Auto 10/04/06, pp. 

204-208.

101. García-Abadillo, 11-M, pp. 177-178.

102. Auto 10/04/06, pp. 161-163. The investigators concluded 

that if this bomb had been detonated when a high-speed train was 

passing, it could have resulted in the deaths of more people than 

the 3/11 attacks. A few days earlier, near midnight on March 30, 

Red Nacional de Ferrocarriles Españoles (RENFE) employees had 

interrupted five men digging a hole under the Alta Velocidad Española (AVE) tracks on the Madrid-Lérida line, near the juncture 

of Mercamadrid, but the culprits fled and escaped. Later, the police became convinced that they were the same individuals who 

subsequently placed the bomb under the Madrid-Seville AVE 

line. García-Abadillo, 11-M, p. 200.

103. For the “siege” of the Leganés apartment, cf. Ibid., pp. 

201-207; Irujo, Agujero, pp. 356-364; Manuel Marlasca and Luis 

Rendueles, Una historia del 11-M que no va a gustar a nadie (A History of 3/11 That Will Make No One Happy), Madrid, Spain: Temas 

de Hoy, 2007, pp. 76-88; and Sentencia 31/07/07, pp. 204-206.

104. For the forensic evidence from Leganés, see Auto 

10/04/06, pp. 163-193; Declaración 07/11/06, pp. 152-165; and 

Sentencia 31/07/07, pp. 206-212.
141

105. Cf., e.g., “Madrid Victims Attack ‘Leniency,’” BBC 

website, November 1, 2007, available from news.bbc.co.uk/2/

hi/europe/7071990.stm; Soeren Kern, “Spain Faces Difficulties 

in Judging Islamic Terrorists,” Power and Interest News Report website, November 12, 2007, available from www.pinr.com/

report.php?ac=view_report&report_id=719&language_id=1; and 

Lisa Abend, “Deep Divisions over Madrid Verdict,” Christian 

Science Monitor, November 1, 2007, available from www.csmonitor.

com/2007/1101/p07s02-woeu.html.

106. See the short summary of the sentences meted out in José 

María de Pablo, La cuarta trama: Verdades y mentiras en el caso del 

11-M (The Fourth Plot: Truths and Lies in the 3/11 Case), Madrid, 

Spain: Ciudadela, 2009, pp. 20-21, notes 7-9.

107. For the view that the Madrid cell was in various important ways connected to broader jihadist networks, including those 

linked to al-Qa‘ida, see Vidino, Al Qaeda in Europe, pp. 295-340; 

Irujo, Agujero; J. A. Emerson Vermaat, “The Madrid Terrorism 

Trial Verdict—Some Critical Comments,” Militant Islam Monitor website, November 18, 2007, available from www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3256; and Luis de la Corte Ibáñez and Javier 

Jordán, La yihad terrorista (The Terrorist Jihad), Madrid, Spain: Síntesis, 2007, pp. 246-253. For the Madrid bombings as the product 

of an essentially local cell, see Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, 

The Next Attack: The Failure of the War on Terror and a Strategy for 

Getting it Right, New York: Henry Holt, 2005, pp. 3-16; and Scott 

Atran and Marc Sageman, “The Great Train Bombing,” preliminary draft report, October 10, 2007, pp. 5-12, and passim (previously, but no longer) available from www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/

internet/ciag/london/Madrid-Bombing-10Oct07.pdf. 

108. For an illustration of the latter group’s perspective, 

see Jason Burke, “What role did al-Qaida play?” The Guardian

[London], October 31, 2007, available from www.guardian.co.uk/

commentisfree/2007/oct/31/whatroledidalqaidaplay; and the revealing 

comments made by Scott Atran in the course of an interview with 

a reporter from The Guardian: 

There isn’t the slightest bit of evidence of any operational relationship with al-Qaida. . . . The overwhelming majority of [ter-
142

rorist cells] in Europe have nothing to do with al-Qaida other 

than a vague relationship of ideology. And even that ideology 

is fairly superficial—it’s basically a reaction to what they see 

as a war on Islam around the world. . . . These young men [the 

Madrid bombers] radicalised themselves.

Cited in Paul Hamilos, “The Worst Islamist Attack in European History,” Guardian, October 31, 2007, available from 

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/oct/31/spain. Only if one defines the 

word “operational” in its narrowest possible sense, can one claim 

that there are no al-Qa‘ida links to the 3/11 cell. Furthermore, as 

will become clearer below, I disagree strongly with his last two 

quoted conclusions. Although Atran and I do agree that the trial 

of the 3/11 bombers was a “farce,” we do so for entirely opposing 

reasons.

109. See Declaración 07/11/06, pp. 21-26, a section headed “Formation of the Terrorist Cell: [The] Group that Executed the Attack 

and [the] Group of Jamal Ahmidan.” Cf. also the title of chap. 3 in 

Marlasca and Rendueles, Una historia del 11-M (A History of 3/11), 

“The Tunisian and the Chinaman: The Mind and the Muscle.” 

Another interesting scheme has been proposed by a lawyer representing the Asociación de Ayuda a las Víctimas del 11-M (Support 

Association for 3/11 Victims). See De Pablo, Cuarta trama, part 

2. De Pablo identifies three plots or conspiracies—one involving 

Spanish criminals in Asturias to sell illicit goods, including explosives; a second involving a group of Arab criminals led by Jamal 

Ahmidan, to obtain explosives; and a third involving the members of a jihadist cell headed by Fakhit, who wanted to carry out 

bombings. Still another petty criminal named Rafa Zuhayr acted 

as an intermediary in bringing the three groups together. However, despite providing a wealth of interesting details based upon 

a close examination of the voluminous trial materials, the general 

value of De Pablo’s book is undermined by his improbable partisan claim that there was a “fourth plot” involving Euskadi ta 

Askatasuna (ETA) and others to bring the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party [PSOE]) to power 

by staging a terrorist attack that could be blamed on jihadists.

110. Declaración 07/11/06, pp. 21-23.

111. Ibid., pp. 23-26.
143

112. See Table 2 in Irujo, Agujero, p. 390. However, in 2001 

Fakhit was not yet considered sufficiently important by Judge 

Garzón to be arrested or charged in the indictment he issued 

against the network. See García-Abadillo, 11-M, p. 109.

113. Al-Shadadi, al-Shabli, and Nidal all appeared in the list 

of the accused in the final sentence against members of the Abu 

Dahdah network. See Administración de Justicia, Juzgado Central de Instrucción No. 5, Audencia Nacional, Madrid, Spain, 

Sumario No. 35/01, Sentencia (contra Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas + 

23), September 26, 2005 (hereafter Sentencia 26/09/05), pp. 3, 5. In 

the earlier indictment, charges were filed against both al-Shadadi 

and al-‘Azizi. See Administración de Justicia, Juzgado Central de 

Instrucción No. 5, Audencia Nacional, Madrid, Spain, Sumario 

No. 35/01, Auto de procesamiento, September 17, 2003 (hereafter 

Auto 17/09/03), pp. 1-2.

114. For this GICM-al-Qa‘ida pact, based on the statements 

of Nafi‘yya himself, see “Probe of London Attacks Targets a Network of Radicals in Europe,” Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2005.

115. Indeed, in March 2002 the Comisaría General de Información (General Intelligence Commissariat [CGI]), the intelligence arm of the Cuerpo Nacional de Policía (National Police 

Corps [CNP]), made the startling announcement that Spain was 

the primary al-Qa‘ida base in Europe. See Irujo, Agujero, p. 19.

116. It remains unclear just how central a role Abu Mus‘ab 

al-Suri played in the Spanish al-Qa‘ida network. Irujo describes 

him as “the founder” of the “cell” in Spain, whereas Lia provides 

a more nuanced assessment. Cf. Ibid., p. 50; and Lia, Architect of 

Global Jihad, pp. 137-142, 146-147. There is no doubt, however, that 

he was a close collaborator of Abu Dahdah, since Spanish police 

who were keeping them under surveillance documented their 

interactions. See, e.g., Auto 17/09/03, pp. 26-29, 93; Irujo, Agujero, 

pp. 23-25.

117. Auto 17/09/03, pp. 23-24, 63-64, etc.; 

118. These linkages between Abu Dahdah and his lieutenants 

and other jihadist networks have been exhaustively documented 

in Auto 17/09/03. See also Lia, Architect of Global Jihad, pp. 142-146.
144

119. For more details about the ‘Ata’ and al-Shayb visit to 

Spain in July 2001, cf. Auto 17/09/03, pp. 317-330; National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Final Report, 

Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2002, pp. 244-246. 

According to the first of the above sources (pp. 317-322), ‘Ata’ arrived in Madrid from Miami via Zurich on July 9, rented a room 

in the Hotel Diana Cazadora near Madrid’s Baraja airport, and 

picked up a rental car the following day. Between July 9 and 13, 

there is no record of where he went or who he met with. From 

July 13 to 15, he rented a room at the Hotel Sant Jordi on Via Augusta in Tarragona, southwest of Barcelona, very close to Reus, a 

town where al-Shayb stayed after arriving in Barcelona on a flight 

from Hamburg on July 9. On the night of July 16-17, the same 

night al-Shayb flew back to Germany, ‘Ata’ rented a room at the 

Hotel Casablanca Playa on Paseo del Mar 12 in the nearby town 

of Salou, where he also rented rooms in two other hotels the next 

2 nights. On July 19, ‘Ata’ flew from Madrid to Fort Lauderdale 

via Atlanta.

120. Auto 17/09/03, pp. 320-321, 324-330. The remaining information in this paragraph derives from this source. Cf. also Irujo, 

Agujero, pp. 80-84; and Marlasca and Rendueles, Una historia del 

11-M, p. 121.

121. Auto 17/09/03, p. 88. For these conversations between 

Abu Dahdah and Shakur, see pp. 87-89, 330-336. The only thing 

odd here is that the phrase is in the past perfect tense, as if the actions described had already taken place.

122. Note that in Spain, the more important jihadist networks 

were normally headed by relatively well-educated and socially 

privileged Syrians, most of whom had been forced to seek refuge 

abroad after being subjected to harsh Ba’athist repression at home 

due to their membership in the Muslim Brotherhood. The rank 

and file members of those networks, on the other hand, tended to 

be composed of relatively poor and uneducated individuals from 

North Africa, especially Morocco. Fakhit was somewhat unique 

inasmuch as he was a privileged North African who ended up 

joining jihadist groups based in Spain.
145

123. For the information in this paragraph on Fakhit’s background, cf. García-Abadillo, 11-M, pp. 107-108; Marlasca and 

Rendueles, Una historia del 11-M, pp. 105-122; and Justin Webster 

and Ignacio Orovio, Conexión Madrid: Cómo y por qué Sarhane y Jamal se convirtieron en terroristas yihadistas (Madrid Connection: How 

and Why Sarhane and Jamal Became Jihadist Terrorists), Barcelona, 

Spain: Debate, 2009, pp. 32-49.

124. In the words of García-Abadillo, 11-M, p. 108. Cf. the 

account in Webster and Orovio, Conexión Madrid, pp. 70-84.

125. For the growing schism between Fakhit and his new 

“brothers” and the M-30 imam, see Ibid., pp. 105-117. One symbol of this was a public incident outside the mosque involving 

al-‘Azizi, who openly expressed contempt for both the imam and 

the Arab leaders who were visiting the M-30 mosque to pay their 

respects on the occasion of the death of Syrian Ba’athist leader 

Hafiz al-Asad in June 2000.

126. Marlasca and Rendueles, Una historia del 11-M, p. 117.

127. Webster and Orovio, Conexión Madrid, pp. 116-117.

128. Given that al-Maymuni was a key member of a Moroccan jihadist group with an almost identical name—al-Salafiyya 

al-Jihadiyya—it is probably not a coincidence that he chose that 

name for the Spanish cell-in-formation. In actual fact, the term refers to an Islamist ideological current known as jihadist Salafism, 

which has been the dominant ideology espoused by many of the 

most radical Islamist ideologues and activists in recent decades, 

including Sayyid Qutub and Usama bin Ladin. For this and other 

reasons, there is some question about whether that appellation 

actually refers to a structured jihadist organization or to a loose 

network of autonomous cells composed of like-minded militants 

in Morocco. On the other hand, some have suggested that it may 

be little more than a front for the GICM. Though this is not certain, the GICM, which was established in the early 1990s by ‘Abd 

al-Karim al-Majati and other Moroccan veterans of the Afghan 

jihad, apparently claimed kinship with Salafiyya Jihadiyya—the 

current and/or the organization. See Mathieu Guidère, Al-Qaïda 

à la conquête du Maghreb: Le terrorisme aux portes de l’Europe (Al 

Qaida Seeking to Conquer North Africa: Terrorism at the Doors of 
146

Europe), Monaco: Rocher, 2007, p. 188. For more on this Moroccan 

al-Salafiyya al-Jihadiyya group, current, or tendency, see Ahmed 

Chaarani, La mouvance islamiste au Maroc: Du 11 septembre 2001 

aux attentats de Casablanca du 16 mai 2003 (The Islamist Movement in 

Morocco: From 9/11 to the Casablanca Attacks of 16 May 2003), Paris, 

France: Karthala, 2004, pp. 194-216. Chaarani also suggests (Ibid., 

p. 129) that this name, which was first supposedly coined by the 

Moroccan secret services, was indiscriminately applied to militants who were actually members of the Moroccan branch of alTakfir wa al-Hijra (Excommunication and Migration), for which 

see Ibid., pp. 129-143.

129. Ibid., pp. 125-130. This does not mean, of course, that the 

Iraq War served as the primary motivation behind, much less the 

underlying “cause” of, the 3/11 bombings, as many have naively 

argued. On the contrary, the February 2003 American invasion 

simply provided a new “hot button” issue that served to anger 

Muslims, which the jihadists could then easily exploit in order to 

recruit new followers and rationalize attacks on “infidels” in the 

former Muslim territory of al-Andalus. However, the Islamists 

have never accepted the fact that al-Andalus had fallen permanently under the control of the “Crusaders,” and consequently 

they have long been obsessed with re-conquering it for Islam. For 

the ideological background of jihadist animosity toward Spain, 

see Gustavo de Arístegui, La Yihad en España: La obsesión por 

reconquistar Al-Andalus (Jihad in Spain: The Obsession with Reconquering Al-Andalus), Madrid, Spain: Esfera de los Libros, 2005, 

esp. chap. 3. Cf. also Serafín Fanjul, La quimera de Al-Andalus (The 

Al-Andalus Fantasy), Madrid, Spain: Siglo XXI, 2004. Moreover, as 

one journalist accurately noted about those particular jihadists, 

which also applies to other global jihadists, “They hate Europe 

and everything it represents.” See León King, Marruecos: La amenaza. Su guerra de baja cota contra España (Morocco, the Menace: Its 

Low Intensity Warfare against Spain), Barcelona, Spain: Pyre, 2005, 

p. 203. Cf. Mary Habeck, Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and 

the War on Terror, New Haven, CT: Yale University, 2007, chap. 4.

130. Irujo, Agujero, pp. 170, 198, 244.

131. For photographs of these locales, see Atran and Sageman, “Great Train Bombing,” pp. 41-45. In that article, they also 

provide a very valuable service by visually depicting the devel-
147

opmental evolution of the components of the 3/11 cell, noting the 

individuals who joined and left at various junctures. See Ibid., pp. 

30-69.

132. García-Abadillo, 11-M, pp. 108-109.

133. Marlasca and Rendueles, Una historia del 11-M, pp. 

113-118.

134. Ibid., pp. 113-122.

135. Ibid., pp. 118-119, 123-132.

136. Ibid., p. 131. The best short summary of the information 

provided by “Cartagena” can be found in De Pablo, Cuarta trama, 

pp. 69-77.

137. García-Abadillo, 11-M, pp. 113-115.

138. For the information in this paragraph, see Ibid., pp. 91-93.

139. Cf. also Marlasca and Rendueles, Una historia del 11-M, 

pp. 46-47.

140. Sa‘id al-Shadadi may be of special importance with respect to IEDs, given that in the course of searching his apartment, 

the police found a notebook in which he had sketched a diagram 

for fabricating bombs using mobile phones as timers. Note also 

that in front of his apartment, located on Calle Caravaca, was the 

Rebiz Moda shop owned by Sheng-hua Huang, where the 3/11 

plotters purchased the sports bags and backpacks that were later 

used to carry and conceal the train bombs. See García-Abadillo, 

11-M, p. 93.

141. See Ibid., pp. 93-95, for the following information.

142. For brief accounts of Courtailler and his planned terrorist 

activities, see “Frenchman Jailed Over Terror Ties,” BBC News, 

May 25, 2004; and Peter Graff and John Boyle, “An Islamic Militant’s Odyssey,” Reuters, May 20, 2004.
148

143. García-Abadillo, 11-M, p. 94. Some have claimed, in contrast, that Zugham had been only a peripheral figure in the Abu 

Dahdah cell. See Williams, “In Cold Blood,” p. 21. My own view 

is that the truth lies somewhere between these polar interpretations, since it is clear that Zugham had become increasingly close 

to Abu Dahdah, and thus less and less peripheral, in the period 

prior to the latter’s arrest.

144. Ibid. Indeed, the Moroccan police informed their Spanish 

counterparts—after the 3/11 attacks—that Zugham and his associates were “dangerous jihadists” who were members of the GICM, 

the group they claimed was responsible for the 2003 Casablanca 

bombings. See King, Marreucos, p. 206. For more background information on Mullah Krikar, see Trevor Stanley, “Mullah Krekar: 

Leader of Kurdish Ansar al-Islam,” Perspectives on World History and Current Events website, 2005, available from www.pwhce.

org/krekar.html.

145. For more on Fizazi, cf. Malika Zeghal, Les islamistes marocains: Le défi à la monarchie (The Moroccan Islamists: Challenge to 

the Monarchy), Paris, France: Découverte, 2005, pp. 283-285; “Mohamed Fizazi,” Global Jihad website, available from www.globaljihad.net/view_page.asp?id=390; and McDermott, Perfect Soldiers, pp. 

4-5, 87. A good indication of his views can be found in the following quotes from a year 2000 sermon at the al-Quds mosque: 

Who participates in the war against Islam with ideas or 

thoughts or a song or a television show to befoul Islam is an 

infidel on a war footing that shall be killed, no matter if it’s a 

man, a woman, or a child. . . . The jihad for God’s cause is hard 

for the infidels, because our religion has ordered us to cut their 

throats and that we kill their heirs. . .

Cited in Ibid., p. 5. According to other sources, Zugham also personally visited the London residence of Muhammad al-Gharbuzi, 

the nominal head of the GICM, who he had become acquainted 

with through the Ibn Ya‘ish brothers. See Alfonso Merlos, Al Qaeda: Raíces y metas del terror global (Al Qaida: Roots and Aims of Global 

Terrorism), Madrid, Spain: Biblioteca Nueva, 2006, p. 210. 

146. García-Abadillo, 11-M, p. 122.
149

147. For Moroccan slums as a purported breeding ground for 

jihadism, see Andrea Elliot, “Where Boys Grow Up to Be Jihadis,” 

New York Times, November 25, 2007, an article that nonetheless 

provides a good summary of Ahmidan’s background and career. 

For the information in this paragraph, see further Marlasca and 

Rendueles, Una historia del 11-M, pp. 132-43; Webster and Orovio, 

Conexión Madrid, chaps. 3 and 5; and Irujo, Agujero, p. 269.

148. For more details about this incident, see Webster and 

Orovio, Conexión Madrid, pp. 57-58.

149. Ibid., pp. 86-88, 93. It was also around this time that Bilal, 

his son with Rosa, was born.

150. Ibid., pp. 88-90.

151. Ibid., p. 89; Marlasca and Rendueles, Una historia del 11-

M, p. 136.

152. Webster and Orovio, Conexión Madrid, p. 93; Elliot, 

“Where Boys Grow Up to Be Jihadis.”

153. Webster and Orovio, Conexión Madrid, pp. 99-101.

154. Ibid., pp. 101-2; Marlasca and Rendueles, Una historia del 

11-M, pp. 137-139.

155. Webster and Orovio, Conexión Madrid, pp.133-134.

156. To mention only the most egregious example of his recklessness, on New Year’s Eve of 2003-04 he drove up to Bilbao to 

confront another drug dealer who owed him money, located him 

at the Txikia bar in the Plaza de Zibalbaru, shot him in the knees 

with a pistol, then calmly exited and returned to Madrid. See Irujo, Agujero, p. 278.

157. See Auto 10/04/06, pp. 610-1125.

158. Ibid., pp. 1241-1340.

159. Cf., e.g., the views expressed by Spanish political scientist Fernando Reinares, cited in “The 3/11 Madrid Bombings: An 

Assessment after 5 Years,” Event Summary, Washington, DC: 
150

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, April 6, 2009, 

available from wilsoncenter.org/article/the-311-madrid-bombingsassessment-after-5-years.

160. Irujo, Agujero, pp. 159-160, 243, and 274, note 1, citing 

a November 2, 2004, indictment issued by Judge Garzón against 

the Shuhada al-Maghribiyya (Martyrs of Morocco) group headed 

by Muhammad Ashraf. For more on the latter’s plotting, see Ibid., 

pp. 377-380.

161. For a judicious short summary of his activities, see Lia, 

Architect of Global Jihad, pp. 199-208.

162. Cf. Paul Cruickshank and Mohannad Hage Ali, “Abu 

Musab Al Suri: Architect of the New Al Qaeda,” Studies in Conflict 

and Terrorism, Vol. 30, No. 1, January 2007, p. 9; and Lia, Architect 

of Global Jihad, pp. 200-201.

163. Cf. Maria Jesus Prades, “Spain Indicts Fugitive on 9/11 

Charges,” Associated Press, April 28, 2004; Irujo, Agujero, p. 159.

164. Lawrence Wright, “The Terror Web,” The New 

Yorker, August 3, 2004, available from www.newyorker.com/

archive/2004/08/02/040802fa_fact. 

165. Cf. [Foreign Staff], “Madrid fugitive charged over 9/11,” 

The Scotsman, April 28, 2004, available from news.scotsman.com/

internationalterrorism/Madrid-fugitive-charged-over-911.2524309.jp. 

For more on Musawi and the projected “second wave” attacks, 

cf. Katherine C. Donahue, Slave of Allah: Zacarias Moussaoui vs. the 

USA, London, UK, and Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto, 2007; and Central 

Intelligence Agency, “Summary of Khalid Shaykh Muhammad 

Interrogation Testimony,” pp. 37-40.

166. García-Abadillo, 11-M, p. 112; Reinares, “3/11 Madrid 

Bombings”; Declaración 07/11/06, p. 14.

167. See Declaración 07/11/06, pp. 68-77.

168. Sentencia 31/07/07, pp. 639-643. Nevertheless, the sentence 

concluded, Ibid., pp. 643-646, that although al-Hajj was identified 

on several relatives’ and “brothers’” cell phones as “Abu Dujana,” 

he was probably not the same person as Abu Dujan[a] al-Afghani, 
151

who had claimed responsibility for the 3/11 attacks, since al-Hajj 

had never been a mujahid in Afghanistan. Hence he could not 

be convicted of being a planner of the Madrid bombings, Ibid., 

pp. 646-647.

169. “La fecha del ataque del 11-M fue fijada al día siguiente 

de que Bin Laden amenazara a España” (“The Date of the 3/11 

attack was fixed the day after Bin Ladin threatened Spain”), El 

País, August 5, 2005. It is well known that the jihadists like to select symbolic dates for their actions as well as use numerological systems, so much so that the Spanish CNI speculated, in a report entitled “Análisis de la teoría sobre el desarrollo histórico de 

los hechos que desembocan en el 11-M” (“Theoretical Analysis 

Concerning the Historical Development of the Facts that Led to 

3/11”), that the 1921 year chosen could be associated with sura

21, al-Anbiyya’ (The Prophets) of the Qur’an, whereas that of 1985 

could be linked to sura 85, al-Buruj (The Stars). Note also the parallel case of Muhammad the Egyptian, who set up a Yahoo email 

account on February 4, 2004, using a phony name (“Muhammad 

Kishk”) and a false date of birth (March 11, 1970)—1 month before 

the 3/11 attacks! In this case also, Spanish analysts suspected that 

the incorrect year chosen for his birth date was an allusion to sura

70, al-Ma‘arij (The Path of Ascension) of the Qur’an. See Declaración 07/11/06, p. 63 and note 2.

170. Apparently, this was the cover story used by visiting jihadists who were then involved in recruiting and funneling fighters into Iraq to resist the Americans. See Mohammed M. Hafez, 

Suicide Bombers in Iraq: The Strategy and Ideology of Martyrdom, 

Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2007, p. 198.

171. For the information in this paragraph, see Declaración 

07/11/06, pp. 77-80. Cf. Sentencia 31/07/07, pp. 597-603, although 

the latter concluded (Ibid., pp. 603-604) that despite his key position within the GICM, he had no role in the 3/11 attacks.

172. Some have also claimed that, at some point, Ahmad 

became affiliated with al-Takfir wa al-Hijra. See Irujo, Agujero, 

p. 198.

173. For the information in this paragraph, see Vidino, Al 

Qaeda in Europe, pp. 315-318, citing the 2004 Italian indictment 
152

against Ahmad; and Irujo, Agujero, pp. 168-170. For a report on 

some of Ahmad’s (secretly monitored) activities in Italy between 

April and June 2004, i.e., shortly after the Madrid bombings, see 

Questura di Milano, Divisione Investigazioni Generali ed Operazioni Speciali [DIGOS], Sezione Antiterrorismo, “Ricostruzione 

storica dell’attività di osservazione esterna sul conto di Rabei 

Osman El Sayed Ahmed, nato in Egitto il 22.07.1977, più altri a 

decorrere dal giorno 15 Aprile 2004” (“Historical Reconstruction 

of the External Surveillance Activities in relation to Rabei Osman 

El Sayed Ahmed, born in Egypt on 22 July 1977, starting from 15 

April 2004”), June 3, 2004, pp. 1-7, prepared by Dario Martinelli.

174. Ibid., p. 198.

175. Vidino, Al Qaeda in Europe, p. 310. The Italian police 

also determined that he was in Spain in December 2003. See 

Declaración 07/11/06, p. 62, note 100.

176. Irujo, Agujero, p. 244.

177. Vidino, Al Qaeda in Europe, pp. 311-312. For Italian translations and transcriptions of various phone calls made by Ahmad, 

see Questura di Milano, DIGOS, Sezione A, report in relation to 

Procedimento penale nr. 17596/04/Mod.21, “Esito attività investigativa nei confronti di Rabei Osman Ahmed El Sayed (alias 

Muhammad al-Masri) + 4,” (“Historical Reconstruction of the External Surveillance Activities in relation to Rabei Osman El Sayed 

Ahmed, born in Egypt on 22 July 1977, starting from 15 April 

2004”), June 5, 2004, pp. 16-42.

178. Ibid., p. 313; Auto 10/04/06, pp. 64-65, note 104.

179. Sentencia 31/07/07, pp. 634-635. As is so often the case, 

however, the strained legal reasoning in this sentence with respect 

to Ahmad (Ibid., pp. 630-636) interpreted the existing facts in such 

a way that the defendant was absolved of any serious crimes.

180. De Pablo, Cuarta trama, pp. 388-394. The 10 were Fakhit, 

al-‘Azizi, al-Amari, Abu Mus‘ab al-Suri, Abu Dahdah, Mu’taz 

and Muhannad al-Mallah, al-Haski, al-Hajj, and Muhammad the 

Egyptian.

181. Zeghal, Islamistes marocains, p. 275.
153

182. Merlos, Al Qaeda, p. 210.

183. Ibid., p. 209.

184. Ibid., pp. 217-218.

185. For a historical overview of the use of the term “leaderless resistance,” see Chip Berlet, “The History, Definition, and Use 

of the Term ‘Leaderless Resistance’,“ Public Eye website, undated 

available from www.publiceye.org/liberty/terrorism/insurgency/leaderless-resistance.html. See also Berlet’s critiques of the application 

of this term by Hoffman and Sageman, “Leaderless Resistance 

and Right-Wing Insurgency: Sageman and Hoffman do not Accurately Describe the Role of Leaderless Resistance in Right-Wing 

Violence,” Public Eye website, available from www.publiceye.org/

liberty/terrorism/insurgency/leaderless-resistance-right.html#sageman. 

The closest parallels to “leaderless resistance”—and perhaps 

also “lone wolf” terrorism, a separate phenomenon—within the 

jihadist milieu are the ideas promoted by Abu Mus‘ab al-Suri in 

his huge strategic treatise, Da‘wa al-muqawwama al-islamiyya al-

‘alamiyya (The Call for Global Islamic Resistance), Jihadi websites, 

December 2004, esp. pp. 1355-1413. 

186. I make this claim on the basis of considerable first-hand 

experience, since during the past 20 years I have examined tens 

of thousands of pages of judicial materials dealing with terrorism cases, not only in several European countries but also in the 

United States. See, e.g., Jeffrey M. Bale, “The May 1973 Terrorist Attack at Milan Police Headquarters: Anarchist ‘Propaganda 

of the Deed’ or ‘False Flag’ Provocation?” Terrorism and Political 

Violence, Vol. 8, No. 1, Spring 1996, pp. 132-166.

187. To provide only a couple of illustrative examples, many 

guilty verdicts in Italy against neo-fascist terrorists and their secret service collaborators, verdicts often issued by left-wing judges, were subsequently overturned because these cases were later 

sent by political cronies within the judiciary to appellate courts 

in other jurisdictions with more conservative judges. The result 

was that, even in cases where there were vast amounts of reliable 

evidence against the accused, the defendants were often found 

innocent or, at best, convicted of lesser charges. For illustrative 
154

examples, note the repeated trials of the neo-fascist defendants 

accused of carrying out the December 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing, who in the end were “absolved for lack of evidence.” Forty 

years later, no one has yet been convicted of this crime.

188. A good example of this, which was also affected by the 

aforementioned problem, was the trial of numerous defendants 

in connection with the December 1970 “Borghese coup” in Rome. 

Although the initial sentence issued a guilty verdict and provided 

vast amounts of evidence indicating that many defendants were 

guilty of participating in an attempt to provoke a military coup, 

including the documented theft of six machine pistols from the 

armory of the Interior Ministry by neo-fascist participants from 

Avanguardia Nazionale (National Vanguard [AN]), in a second 

trial that decision was reversed on the basis of bizarre and wholly 

unconvincing legal reasoning.

189. For example, courts in various southern European countries that have the option of finding the defendants neither guilty 

nor innocent, but instead can absolve them for lack of evidence. In 

certain respects, this option is a good one for it enables the judges to cast doubt upon the defendants’ innocence in cases where 

they do not really believe they are innocent but do not yet possess 

sufficient evidence to convict them, but at other times it allows 

judges to avoid making hard decisions by offering them an easy 

middle ground.

190. For example, the higher appellate courts in Britain, which 

appear to be staffed by civil libertarian zealots, have repeatedly 

overturned lower court verdicts against jihadist terrorist suspects. 

At this juncture, it is hard to even imagine what kinds of evidence 

they would consider sufficient to convict and severely punish Islamist terrorists. Apparently, they regard all of the defendants in 

these cases to be the innocent victims of “Islamophobia,” irrespective of how much incriminating evidence exists.

191. It might, however, be of interest to compare and contrast 

features of the internal dynamics and intragroup interactions of 

jihadist groups, on the one hand, with those of other types of 

ideological extremist groups that do not place as much emphasis on kinship in recruiting, e.g., Marxist, anarchist, and neofascist groups.
155

192. The decision of the Spanish government to support the 

U.S. invasion of Iraq was only the latest in a long list of supposed 

“affronts” and international “aggressions” that led the cell members to view Spain as an enemy of Islam. After that decision, however, al-Shabli began talking about “killing the devil [José María] 

Aznar,” who was then Prime Minister of Spain. See Marlasca and 

Rendueles, Una historia del 11-M, pp. 129-130.

193. As has been emphasized by De Arístegui, Yihad en 

España, chap. 4.

194. See, e.g., Williams, “In Cold Blood,” pp. 22-24.

195. Marlasca and Rendueles, Una historia del 11-M, pp. 

147-148.

196. Sentencia 31/07/07, p. 189.

197. Ibid., pp. 189-190. Cf. García-Abadillo, 11-M, pp. 116-

118; Marlasca and Rendueles, Una historia del 11-M, pp. 159-169; 

De Pablo, Cuarta trama, p. 80.

198. Marlasca and Rendueles, Una historia del 11-M, pp. 155, 

158-159.

199. For the information in this paragraph, cf. Sentencia 

31/07/07, pp. 191-192; Marlasca and Rendueles, Una historia del 11-

M, pp. 170-174; De Pablo, Cuarta trama, pp. 80-82.

200. For the information below, cf. Sentencia 31/07/07, pp. 

192-196; Marlasca and Rendueles, Una historia del 11-M, pp. 174-

176; García-Abadillo, 11-M, pp. 119-120; De Pablo, Cuarta trama, 

pp. 82-85.

201. De Pablo, Cuarta trama, p. 87-88; Marlasca and Rendueles, 

Una historia del 11-M, pp. 176-178; García-Abadillo, 11-M, p. 121.

202. Sentencia 31/07/07, pp. 197-199; Marlasca and Rendueles, 

Una historia del 11-M, pp. 178-182; García-Abadillo, 11-M, pp. 122-

123; De Pablo, Cuarta trama, pp. 88-91.
156

203. For the information in this paragraph, cf. Sentencia 

31/07/07, pp. 199-200; Marlasca and Rendueles, Una historia del 11-

M, pp. 182-183; De Pablo, Cuarta trama, pp. 91-98. Unfortunately, 

the latter author tries to explain this perplexing detour to Burgos 

by hypothesizing that Ahmidan and his crew went there to meet 

with persons who were involved in the “fourth plot” he claims existed, without providing any hard evidence. However, Ahmidan 

also stored some detonators in his Calle Villalobos flat, which was 

located in Madrid’s Vallecas neighborhood. See García-Abadillo, 

11-M, p. 123.

204. Sentencia 31/07/07, p. 200.

205. Cf. Irujo, Agujero, pp. 267-269; Luis del Pino, Los enigmas 

del 11-M: Conspiración o negligencia? (The Enigmas of 3/11: Conspiracy or Negligence?), Madrid, Spain: Libros Libres, 2006, pp. 119-121. 

As the title indicates, Del Pino is yet another author promoting 

a conspiratorial perspective on the Madrid bombings. Even so, 

his description of the ownership and succession of renters of the 

Chinchón property is among the clearest and most concise.

206. García-Abadillo, 11-M, p. 122.

207. De Pablo, Cuarta trama, pp. 112-114.

208. Cf. Auto 10/04/06, pp. 205, 207; Marlasca and Rendueles, 

Una historia del 11-M, pp. 99, 146-147; Ernesto Milà, 11-M, los perros 

del infierno: En el terrorismo internacional nada es que parece (3/11, The 

Dogs of Hell [or The Hellhounds]: Nothing is What it Appears to be in 

International Terrorism), Barcelona, Spain: Pyre, 2004, pp. 84, 107, 

chart). Note that the latter author is a veteran neo-fascist radical 

whose conspiratorial book disputes the official version and argues 

that the Madrid bombings were the product of a state-sponsored 

“false flag” terrorist attack. Hence although he provides some 

useful bits of information, his main objective is to challenge various factual claims presented by the government or published in 

the “establishment” media.

209. Irujo, Agujero, p. 367.

210. Marlasca and Rendueles, Una historia del 11-M, pp. 145, 

181, including note 73). The title of this manual was “Chain of 

Preparations for the Struggle.”
157

211. Cf. Emerson Vermaat, “Madrid Terrorism Trial Verdict,” 

electronic p. 4; and Irujo, Agujero, p. 244, where it is claimed that 

Muhammad provided secret information on bomb making to 

Fakhit and his group (after which they practiced in the Chinchón 

house) and p. 368; and Agence France-Presse, “Saad Husseini, posible artificiero de las bombas del 11-M, condenado a 15 años por 

los atentados de Casablanca de 2003” (“Saad Husseini, possible 

fabricator of the 3/11 bombs, condemned to 15 years in prison for 

the 2003 Casablanca attacks”), El País, February 27, 2009, available 

from 3diasdemarzo.blogspot.com/2009/02/saad-husseini-posible-artificiero-de.html. Note that the latter was also the presumed bomb 

maker in the Casablanca attacks as well. Judge Juan Del Olmo 

suspected him of being the “inventor” of the backpack bombs 

used on 3/11.

212. De Pablo, Cuarta trama, pp. 111-120, 397-399. Unfortunately, as I have noted elsewhere, there is a large and ever-growing conspiratorial literature on the 3/11 bombings, a literature 

which ranges from the utterly delusional to the suggestive but 

inconclusive. For an example of the former, see Bruno Cardeñosa, 

11-M: Claves de una conspiración (Keys to a Conspiracy), Madrid, 

Spain: Espejo de Tinta, 2004. 

213. For the information in the above paragraph, see Andreas 

Ulrich, “Ticket to Iraq,” Der Spiegel, April 7, 2007. I was unable to 

retrieve the original German version from the magazine’s website.

214. Hubert Gude, “‘Von Gott belohnt’” (“Rewarded by 

God”), Focus Magazin, January 8, 2007, available from www.focus.

de/politik/deutschland/terror-von-gott-belohnt_aid_224850.html.

215. For the absurd overreactions to the publications of cartoons satirizing Muhammad, overreactions that were not spontaneous but rather were systematically fomented, fueled, and organized by Islamist agitators, see Mohamed Sifaoui, L’affaire des 

caricatures: Dessins et manipulations (The Cartoons Affair: Designs 

and Manipulations), Privé, 2006, esp. chaps. 4-5. The key figure in 

generating the worldwide Muslim hysteria about these cartoons 

was a radical cleric residing in Denmark named Ahmad Abu Laban, who even went so far as to sponsor the production of phony 

Muhammad cartoons in order to inflame Muslim passions. Per-
158

haps the most shameful aspect of this entire affair, however, was 

the unwillingness of most Western newspapers, including in the 

United States, to reprint those cartoons in the interests of resisting 

Islamist intimidation and defending free speech.

216. Ulrich, “Ticket to Iraq.”

217. What is clear is that al-Hajj Dib downloaded the aforementioned video from a website—a video 12 minutes long 

which had an Arabic-language narration—and simply tried to 

follow the instructions provided therein. However, chemists at 

the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) believed that the video, which 

purported to depict the various steps one had to follow to make 

homemade bombs, lacked certain vitally important information 

that limited its usefulness for novices unfamiliar with pressurized 

gases. 

218. Ibid.

219. Ibid. However, these tests were later criticized for being 

overly academic and unrealistic, since the German experts used 

various techniques and equipment that were not available to 

the would-be bombers. See Gerd Elendt, “Staatsfeind Nummer

Eins” (“Public Enemy Number One”), Der Stern, December 13, 

2007, pp. 74ff.

220. Herbert Gude and Josef Hufelschulte, “Eine Art Napalm” 

(“A Type of Napalm”), Focus Magazin [Munich], September 12, 

2006, pp. 42-43.

221. Elendt, “Staatsfeind Nummer Eins.”

222. “Die Bomben waren dilettantisch gebaut” (“The 

bombs were amateurishly constructed”), Der Spiegel online, 

August 21, 2006, available from www.spiegel.de/panorama/

justiz/0,1518,432782,00.html. In contrast, however, a BKA bomb 

disposal expert claimed that the bombs were constructed very 

professionally. See “Zeuge: Kofferbomber hätten ein Inferno ausgelöst” (“Witness: Suitcase bombers had planned an inferno”), 

Die Welt, February 20, 2007.

223. Gude, “‘Von Gott belohnt’.”
159

224. For the general history and characteristics of Hizb alTahrir, see especially Suha Taji-Farouki, A Fundamental Quest: 

Hizb al-Tahrir and the Search for the Islamic Caliphate, London, UK: 

Grey Seal, 1996, an outstanding monographic study. Compare 

also Zeyno Baran, ed., The Challenge of Hizb ut-Tahrir: Deciphering and Radical Islamist Ideology. Conference Report, Washington, 

DC: Nixon Center, 2004; and Emmanuel Karagiannis and Clark 

McCauley, “Hizb-ut-Tahrir al-Islami: Evaluating the Threat 

Posed by a Radical Islamic Group that Remains Nonviolent,” 

Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 18, No. 2, July 2006, pp. 315-

334. For further evidence of Hizb’s ideological radicalism, compare also its numerous publications, many of which are available in PDF format on the group’s own website, available from 

www.hizbuttahrir.org.

225. Peter Finn, “Germany Bans Islamic Group,” Washington 

Post, January 16, 2003. HT has since challenged that ban, both in 

Germany (to no avail) and in the European court. Cf. Richard 

Bernstein, “Islamic group challenges ban on its organizing activities in Germany,” International Herald Tribune, September 27, 2004; 

and Ian Cobain, “Islamist group challenges Berlin’s five-year ban 

in European court,” The Guardian [London], June 24, 2008, available from www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/24/islam.religion.

226. Knut Krohn, “Einzeltäter oder Teil eines Terrornetzwerkes? Ein Kofferbomber soll Verbindungen zu Islamisten haben” 

(“Lone actor or part of a terrorist network? Suitcase bomber must 

have links to Islamists”), Stuttgarter Zeitung, August 24, 2006.

227. See Gude, “‘Von Gott belohnt’”; Florian Harms and Alexander Schwabe, “Kiels Nährboden für Islamisten” (“Kiel’s breeding ground for Islamists”), Der Spiegel, August 25, 2006; and Philip Eppelsheim, “Norddeutsche Al Qaida Connection?” (“North 

German Al Qaida Connection?”), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 

July 24, 2007. Yet even that particular mosque was apparently not 

radical enough for Ridwan, since he had a dispute with its imam 

‘Abd al-Majid al-Samadawi over the 7/7 bombings, which the 

former publicly supported. See Ibid. Note also that Sa‘id bin alHajji has also been linked to members of the 3/11 cell.
160

228. Andreas Ulrich, “Failed Bomb Plot Seen as Al-Qaida 

Initiation Test,” Der Spiegel, September 4, 2007, available from 

www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,476238,00.html.

229. For the background and context of the development of 

Sunni jihadist groups in Lebanon, see Bernard Rougier, Everyday Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam among Palestinians in Lebanon, 

Cambridge, MA, and London, UK: Harvard University, 2009, esp. 

chap. 7.

230. “Suspect in Lebanon Bomb Plot Killed in Lebanon Fighting,” Deutsche Welle, May 21, 2007, available from www.dw-world.

de/dw/article/0,2144,2546292,00.html; “Failed German Train Suspect Killed in Lebanon,” Associated Press, May 21, 2007, available 

from www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,274154,00.html.

231. Peter R. Neumann, “Europe’s Jihadist Dilemma,” 

Survival, Vol. 48, No. 2, Summer 2006, p. 77.

232. This does not mean, of course, that al-Qa‘ida Central was 

involved.

233. For more on this case, cf. J. A. Emerson Vermaat, De 

Hofstadgroep: Portrat van een radical-islamitisch netwerk (The Hofstad Group: Portrait of a Radical Islamist Network), Soesterberg, The 

Netherlands: Aspekt, 2005; Nederlandse Jihad: Het proces tegen de 

Hofstadgroep (Jihad in the Netherlands: The Trial against the Hofstad Group), Soesterberg, The Netherlands: Aspekt, 2007; Lorenzo 

Vidino,”The Hofstad Group: The New Face of Terrorist Networks 

in Europe,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 30, No. 7, 2007, 

pp. 579-592. Members of the Hofstadgroep had documented links 

to other jihadist cells in Europe, and some may have also forged 

links to terrorist organizations in Pakistan. Hence characterizing 

them as “unconnected” would be problematic.
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