Allow me to wax philisophical this Monday morning as we take a look at the latest story about a foiled plot where suicide bombers were reportedly going to attack cities in Spain, Germany, France, Britain and Portugal and how an informant who infiltrated the mission halted the plan.
CNN is reporting that Islamic suicide bombers, in Al-Quada fashion, were going to attack modes of public transportation because it would have pretty much annihilated any chance of emergency vehicles helping in any rescue missions. These particular suicide missions have been a staple in the Middle East for decades.
“This cell was preparing to attack,” Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said Friday in an interview with Spanish radio network SER. “It’s clear they were going to try, whether last weekend (January 18 to 20) or within 15 days.”
But he said police have not found explosives “in sufficient quantity” to have carried out the assault.
“We have found a modest quantity of explosives,” Rubalcaba said, adding that they may have been intended for use in training the suspects.
The judge in his rulings wrote that the group “had achieved human operational capacity and were very close to achieving full technical capacity with explosives, with the aim of using those explosives for a jihadi terrorist attack.”
Rubalcaba said that, for any such suspected terrorist cell, “the time from getting explosives to carrying out the attack can be very short.”
With the state of the world what it is and for Americans who dealt with the realities of the loss of life during 9/11, it is no surprise that other cells have planned attacks led by Islamic extremists. What is surprising is that we don’t hear more about it. But this is not a new brand of terrorism, as suicide bombings have plagued countries for years. There are a few interesting equations in this story. Spain seems to have been especially targeted within recent years. Is this because of location or political/religious philosophy that have put them in the forefront.
There are 10 suspects arrested in this particular case who all deem they are innocent. On the other hand, explosives were found and as the article cited, it doesn’t take that much time to created an explosive apparatus for a suicide bombing.
Research shows that the idea of suicide bombings is an effective way to do a great deal of damage with very little expense. But the story is hopeful as well, that efforts are being effective of stopping some of these acts of terrorism.
A lot to think about as we start out our work week.
