Spain tries to connect al Qaeda, train bombers
Investigators find links to members of terrorist network
From Henry Schuster
CNN
 |  Ten bombs exploded on four trains in three stations. |
|
Story Tools
|
|  VIDEO |
 Video alleges al Qaeda behind attack
 Arrests made in Spanish bomb probe
 Spain votes in Socialists
 Illegal immigrants in Spain feeling the heat
|
|
(CNN) -- Spanish investigators are working to connect the dots between the al Qaeda terror network and the men arrested in connection with the Madrid train bombings last week.
Marc Sageman, a former CIA case officer in Pakistan who now teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, has been doing the same thing.
He is the author of the forthcoming book, "Understanding Terror Networks," which analyzes the connections between various members of al Qaeda.
Sageman said some of the links that Spanish investigators are making were outlined in an indictment issued last year by Spanish Judge Balthazar Garzon. (Full story)
Jamal Zougam, a Moroccan native in Spanish custody, is an example. Spanish investigators linked him to a cell phone found with one of the unexploded bombs from the attacks last week that killed 201 and wounded another 1,500.
Before coming to Spain, Zougam shared an apartment in Morocco with Abdelaziz Benyaich, according to a Moroccan government official.
Garzon's indictment says Benyaich, who is in a Spanish jail awaiting extradition to Morocco for his alleged role in terror attacks in Casablanca in May, once shared a Madrid apartment with another man, David Courtailler.
According to French investigators, Courtailler earlier shared an apartment in England with Zacarias Moussaoui, who is now in a U.S. jail awaiting trial on charges of involvement in the conspiracy surrounding the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Wednesday, a French judge is expected to question Courtailler. Investigative sources say Courtailler has also been linked to Richard Reid, who is serving a life sentence for trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight in December 2001 with explosives hidden in his shoes. During his trial, Reid declared himself a follower of al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.
Sageman said such linkages are common as he studies terror networks, which he has found to be based more on personal acquaintance than recruitment.
Spanish investigators also connect Zougam to a man named Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas.
Yarkas is under arrest in Spain, where Garzon's indictment charged him with being the head of an al Qaeda support cell.
Garzon's indictment also mentioned Zougam as a supporter of Yarkas. European intelligence agencies, in turn, have linked Yarkas to the Hamburg, Germany-based cell that included September 11 ringleader Mohamed Atta. The indictment makes the same connection.
Atta visited Spain the summer before September 11, 2001, and investigators say he held an important planning meeting for the plot in northern Spain.
As for whether al Qaeda was behind the Madrid train bombings, Sageman put it this way: "How can anybody not call it al Qaeda after seeing all these connections?"
CNN's Al Goodman and Justine Redman contributed to this report.
