Al-Qaeda suspect blames sect for Madrid attacks

23 March 2004

ROME – Abu Dahdah, suspected leader of an al-Qaeda cell in Spain, claimed Tuesday that a “heretic sect” founded in Egypt in the 1940s was responsible for the March 11 train bombings in Madrid.

In response to a questionnaire from the Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera, Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, also known as Abu Dahdah, said the Takfir wal Hijra (Anathema and Exile) sect was made up of radicals who follow heretical Islamic precepts.

The questionnaire was sent to the suspect via his attorney, Jacobo Teijelo.

Abu Dahdah said the group considered it justifiable to kill all the “infidels,” including Muslims who do not adhere to their rigid doctrine, as well as children, “to keep them from sinning in the future.”

He added that the group, which he said was thought to have been dissolved, “has returned, is infiltrating youth groups and recruiting the poor and illiterate into criminal acts.”

Abu Dahdah, who was arrested in connection with the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, called the Madrid blasts “an abominable crime” and insisted that no interpretation of Islam can justify them.

He said he knows Jamal Zougam, one of those arrested in the Madrid bombings, “through work”.

“I’ve already explained to (Spanish) Judge Baltasar Garzon: We used to frequent the same area – Tribulete Street – in the neighborhood of Lavapies, a point of reference for Muslims in Madrid,” he said.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

                                  Subject: Spanish news