November 13, 2001: Spanish Militants Not Arrested Are Later Involved in Madrid Bombings

On November 13, 2001 Spanish police arrest cell leader Barakat Yarkas and ten other alleged members of his cell. Spanish police, led by judge Baltasar Garzon, appear confident that they have smashed the al-Qaeda presence in Spain (see November 13, 2001). However, a number of likely suspects are left at large:
Moutaz Almallah. Spanish police will later say that he had contacts with Yarkas as far back as 1995, the year police began to monitor Yarkas. He is said to have served as the “political chief” of Yarkas’s cell. He and Yarkas were seen meeting with an al-Qaeda courier in 1998. He will move to London in 2002 to live with radical imam Abu Qatada (see August 2002). He will be arrested in 2005 for a role in the Madrid bombings but has yet to be tried (see August 2002). Curiously, in 1995, a police officer who also served as Garzon’s bodyguard, sold Almallah an apartment and stayed friends with him (see November 1995). [El Mundo (Madrid), 3/2/2005; BBC, 3/24/2005]
Amer el-Azizi, who may have had a role in the 9/11 plot, is able to flee a police raid due to a tip-off from Spanish intelligence (see Shortly After November 21, 2001).
Jamal Zougam, even though he has been under suspicion since 2000, and has been tied to al-Qaeda-linked imam Abu Qatada and Mohammed Fazazi, who preached at the mosque attended by the 9/11 hijackers (see 2000-Early March 2004). [New York Times, 11/20/2001; Irujo, 2005, pp. 162-164] A French investigator had warned Spanish intelligence in June 2001 that Zougam was an important Islamist militant in a number of countries and that he should be arrested (see June 2001). Zougam’s Madrid apartment was searched by police on August 10, 2001, and investigators found phone numbers of three other members of the cell, plus a video of mujaheddin fighters in Chechnya. [Associated Press, 3/17/2004]
Serhane Abdelmajid Fakhet. Spanish intelligence began monitoring him in 2000 for his links to other members of the cell. He was photographed with Yarkas in October 2001 (see October 19, 2001). [Irujo, 2005, pp. 182-186] Another informant who later appears as a protected witness will claim that Fakhet was also a government informant (see Shortly After October 2003).
Said Chedadi is arrested, but is later released. He had been monitored traveling to London with Yarkas and giving money to Qatada. He will go on to have a role in the Madrid bombings (see 1995-February 2001). He also is roommates with Dris Chebli up until Chebli is arrested in June 2003 (see April-June 2003). [New York Times, 11/14/2001; El Mundo (Madrid), 10/27/2004]
El-Azizi flees overseas, but allegedly instructs the other cell members not arrested to constitute new cells in Madrid and Morocco. Fakhet becomes a leader of the new cells. Even though the vast majority of those not arrested remain under surveillance, including Fakhet and Zougam (see Shortly Before March 11, 2004), they are able to stage the March 2004 Madrid train bombings (see 7:37-7:42 a.m., March 11, 2004). Fakhet will blow himself up shortly after those bombings, while Zougam will get life in prison for his role. El-Azizi has yet to be captured. Yarkas and most of the others arrested with him will be convicted for al-Qaeda ties in 2005 and given prison terms (see 7:37-7:42 a.m., March 11, 2004). [Irujo, 2005, pp. 165-174] A Spanish investigator will later call Yarkas the mastermind of the Madrid bombings even though he was in prison since 2001, because virtually all of the bombers were connected to him in some way. “It is very clear to me, that if by mastermind we mean the person who has put the group together, prepared the group, trained it ideologically, sent them to Afghanistan to be prepared militarily for terrorism, that man is [Yarkas], without any doubt.” [New York Times, 10/26/2004]