The 50 Worst Terrorist Attacks (31 page)

Police cornered seven terrorist suspects in the Madrid suburb of Leganes on April 3, 2004, at 7:00 p .m. The terrorists yelled, “Allah is great” and “We will die fighting.” After a two-hour gun battle, the terrorists committed suicide by setting off bombs in their apartment. A Special Forces policeman died and 15 were injured in the nighttime bombing. Police said that four suspects might have escaped. Among those killed were Sarhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet (alias The Tunisian); Abdennabi Kounjaa, a Moroccan; Asri Rifaat Anouar; and Jamal Ahmidan, a Moroccan (alias The Chinese), the suspected operational commander. Police said on April 7, 2004, that the dead terrorists had planned another major attack in Madrid, possibly during Easter, and possibly against Jewish sites. Police found 200 copper detonators, 22 pounds of Goma 2 Eco explosives, money, and other evidence of plans in the apartment debris.

By April 11, 2004, investigators believed that the cell leader, Fakhet, sought out al Qaeda for assistance but that the group did not directly participate. He traveled to Turkey in late 2002 or early 2003 to meet with senior al Qaeda European operative Amer Azizi, to whom he outlined plans for the attack. He asked for manpower and other support to carry it out. Azizi had fought in Bosnia and Afghanistan. He said al Qaeda could not offer direct aid, but it supported the plan and Fakhet could use al Qaeda's name in claiming credit. Azizi also suggested contacting Jamal Zougam, a follower of Yarkas, imprisoned since November 2001 on suspicion of being al Qaeda's Spanish cell leader.

Interior Minister Angel Acebes told reporters that the 3/11 financing came from drug deals. Police cited testimony by Khayata Kattan, a Syrian member of al Qaeda who was extradited from Jordan earlier in 2004 on a warrant issued for the 9/11 attacks.

On April 28, 2004, Azizi was indicted on charges of helping to plan the 9/11 attacks by organizing a meeting in northeastern Spain in July 2001 in which key plotters Mohamed Atta and Ramzi Binalshibh finalized details, according to Judge Baltasar Garzon. He had also been charged in a September 2003 indictment against bin Laden and 34 other terrorist suspects. Azizi was charged with belonging to a terrorist organization. He was charged with multiple counts of murder “as many deaths and injuries as were committed” on 9/11. He allegedly provided lodging for the Tarragona meeting and acting as a terrorist courier. He was a close friend of Yarkas. Azizi fled Spain in November 2001.

On June 8, 2004, police in Belgium and Italy arrested 17 individuals with suspected links to al Qaeda, including Rabei Osman el Sayed Ahmed (aka Mohamed the Egyptian and Mohamed Abdul Hadi Fayad), believed involved in the bombing. The press reported that Ahmed was a former army explosives expert who conducted training courses at al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. He was in Spain in 2003 and in touch with the ringleader, Fakhet. Ahmed recruited Fakhet at a Madrid mosque and may have supplied the explosives expertise. He was traced to Italy via intercepted phone calls. Spain requested extradition so he could face 190 counts of murder, 1,430 counts of attempted murder, and 4 counts of terrorism. A Palestinian and a Jordanian arrested in Belgium were known lieutenants of Ahmed and were believed involved in the 3/11 attacks. Police believed Ahmed and Fakhet were in a house in Morata de Tajuna where the bombs were made. On December 1, 2004, Italy's top appeals court informed Spain's High Court that it had approved the extradition of Ahmed, who was being held in the Voghera prison near Milan.

Spanish authorities believed that the overall organizer was Syrian-born former journalist Abu Musab Suri (alias Mustafa Setmarian Nasar), who was once the overall commander of al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and who once headed the group's propaganda operations.

On November 16, 2004, a court sentenced a 16-year-old Spaniard to six years in a juvenile detention facility after he pleaded guilty to helping steal and transport the dynamite used in the bombings.

In 2005, Azizi, who had recruited the leaders of the bombers' cell, died in a missile strike on Haisori village near Miranshah in North Waziristan, Pakistan.

In June 2005, forensic experts suggested that Mohamed Afalah, a Moroccan wanted in the Madrid bombings, conducted a suicide attack in Iraq in May 2005.

On April 11, 2006, Judge Juan del Olmo charged six people with 191 counts of terrorist murder and 1,755 attempted murders. Another
23 people were indicted for collaborating in the plot. The trial began on February 15, 2007. On October 31, 2007, a Spanish court convicted 21 of involvement but cleared 3 of being masterminds. Two Moroccans and a Spaniard who provided the explosives were sentenced to 42,924 years in prison. Jamal Zougam was convicted of membership in a jihadist terrorist cell and of terrorist murder. Moroccan citizen Othman el-Gnaoui was convicted of membership in a jihadist terrorist cell, terrorist murder, and helping to get explosives to the house where the bombs were made. Spanish citizen Jose Emilio Suarez Trashorras was found guilty of providing the explosives. Ahmed was cleared of all charges. His acquittal was upheld by the Supreme Court on July 17, 2008.

On November 6, 2006, a Milan court found Ahmed guilty of conspiracy to participate in international terrorist activities and sentenced him to 10 years. He was extradited to Madrid on November 17, 2006. He would remain in prison on these charges following his acquittal in the 3/11 case.

In November 2009, Judge Eloy Velasco indicted seven Islamic militants— including four Moroccans, an Algerian, and a Tunisian—for providing money, housing, food, and forged documents to the bombers.

Overview:
Chechen terrorists continued to conduct mass-casualty attacks, stepping up their operations by introducing women—heretofore less likely to attract the attention of security screeners—to attack squads.

Incident:
On August 24, 2004, two Russian passenger jets that left the same Moscow airport within 30 minutes of each other disappeared on radar screens around 11:00
P.M
. They crashed within three minutes of each other, killing all 90 on board.

The Islambouli Brigades claimed credit, saying it was avenging Russian abuses in Chechnya. The group said on a website that five attackers were on each plane, adding:

The crashes occurred four days before an election to choose a Chechen president. Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov's London representative, Akhmed Zakayev, denied involvement.

At 9:30
P.M
., Sebir flight 1047, a TU-154 carrying 38 passengers and 8 crew, left Moscow for Sochi. It disappeared from radar at 11:00
P.M.
The
pilot activated a distress and hijack signal. Four hours later, investigators found the debris 82 miles north of Rostov-on-Don.

At 10:00
P.M
., Volga-Avia Express flight 1303, a Tupolev TU-134, took off from Moscow's Domodedovo Airport heading for Volgograd (former Stalingrad) with 36 passengers and 8 crew, including the chief of the airline. It disappeared from radar at 10:56
P.M
. Witnesses in Tula said they saw an explosion before the plane hit the ground near Buchalki village.

On August 27, 2004, authorities announced that investigators had discovered traces of hexogen explosives (also known as RDX or clyclonite) in the wreckage of the TU-154 that crashed near Rostov-on-Don. The next day, investigators reported finding RDX traces on the TU134 that crashed in the Tula region south of Moscow. Police believed two Chechen women bought tickets at the last minute to board the two planes at Moscow's airport. They were the only people whose family members did not inquire about the bodies.

Investigators reported on August 31, 2004, that two Chechen women had accompanied the suspected bombers to Moscow in the days before the crashes. The duo remained at large in Moscow.

On September 17, 2004, Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev, 39, took credit on Kavkaz-Center, an Islamic website based in Lithuania.

Investigators said that a Chechen woman bribed an airline ticket agent with 1,000 rubles ($34) to put her on a different flight; the agent scrawled, “Admit on board flight 1047.” The two women paid 5,000 rubles to a black market dealer for tickets for the flights. They had initially been stopped by police but were inexplicably let go. They were identified as Satsita Dzhebirkhanova and Aminat Nagayeva, although some Russian newspapers said that the passports were faked.

On September 24, 2004, police Captain Mikhail Artamonov was charged with negligence that led to fatalities. Airline employee Nikolai Korenkov and accused ticket scalper Armen Arutyunian were charged with complicity in terrorism. On April 12, 2005, a Moscow regional court charged the latter two with aiding and abetting terrorism and commercial bribery. On June 30, 2005, Artamonov was sentenced to seven years for negligence.

Overview:
Chechen terrorists' preference for large-group attacks and the holding of large groups of hostages was seen two years earlier with the takeover of a Moscow theater. The organization, with other ethnic groups joining them, increased the pressure on the government and the public by taking over an elementary school on the first day of classes.

Incident:
On September 1, 2004, at 9:00
A.M.
, 32 terrorists, including Chechens, Kazakhs, Russians, Ingush, Ossetians, and at least 10 Arabs, drove up in a military-style GAZ-66 truck and shot their way into School No. 1 in Beslan in North Ossetia, Russia, near Chechnya, during the morning and took 1,200 people, including hundreds of students and parents, hostage on the first day of school. At least 11 adults died in the initial shootout with the terrorists, who were wearing camouflage. At least two female terrorists wore explosive belts. The terrorists set up a pedal mechanism to an explosive and threatened to blow up the school if rescuers attacked them and said they would kill 50 hostages for every kidnapper killed, 20 for each wounded.

The school had been defended by only three security guards; one was killed and the two others were injured in the initial shootout.

By mid-afternoon, 15 children, who were hidden in the boiler room by their English teacher, ran to safety. The terrorists had attempted to open the heavy iron door with two grenades, with no success.

The hostage-takers demanded the release of 30 Chechen prisoners and Russian withdrawal from Chechnya. By phone, the terrorists asked to talk to the presidents of Ingushetia and North Ossetia.

The terrorists initially refused to permit medicine, food, and drink to be brought in for the hostages. By the third day, the tap water was running short, and some children drank urine. Many of the children stripped to their underwear to try to escape the suffocating heat in the school. The terrorists also rejected safe passage.

Some of the hostages later said that the terrorists were Wahhabis, wearing long beards and prayer caps.

Hundreds of Russian troops surrounded the school with armored vehicles. The perimeter broke down, however, and numerous armed townspeople joined the siege. In the afternoon of September 2, 2004, the terrorists fired rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), setting a car alight. They again fired RPGs the evening of September 3, 2004, injuring a police officer.

A local legislator said on September 2, 2004, at 9:00
P.M.
that 20 male hostages had been executed inside the school. The male hostages had been herded to a different location, away from the children and women, and shot. One man had been executed an hour into the siege.

On September 3, 2004, the terrorists freed 26 young children and their mothers. Gunfire was often heard coming from inside the school. Talks were suspended. Freed hostages said the terrorists had mined the school and suspended 16–18 bombs from the ceiling of the gymnasium, where many of the hostages were herded.

The terrorists used gas masks to ensure that if would-be rescuers flooded the area with knockout gas, as had been done in the 2002 Moscow theater siege, they would not be affected.

On September 4, 2004, around 1:00
P.M.
, the 52-hour siege ended when troops rushed the school after hearing explosions in the gym. The troops had not planned on rushing the school, but had no choice when the terrorists opened fire on fleeing children. At least 338 hostages, including 156 children; 10 Russian Special Forces rescuers; and 30 terrorists died from gunshot wounds, fire from the explosions, shrapnel, and the collapsing roof of the gymnasium.

More than 1 percent of Beslan's population was killed.

Itar-TASS
reported that the attack was financed by Abu Omar as-Seyf, an Arab alleged to represent al Qaeda in Chechnya, and directed by Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev. An escaped hostage said she recognized some of the terrorists as having earlier done construction work on the school, leading investigators to suggest that they had hidden their weapons in the school during construction.

A Muslim group claiming loyalty to Ayman al-Zawahiri claimed credit on a website.

On September 5, 2004, the Russian government announced on state television that it had lied to the public about the scale of the hostage crisis. The broadcast made no apology that the government had claimed that only 354 hostages were inside the school. Questions remained about how many terrorists there were (reports varied from 16 to 40); how many terrorists were alive, free, or captured; how many people died; and how many had been captive. Many believed the death toll was higher than the official figure of 338. (On September 6, 2004, the government dropped the number to 334, including 156 children, and said that 1,180 hostages were involved.)