The terror web
A piecy by Lawrence Wright in the New Yorker on Al Qaeda, Madrid and the Al Andalus (Andalusia) connection.
“A writer named Murad chastised those who condemned the Madrid bombings. �You pity the deaths of those non-Muslims so quickly! If Muslims had died in their lands in the manner the writer discusses, would he have cried for them?� A woman named Bint al-Dawa responded, �Brother Murad, Islam does not allow the killing of innocent people.� A man who called himself �Salahuddeen2� entered the discussion: �We have said that we are against the killing of civilians anywhere, but the enemies of God kill Muslim civilians every day and do not feel shame. They should drink from the same bitter cup.�
Though these sites have become an ideological home for many Muslims, for most Arab immigrants Europe has provided comfort and support, while at the same time allowing them the freedom to maintain their Islamic identities. Three Moroccan immigrants died on the trains on March 11th. One was a devout thirteen-year-old girl, Sanae Ben Salah, for whom the M-30 mosque was said to have been her �second home.� Another, Mohamed Itabien, twenty-seven, was an illegal immigrant who taught Arabic classes at a mosque in Guadalajara. He was the sole source of support for his family, including eleven siblings, most of whom lived in a tiny town in Morocco where there were no telephones. The third, Osama el-Amrati, was a builder who was engaged to a Spanish woman. �Europe has given us opportunities our own countries didn�t give us,� Mustapha el-M�Rabet, the head of the Moroccan Workers and Immigrants Association, told me in Madrid. �Our children are in school, and we are working. Thousands of families in Morocco can live with the money we get here.� When I asked M�Rabet if Al Andalus was part of the lure for Moroccan immigrants, he said, �Nobody with common sense could talk about going back to that. It�s madness. It�s a disease.� “