H. Thomas Hayden was formerly the President and CEO of First Communications Company (FCC), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a joint venture between Raytheon and a Saudi Company involved in Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I) Systems for the Ministry of Defense and Aviation, Saudi Arabian National Guard and Ministry of Interior. Before retiring from the US Marine Corps, assignments included Commanding Officer (CO), Headquarters and Service Bn, 1st Force Service Support Group, which deployed to the Gulf War, CO Brigade Service Support Group – 9, which deployed to Somalia and CO MAU Service Support Group – 33, which deployed to The Philippines and Korea. He was Branch Head, Headquarters Marine Corps, Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (SO/LIC), and Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for SO/LIC with assignments to Central America. He has participated in combat operations or contingency operations in the Republic of Vietnam, Central America, Gulf War, Somalia, and Colombia. Tom has a MBA, MA in International Relations, and a PhD candidate in Business Management. He is the author of two books and is currently writing a third: SHADOW WAR: Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict; WARFIGHTING: Maneuver Warfare in the US Marine Corps. He has published over 40 articles and has been awarded the Navy League’s Alfred Thayer Mahan award for literary achievement.
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Ten bombs exploded almost simultaneously at four locations in Madrid, Spain, on Thursday, March 11. Over 200 people are dead and more than 1,500 wounded. The bombs were each reported to be made of between 12 and 15 kilos of Titadine dynamite, carried in “back packs,” and left at each location by possible Al Qaeda-connected assailants. Three additional bombs did not explode, and were discovered and destroyed by Spanish police.
Can it happen here? The answer is yes.
In Madrid, the Interior Minister has said that the 13 bombs were very sophisticated devices. This was not an amateur event.
The Spanish government first claimed that the Basque separatist group called ETA was responsible. ETA has conducted terrorist attacks for years, but has never attempted an attack of this magnitude.
Now Spanish authorities see a connection with Al Qaeda in the five men arrested - three are Moroccans and two are Indians. The operation was also Al Qaeda-type, particularly the use of multiple devices, as in other attacks all over the world. However, Al Qaeda usually does not take immediate credit for its attacks. It may do so at some time in the future, after the bombers’ trails have gone cold, and law enforcement has no more good leads. There are other suspects still at large.
Accordingly, the so-called Al Qaeda tape claiming credit for this atrocity is unusual.
There is a far more serious possibility facing the Spanish: that ETA and Al Qaeda have joined forces. Two Spanish publications, Tiempo and El Mundo, have reported that ETA and Al Qaeda have met three times - Brussels in December 2000, in Malaga, Spain, in February 2001, and Barcelona, Spain, in July 2003.
A worst-case scenario is that this terrorist act was carried out by an Al Qaeda-sympathetic group which supports the Al Qaeda world-wide movement, and has taken up the mantel of the fallen Al Qaeda leadership.
Another interesting item is that the captured suspects were not suicide bombers, an Al Qaeda trademark. They were highly trained terrorists who made one mistake, a detonator cell phone that failed to function and was easily traced to one arrested terrorist.
Terrorists at home or overseas can make deadly explosives from readily available materials, many of which are uncontrolled in America and attract no attention. The availability of many of these materials, along with widespread irresponsible Internet postings describing techniques for making bombs, homemade explosive (HME) and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), permit terrorists to assemble bombs, HMEs or IEDs, even without military or commercial explosives (e.g. C-4, TNT, etc.).
Three of the most common materials are as follows:
1. Ammonium Nitrate and Fuel Oil (ANFO). ANFO is made from ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel oil. ANFO requires a high explosive booster-charge to effectively detonate. It is commonly available in a form of fertilizer. Timothy McVeigh used an ANFO-type mixture, in the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.
2.Triacetone Triperoxide (TATP). TATP is made from acetone and hydrogen peroxide. Sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acid can also been used to make TATP. Palestinian terrorists have made wide use of TATP as the main explosive for suicide bombs. Richard C. Reid used TATP as an initiator charge for the shoe bomb device he planned to detonate onboard an American Airlines flight in December 2001.
3. Gunpowder. Gunpowder can be bought with some effort, and can also be found in ammunition, or in another form - firecrackers. It doesn’t take a genius to take apart one of these items and make an improvised fuse to detonate a HME.
Almost anyone can make a bomb, HME, IED or use a car, boat or airplane as an instrument for destruction.
The first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, the suicide attacks of 9/11, and now the attacks in Spain, have shown us that anything is possible.
The major issue for governments all around the world is to consider what happened in the Spanish elections. Due to fallout from the bombings, Spain’s conservative Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who supported the war in Iraq, lost his position to Socialist challenger Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Did this terrorist incident cause a government to fall?
My read is that the incumbent government handled the investigation poorly, and the premature release of information that pointed at ETA was a big mistake. The results of the Spanish election is not an Al Qaeda victory.
