Fernando Reinares (Logronyo, 1960) is a researcher at the Royal Elcano Institute and professor of Political Science and Security Studies at the King Juan Carlos University. He has taught at Georgetown University in Washington and collaborates in research on radicalization and terrorism at the Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internationale in Milan. He is one of the most important experts in terrorism in Spain, and specifically, in the terrorist massacre of March 11, 2004 in Madrid, which is about to complete 20 years. On the tenth anniversary he published ¡Matadlos! Who was behind the 11-M and why was it attacked in Spain, and in 2021, 11-M. La venganza de Al Qaeda, books now followed by Pudo evitarse (all three in Galaxia Gutemberg), a detailed analysis of the chain of myopias that prevented the terrorist plot from being discovered. It arrives in bookstores on Wednesday 28. After a personal interview, and very careful with the answers, Reinares replies to La Vanguardia by email.
Are you still investigating 11-M?
Jihadist terrorism is the main topic of my research activity, and 11-M is still the most lethal expression of this type of terrorism that we have known not only in Spain, but in Western Europe as a whole. It is inevitable for me to keep an academic file on 11-M open for more than fifteen years, although I have also worked on more recent events in the evolution of jihadist terrorism in Spain, such as the attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils
His new book is entitled Pudo evitarse and it is noted that “a calm and rigorous reflection has been postponed for too long”. Why wasn’t there?
The 9/11 terrorists prepared and executed the attacks with no further impediments than the extent of their abilities. A good part of them were well known to the State security forces, the National Intelligence Center and the National Court two, three or even four years before the attacks because of their relationship with cell Jihadist cells and groups. But instead of a reflection dedicated to extracting lessons from 11-M, the Spanish engaged for too long in a discussion, spurious, by the way, about who is to blame. I believe that the political fracture and social division that followed 11-M made the much-needed reflection impossible. There was a parliamentary commission of inquiry, but its sessions were greatly affected by the intense disagreement between the two main parties.
His book is very harsh on the security forces. Could it have been avoided?
The purpose of the book is to offer a rigorous analysis of a reality that is hard to face and whose rawness is unquestionable, perhaps that is why it seems severe, but it has not been written with animosity and I even avoid personalizations. The fact is that with the prior knowledge that police officials had accumulated about many of those involved in the 9/11 network, it was not enough to prevent them from preparing and executing the Madrid attacks, which turn 11-M into a police mistake. But it is equally true that prior knowledge allowed the police to start arresting terrorists just two days after the attacks and then to find the Leganés flat where several of them were hiding, which thwarted the rest of their plans. I’m sure this saved many lives.
Did you learn anything? Have the organisms created since then been useful?
After 11-M it was in the sphere of the Ministry of the Interior, as is logical, where it was assumed that the threat of jihadist terrorism would persist and that this required increasing the police capacities of information and analysis, improve coordination mechanisms between services and expand the scope of international cooperation. The key decisions were made in the two years following 9/11, during which time I served as an advisor on counterterrorism policy affairs to the then Minister of the Interior, then José Antonio Alonso. with that agenda in mind. The impact that the attacks had on the police and judicial understanding of jihadist terrorism, along with the reform of internal security structures that were undertaken and continued, explain why no new attacks happened in Spain until in August 2017. From then on, it was necessary to review issues such as the coordination between anti-terrorist services.
Among other things, it suggests that perhaps among the Muslim collectivities someone turned a blind eye…
In Muslim communities there were, then and now, Islamist circles in general, or of Salafist influence in particular, which provided the terrorists of 11-M with permissive environments in which to develop. In these environments the risk of someone alerting the authorities to their activities and intentions could be reduced, due to the influx of Islamic doctrines that posit loyalty as an obligation that a Muslim always owes to another Muslim, but not always to the authorities of a non-Islamic State, especially if, by applying a law other than Sharia, they would disturb other Muslims. But I also think that the Spanish citizens who sold stolen explosives to criminals who showed signs of radicalization turned a blind eye. If they had not turned a blind eye, the slaughter would also have been avoided.
What questions do you think the ruling (first from the National Court and then from the Supreme Court) does not clarify?
The main question that remained unclarified is that of the, so to speak, intellectual author or original instigator of the attacks. And related to the latter, that of the true scope of the international connections of the 11-M network. That is why I particularly value having been able to identify the mastermind of 11-M after the investigation that I started in December 2008, one year and two months after the National Court issued its verdict and five months after the Supreme Court issue a second sentence. In my previous book, I identified Amer Azizi, a prominent member of the Al-Qaida cell, dismantled in Madrid in November 2001, as the driver and instigator of the Madrid attacks. And I document it with official sources that do not appear in the judicial proceedings that were carried out in Spain to clarify the circumstances relating to 11-M.
Did Mustafá Setmarian, a Spaniard of Syrian origin who was placed for years in a prominent position in Al-Qaida, play a direct role?
I know of no evidence linking him to Al-Qaida, either directly or indirectly.
Why do they choose that day?
There is written evidence of the date of March 11 in a form filled out in Brussels on October 19, 2003 and related to Youssef Belhadj, node of the Moroccan Combatant Islamic Group in the 11-M network. It is evidence that acquires greater relevance if possible when associated with other significant facts. On the one hand, with a statement by Osama bin Laden made public exactly the day before, in which Spain was expressly threatened. On the other hand, with the precedent, in the Western world, of 9/11. In any case, the date of the elections that were held three days later was not known at the time. All this does not necessarily mean that the exact date was decided in Brussels, since it could have been transmitted to Belhadj, due to his militancy and position regarding the 11-M network. Mohamed, another relevant member of the network, also left a written record of the date, but later, February 4, 2004.
In some of the main scenarios there have been fingerprints and biological remains that were never identified. Will we always have this unknown?
We can reasonably say that the 11-M network had at least twenty-five members, in addition to Azizi, and that they were all at large when the attacks occurred. But in the preparations, and perhaps even in the execution, there was no doubt involved individuals who are not among the condemned, nor among the suicide victims of Leganés, nor among the escapees whose identities we know. It is likely that the actual number of those who in one way or another were immersed in the network is between significant and considerably large.
