So if Zubaydah had already yielded all the information he had, why was there a need to turn to torture? The answer: There was a ticking clock, but not one attached to a bomb. The Bush administration wanted its war against Iraq and thought that the perfect justification would be a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq--a link that the Bush and Cheney White House had asserted, but couldn't prove because no such link existed.

Before he started interrogating insurgent prisoners in Iraq, he had been told that they were highly ideological and committed to establishing an Islamic caliphate in Iraq, Major Alexander says. In the course of the hundreds of interrogations carried out by himself, as well as more than 1,000 that he supervised, he found that the motives of both foreign fighters joining al-Qa'ida in Iraq and Iraqi-born members were very different from the official stereotype. In the case of foreign fighters – recruited mostly from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen and North Africa – the reason cited by the great majority for coming to Iraq was what they had heard of the torture in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. These abuses, not fundamentalist Islam, had provoked so many of the foreign fighters volunteering to become suicide bombers.

Most of us remember all too well the praise from the Bush administration lavished on the Awakening Groups, a Sunni militia comprised of former resistance fighters and al-Qaeda members (according to the US military), each member paid $300 per month of US taxpayer money. They grew in strength to 100,000 men. US aid to the Councils was cut off last October on the understanding that the members would be absorbed into Iraqi government forces. To date, less than a third have been given government jobs.

the fallacy of islamic 'national suicide':
A new buzzword is arising from the network of Israeli think tanks and security-oriented academic departments bent on instigating a U.S. attack on Iran: "national suicide." The term describes a supposed Arab Muslim tradition of politically motivated suicide at the national, not just individual, level. Arab Muslim regimes have purportedly launched ruinous wars they could not have reasonably hoped to win, condemning their nations to destruction.
(...) "National suicide" will soon be an incantation by neoconservative and other pro-Israeli pundits and politicians on the "bomb Iran" bandwagon. Its strategic implications are clear: We can't trust irrational regimes because they are not deterred by threat of annihilation. Therefore, extraordinary actions -- such as preemptive attack -- may be not only justified but necessary. It further shifts moral responsibility to the victim. In the "national suicide" formulation, it is the martyr that chooses death, while the actual killers are merely the instrument by which the suicide -- or, as the case may be, the destruction of a country -- is carried out.
(...) "National suicide" is easier to believe in if you're willing to lump all Arabs and all Muslims into a single mind-set. For example, the Palestinian national movement under Arafat was staunchly secular; members of the non-Arab Taliban are Islamist extremists. The concept elides the enormous diversity within the Arab and Muslim worlds and ignores the local particularities of their multifarious -- and sometimes ideologically opposed -- political movements. A hint of these intra-regional tensions was displayed in Bin Laden's recent audiotape denouncing Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah.
(...) Arafat, for his part, continued negotiating after Camp David in Taba and never chose to ignite the second intifada. The uprising was sparked by Ariel Sharon's provocative visit to the Al Aqsa mosque and was fueled by Palestinians' sense of betrayal over a peace process that brought no peace but doubled the number of Israeli settlers on their land. The "Arafat chose violence" canard was rejected by the Mitchell report. Ami Ayalon, former head of Israel's Shin Bet security service, concluded: "Yasser Arafat neither prepared nor triggered the intifada."
(...) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a convenient whipping boy. He has frequently predicted Israel's eventual demise, and yet -- accurately translated -- he has not threatened it with offensive attack. Nor does he command the country's armed forces.

Muslim extremist women are challenging al-Qaida's refusal to include — or at least acknowledge — women in its ranks, in an emotional debate that gives rare insight into the gender conflicts lurking beneath one of the strictest strains of Islam. [ps article idiotically conflates al-qaeda and hamas]

an assassination that blows apart bush's hopes of pacifying iraq:
In reality al-Qa'ida is only a small part of the insurgency, with its fighters numbering only 1,300 as against 103,000 in the other insurgent organisations according to one specialist on the insurgency. Al-Qa'ida has largely concentrated on horrific and cruel bomb attacks on Shia civilians and policemen and has targeted the US military only as secondary target. The mass of the insurgents belong to groups that are nationalist and Islamic militants who have primarily fought the US occupation. They were never likely to sit back while the US declared victory in their main bastion in Anbar province.

al-qaeda and the modernist wall:
I shall discuss an approach I have termed the "modernist wall", which seeks to deconstruct the ethical and epistemological structure of jihadist mentality, with an eye to obtaining a better grasp of what shapes it and how it works.
(...) this process of metamorphosis could not have brewed and regenerated itself in the absence of a major ingredient: the West's extremism in posing itself as the ultimate way of life, denigrating all other alternatives and forcing anyone who differs into having to choose either between identifying with it fully, at the cost of his religious and personal persona, or to turn fully and thoroughly against it.
(...) [dawkins fits here] The predicament of positivists, according to Gray, is that they believe that the more science advances, the more people will share the same values and, by extension, the solider will become the embodiment of the ethics of secularism, enlightenment and peace. Al-Qaeda essentially destroyed this hypothesis, not so much because of Al-Qaeda itself but because the persistence in promoting this hypothesis breeds violent organisations bent on destroying it. Such is the case with "end of history" theories, which implicitly put paid to the notion of cultural coexistence. These have become an important source for generating and fuelling "exclusionist" cathartic movements set upon seizing the helm of history and steering it towards "redemption". All jihadist movements in the Islamic world have been motivated by the sense that the West is relentlessly attacking their history and civilisation with the purpose of effacing them and supplanting them with its own. It is little wonder, therefore, that the Islamist revivalist creed perpetuates itself so easily, feeding as it does on the very substance of Western modernism.

why do they hate the US?:
If he only read Time magazine, he would know that bin Laden, who had just finished fighting a successful, U.S.-backed holy war against the Russians, was enraged by the Saudi king's decision to allow American forces onto the Arabian Peninsula in 1990 – he wanted to expel Saddam from Kuwait. And if Matthews were to quickly peruse the Jim Leher Newshour Website, it would reveal bin Laden's "fatwa" of 1996, which is titled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places." Pretty subtle, huh?
(...) The only reason anyone listens to or follows bin Laden is because he points at specific foreign policies of the U.S. in order to maintain that he is the one fighting on the defensive. Michael Scheuer, the former head analyst at the CIA's bin Laden unit, and author of Imperial Hubris, told me this himself. He said that the Ayatollah Khomeini spent the 1980's railing against American culture and the entire region yawned. Osama bin Laden, on the other hand, kept his pitch straight and to the point – and it worked. He told them that America was the aggressor, and sited 6 specific policies as evidence:
1: The bases in Saudi Arabia
2: Unquestioning support for Israel (The 1996 Fatwa came on the heels of the first Qana massacre in Lebanon)
3: The no-fly zone bombings and blockade of Iraq which killed hundreds of thousands of people (now replaced on the jihadist sales pitch list by the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan which have killed hundreds of thousands more)
4: Support for dictators across the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, etc.)
5: Pressure on the oil producing states to keep their prices set where America wants them
6: Support for Russia, China and India in their wars against Muslims
(...) They have a following because they point at concrete examples of how the U.S. government makes life worse for the average guy in the Islamic World – when it's not taking it from him outright.
(...) As Professor Robert A. Pape proved in his book Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism – by studying every single individual suicide bomber on Earth between 1980 and 2004 – the one characteristic that all suicide bombers have in common is the presence of foreign combat forces in their country – not Islam. Whether it's is Sikhs in India, the Communist and atheist Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, Hamas in Palestine, al-Qaeda fighters from Saudi Arabia and Egypt crashing planes in the United States or Sunni insurgents in Iraq.
(...) here's veteran intelligence beat reporter James Bamford, (By no means whatsoever is this man a blame-America-first political radical of any description. He's simply a journalist): "Ayman al-Zawahiri argued that al-Qaeda should bring the war to 'the distant enemy' in order to provoke the Americans to strike back and 'personally wage the battle against Muslims.' It was that battle that bin Laden and Zawahiri wanted to spark [with the 9/11 attacks]. As they made clear in their declaration of war 'against Jews and Crusaders,' they believed that the United States and Israel had been waging war against Muslims for decades. Now their hope was to draw Americans into a desert Vietnam, with bin Laden in the role of North Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh." It is very important to emphasize: They want to suck us in so they can bleed us dry and then push us out for good – while empowering themselves in the process.
(...) Bin Laden couldn't have laid out his strategy more clearly than in his speech of October 2004: "All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations. This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat. ... So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy."
(...) Overthrowing the tyrant Saddam Hussein, who bin Laden reviled as an "infidel" and a "socialist," however, was an additional "gift" to the al-Qaeda movement in the words of former CIA-man Scheuer. The Bush team's invasion killed a few birds with one stone for bin Laden: It got rid of the Ba'athists, put tens of thousands of Americans within rifle range and it created a training ground and propaganda tool for new recruits.
(...) Also in 2005, the Saudi government and an Israeli think tank did studies tracking the individual jihadists traveling to Iraq to be trained in fighting Americans. They both found that virtually all of them were youngsters who had been radicalized by the invasion of Iraq – that the only thing older jihadists had to do with it was in sending them off.
(...) So you see, foreign occupation – American foreign policy – is a "major contributing factor" in creating terrorism today, just as it was in the years before September 11th.

thank god, as giuliani says, the US is on the offensive:
Wary of a number of federal anti-terror cases that proved to be overblown, two legal experts Tuesday cautioned about attaching too much significance to the arrest Tuesday of six Muslims for plotting to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey.
(...) "The fact is that most of those arrested (in the past) are small fry and wanna-bes," said Daniel Benjamin, a terrorism expert and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "That's a reflection of the fact that al-Qaida has a hard time getting people in here and has higher priorities."
(...) The fact that the New Jersey men took a video of themselves firing assault weapons to a store for copying onto DVDs, he said, "somewhat indicates they weren't the A team of terrorists."

thank god, as giuliani says, the US is on the offensive:
Wary of a number of federal anti-terror cases that proved to be overblown, two legal experts Tuesday cautioned about attaching too much significance to the arrest Tuesday of six Muslims for plotting to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey.
(...) "The fact is that most of those arrested (in the past) are small fry and wanna-bes," said Daniel Benjamin, a terrorism expert and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "That's a reflection of the fact that al-Qaida has a hard time getting people in here and has higher priorities."
(...) The fact that the New Jersey men took a video of themselves firing assault weapons to a store for copying onto DVDs, he said, "somewhat indicates they weren't the A team of terrorists."

extremism in palestine:
For sometime, Palestinian Islamic and nationalist leaders have been warning that the Israeli, American and European economic embargo against the democratically-elected Palestinian government, including the recently formed broad-based government of national unity, is driving Palestinian society towards extremism.
(...) Hamas called the attackers "misguided" people who "lightly and easily spill the blood of Palestinians". Fatah called the perpetrators "representatives of dark forces" and "murderers".
(...) It is difficult to ascertain the numerical strength of the Salafis, especially those who are militant, in the occupied territories. However, it is well known that they are concentrated in the Gaza Strip and are spreading to the West Bank as well.
(...) And when the US, Israel, the EU and most Arab regimes imposed an exceptionally harsh economic, financial and political blockade on the Hamas-led Palestinian government, which pushed the bulk of Palestinian society on to the brink of poverty, the Salafis and others, like Hizb Al-Tahrir, confronted erstwhile proponents of Hamas's participation in elections, telling them "didn't we tell you so?"
(...) It is thus widely presumed that many, if not most, of those joining the ranks of Al-Qaeda, particularly in the Gaza Strip, are actually former Hamas supporters and members who have come to the conclusion that the West's real purpose is to destroy Islam, not to promote democracy, and that the only way to stop this is through Jihad.
(...) Moreover, it is an almost foregone conclusion that Israel stands to benefit from the strengthening of Al-Qaeda amongst Palestinians, especially in the short run, as it will enable Israel to claim that it has a common cause with the West in combating "Islamic terror", thus obtaining an additional excuse to consolidate its occupation and theft of Palestinian land.
(...) In any case, what is abundantly clear is that the betrayal by the West of the Palestinians, and the continuation of the blockade on the Palestinian government is driving many Palestinians towards Al-Qaeda. This should be taken as a serious warning of things to come, if the present trend continues, and if American, Israeli and European policies continue to nourish the root causes of extremism and terrorism in the Middle East by narrowing Palestinian horizons and effectively giving Israel a carte blanche to finish its goal of dispossession, at the expense of the Palestinian people.

cockburn update (5/7):
The US and the Iraqi government are having some success in cultivating divisions between the fanatical partisans of al-Qa'ida in Iraq and the rest of the Sunni community. But overall, the five million Sunni community supports armed resistance to both the US and the Shia-Kurdish government.
(...) The Sunni rebellion that started in the summer of 2003 is too well established to be crushed. When insurgents are squeezed in one part of Baghdad, they move to another, or to a neighbouring province. The Kurds were able to destabilise Iraq for half a century despite suffering persecution and genocide, and Sunnis are well positioned to do the same.
(...) One casualty of the new plan is the authority of the Iraqi government. The Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, announced in Egypt that the construction of a wall around the Sunni district of al-Adhamiyah would stop, but without effect. An Iraqi army spokesman simply said that the Prime Minister had been misled. The Iraqi Defence Ministry is largely under American control - one senior Iraqi army official who obeyed a direct order from Mr al-Maliki late last year found himself jailed by US forces.
(...) The troops were said to have an order from the Shia-controlled Health Ministry to close the hospital, but the Americans insisted Naaman would be reopened. Although pro-resistance Sunni websites have claimed that 82 patients had been murdered, this has been impossible to verify.

al-qaeda in iraq:
"This bill will deprive us of the opportunity to destroy the American forces which we have caught in a historic trap," Zawahiri says in answer to a question posed to him an interviewer. Continuing in the same tone, Zawahiri says, "We ask Allah that they only get out of it after losing 200,000 to 300,000 killed, in order that we give the spillers of blood in Washington and Europe an unforgettable lesson."

on the propaganda for the war on somalia:
Right out of the gate, in the second paragraph, Tomlinson asserts – without any qualification or attribution whatsoever – that those resisting the American-backed invasion of their country by are "threatening to turn the country back into a haven for al-Qaeda." (9/11! 9/11!) Just two paragraphs later, he provides this description of the Islamic Courts council that had brought Somalia its first measure of peace and stability in 15 years before its overthrow by Ethiopian tanks and American bombs:

...Islamic radicals who grabbed power for six months last year, filling Somalia's power vacuum with a strict religious government. Like the Taliban who once ruled Afghanistan and hosted Osama bin Laden, the Somali movement, the Council of Islamic Courts, harbors al-Qaeda terrorists, U.S. officials say.

Just like the Taliban! Osama bin Laden! 9/11! 9/11! At least this paragraph offers one of Tomlinson's rare uses of a source – albeit unnamed ones – to back up his bald assertions. But the import is clear: the Islamic Courts council is the same thing as the Taliban and al Qaeda, and thus the invasion of Somalia is entirely justified as part of the noble War on Terror that President Bush is waging to keep Americans safe.
(...) Nowhere does Tomlinson offer even a pro forma mention of the Islamic Courts' constant denials of any involvement with al Qaeda. Nor does he mention – doubtless because, in his sweet ignorance, he does not know – that the Courts themselves were comprised of various factions of varying degrees of religious fervor, from moderates to more hard-core fundamentalists. They were never simply a monolithic bloc of Taliban-style fanatics. You'd have to look to Mr. Bush's longtime family friends, the Saudi royals, for that kind of thing; their kingdom is by far the most repressive religious regime on the face of the earth – and also a haven for not a few al-Qaeda supporters, including some very highly placed and quite wealthy ones.
(...) Tomlinson breathlessly relates that a whole ten "al Qaeda operatives remain in Somalia," and are "at least partially responsible for the growing violence in the capital." Who knew that these wily al Qaeda operators were somehow able to sneak into the tanks and artillery batteries of the American-trained Ethiopian army, which has been the source of most of the "violence in the capital" in the last month, when more than 1,400 people were killed, most of them civilians? Gadzooks, is there nothing these evil masterminds can't do?
(...) But this is not a story designed to provide readers with the news of what is happening in Somalia. It is designed to convey – without a single dissenting viewpoint – the official line of the Bush Administration regarding the murderous proxy war that it has greenlighted in Somalia. There is no mention of the American air strikes against fleeing refugees in the early days of the war – an ostensible attempt to kill alleged al Qaeda operatives that instead murdered dozens of innocent civilians. There is no mention of the "rendition" of refugees – including innocent American citizens – into Ethiopia's torture chambers. There is no mention of the years, and millions of dollars, that the Bush administration has spent in arming and training the repressive Ethiopian military. There is no mention of the complexities of the political situation in Somalia, just constant invocations of "Taliban" and "al Qaeda" to evoke a Pavlovian response of fear – and unquestioning acquiescence to the Terror War policies of the Bush Administration. After all, who could possibly oppose a righteous operation to keep Somalia from "turning back into a haven for al Qaeda"?
(...)
But then, the Terror War has never been about curtailing the terrorist threat against Americans. This is blatantly obvious, as every aspect of the "War" has only exacerbated terrorism and anti-American feeling around the world. The Terror War is about securing even more loot and power for elite factions in the American Establishment (and selected foreign cronies). Somalia's oil and its strategic location make it a prime target for the Terror Warriors; hence the invasion and the blood-soaked occupation.

al-qaeda in iraq:
The struggle between resistance groups and Al-Qaeda rose to surface when the Islamic Army, a prominent resistance group, issued a strong-worded statement condemning Al-Qaeda's actions and calling on Osama Bin Laden to personally intervene to rein-in Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
(...) Differences between Al-Qaeda's Islamic State in Iraq and the resistance have been simmering ever since Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia declared an Islamic state with Abu Omar Baghdadi named "prince of the faithful". That dramatic move, replete with an armed parade, was witnessed with alarm across the Sunni political community and the resistance alike. While staking its claim over the leadership and future of Iraq, it was not expected that Al-Qaeda would move so quickly into eliminating its opponents and demanding total allegiance.
(...) Sources close to both the Islamic Army and the 1920 Revolution Brigades say it is now obvious that Al-Qaeda is vying for unrivaled control over the resistance.
(...) Al-Qaeda's Islamic State of Iraq, however, was deterred neither by alarmed reactions nor attempts to contact its leadership in Iraq. The Islamic Army broke its silence once Al-Qaeda's attacks against Sunni civilians, mosques, imams, and even "demanding money" from families in return for protection, became the rule, not the exception.
(...) Different resistance groups, especially Islamic- based groups, had initially accepted Al-Qaeda's role, which they saw as impressively efficient and painful for occupation forces. Salafi-based groups, like Ansar Al-Sunna, and some members of the other groups, embraced Al-Qaeda and hailed "the Muslim Mujahideen who came to liberate Iraq." Al-Qaeda was welcomed into the fold of the Majles Al-Shura (Consultative Council) that includes seven factions, though its attempts to control the council or impose its agenda were repeatedly rejected.
(...) A debate has been ongoing about targeting the Iraqi army and police, and Iraqis involved in the American-sponsored political process. In his Al-Jazeera interview, Al-Shammari rejected considering the Iraqi army, the police and Iraqis in parliament as legitimate targets. The same position is held by the 1920 Revolution Brigades and other Sunni leaders.
(...) According to informed sources close to at least two resistance groups, the Iraqi resistance, though engaging Al-Qaeda when forced to, is still seeking to avoid an all-out confrontation, even if Al-Qaeda seeks it. Nonetheless, the situation seems to be escalating on a daily basis, with many Iraqi nationalist activists who support the resistance fearing that "occupation forces are benefiting the most from Al-Qaeda's actions."

deconstructing giuliani and ´terror´:
In a discussion with journalist David Ignatius in February 2006, Nassrallah categorically set his group apart from al-Qaeda and its action that he considers is fanning Sunni-Shiite tensions in Iraq and increasingly in Lebanon. "I believe the most dangerous thing we confront is the so-called Zarqawi phenomenon," he said. "This is a creed of killing without any responsibility -- to kill women, children, to attack mosques, churches, schools, restaurants."
(...) Interestingly the antipathy is not based on religion, but rather on al Qaeda terrorism which Hezbollah rejects. The fact is that the Iraq war debacle has led to a "surge" (that Bush/ McCain word again!) of al Qaeda fighters here in Lebanon. They are threats to Hezbollah as well as to the American University of Beirut and the American Embassy. Al Qaeds's numbers and influence are growing and, based on interviews by Americans with some al Qaeda leaders, they have major plans here. If al Qaeda to be contained it will likely be Hezbollah who does it. We Americans should engage with Hezbollah not defame it.
(...) where is Rudi's evidence to support his New Hampshire campaign claim that "going back to the 90's there were all those Americans killed by the PLO and Hezbollah and Hamas"? ... Rudy, if you actually misspoke about the '90s', rather than seeking to mislead your audience, and actually meant to say the 1980's, maybe thinking of the April 17, 1983 bombing of the American embassy or the October 1984 bombing of the marine barracks show us the proof? At the time of these events the PLO had left Beirut, Hamas would not exist for nearly a decade, and Hezbollah was a long way from being fully organized. Moreover, Hezbollah and has never been contradicted in its consistent denials of involvement. Again, where is the proof Rudy? Was Rudy thinking about the kidnapping of US hostages? Hezbollah's position on the Western hostages is unchanged; "We are neither directly nor indirectly responsible for the taking of the hostages' Nassrallah as repeatedly stated.

fighting terror?:
The head of an al-Qaeda-linked group in Iraq said the country had become a "university of terrorism", producing highly qualified warriors, since the 2003 US-led invasion.

on the problems with the official narrative in Waziristan:
[gov't strategy working?] Facts about the recent fighting have come in fragments. The picture assembled is not quite the same as that painted by the government.
(...)Welcomed in 2001 as "guests", in recent years the foreigners have had to pay for their keep in the tribal areas. For the wealthier Arabs -- especially those with ties to Al-Qaeda -- this has meant extortionate amounts of cash paid to tribal protectors, suppliers and government officials.
(...) But the current "tribal uprising" is not against all foreigners. It appears to be confined to the IMU. Other aliens -- Arabs, Chechens, Central Asians and Chinese -- have been left untouched or been the targets of the Uzbeks. For example, it was the killing by the IMU of Sheik Asadullah on 13 March that tipped skirmishes with the tribesmen into war. Asadullah was a Saudi and said to be the main financier for the Araba Al-Qaeda allied groups in the tribal areas. He was also a lucrative source of trade and patronage for the tribes.
(...) Nor can the current conflict be seen as against the Taliban, the strongest political force in the tribal areas. The anti-IMU tribesmen are led by Mullah Nazir. He was appointed commander of the South Waziristan tribes by the Taliban leadership in November 2006. It was an unpopular decision. Other Taliban leaders in South Waziristan have been fighting alongside the IMU or are "telling everyone that this is an internal war whipped up by the Pakistan army to split the Taliban," says a local. On two occasions senior Afghani Taliban leaders have tried to enter South Waziristan to mediate a truce between tribesmen and the IMU. Both times they were stymied by the army. "Taliban-Pakistan relations are at an all-time low," says the source.
(...) Others say the mobilisation of the tribes is a precursor to a renewed army offensive in the tribal areas, under inordinate US pressure and "against its better judgment," says the source. The military incursions in support of the tribes were the first army actions inside South Waziristan since the 2004 peace agreement. But every previous army offensive has alienated the tribes and strengthened the Taliban. Will that be the fate of the current fighting?

on the much-maligned "why?" in Casablanca:
Security forces in Morocco have continued their search for potential suicide bombers in Casablanca, a day after two brothers blew themselves up near the US consulate.
(...)Mohammed Vall, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Morocco, who visited the area where al-Raidi lived in a single room with her seven children said: "The slum we visited contained only a few thousand people, but there are many such slums in Casablanca. Several hundreds of thousands of Moroccans live in areas like this and these are a breeding ground, analysts say, for fundamentalists."
(...) In Casablanca's slums, many people are unemployed and families of up to twelve people are left to live in a single room.
(...) "We went looking for the reasons behind what they did and found the details of their arrests, their poor treatment at the hands of the police and the suffering and poverty of living in such a place."
(...) "If there is any relationship with al-Qaeda it is one of influence from distance. There is no proof of any coordination in terms of planning. Even the explosives used are of limited strength, unlike those used this week in Algeria."