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MADRID (Reuters) - Armed Islamist militants that
operate in Europe are also helping support the armed
insurgency in Iraq, one of Europe's foremost experts
on such groups told Reuters.
Spanish High Court Judge Baltasar Garzon, who has
been investigating Islamist militants in Spain since
1991, warned that groups such as the Algerian
Salafist movement and the Moroccan Islamic Combatant
Group were particularly dangerous for Europe.
"They are groups that have membership inside and
outside Europe and in any case we have to keep close
watch on the relationship these groups have with
others like Ansar al-Islam," Garzon told Reuters in
an interview late on Friday.
"It's obvious that this type of terror groups are
perfectly operative ... The threat from this type of
terrorism is real, it's constant, it's current and
it will continue to be."
Ansar al-Islam is one of the most active and best
known groups attacking the U.S.-led occupation
forces in Iraq.
Garzon said the Iraq war had inspired the
recruitment of new holy warriors "in general," but
declined to characterize that recruitment in Europe.
Garzon, who on Monday begins nine months' leave to
teach at New York University, has conducted several
investigations into suspect Islamist activity
including one probe that led him to charge Osama bin
Laden with mass murder.
He had been following a suspected al Qaeda cell in
Spain at the time of Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, and
then ordered the arrest of the suspects for fear
they might also attack. The trial of some two dozen
of them is due to begin within months.
Garzon said it was impossible to measure how serious
the Islamist militant threat was.
But ever since the early 1990s they have "set up
bases in key points" of Europe, where they have
fabricated false identity papers and raised money
for jihad in Bosnia, Chechnya, Algeria and now Iraq,
Garzon said.
A year ago, one group became the first to launch a
serious attack in Western Europe with the Madrid
train bombings, for which more than 70 people have
been arrested, around half of whom are still in jail
or under court supervision.
In his just published book "A World Without Fear"
Garzon notes that in January 2004 bin Laden ordered
followers to attack occupation forces in Iraq, where
Spain had 1,300 troops sent by the former
conservative government, but said the Madrid train
bomber did "not necessarily" take it as an order
target Spain.
"The idea of committing a major attack could have
come from within the (Madrid train bombing) group
itself or it could have come from abroad ...
"It's not important who the bosses are. There may
not have been any, or there may have been an emir
who acted as a catalyst and indoctrinated the
others, but it doesn't even have to been an emir.
The groups could have acted on their own or in
coordination with others," Garzon said.
Reuters
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