Spain police, once focused on ETA, now watch mosques

http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKL237464620070723

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish police have put mosques under surveillance and have boosted their Arabic translators tenfold since an al Qaeda-linked attack on Madrid three years ago, the head of Spain's police told a newspaper on Monday.

Spain's anti-terror fight long centred on Basque separatist rebels ETA, but the country has significantly increased resources directed against Islamist groups since train bombs killed 191 people in March, 2004, Joan Mesquida told El Mundo.

"There is special monitoring of mosques and some informal places of prayer," Mesquida was quoted as saying.

"We have an extra 1,000 police and civil guards dedicated to fighting this phenomenon. And, to show you what I mean, three years ago we didn't have more than six Arabic translators in the police force and now we have more than 50," he said.

A Madrid court is now considering its verdict in the trial of 28 men charged with the 2004 bombings. Mainly from the Middle East or from Spain's million-strong North African community, some face sentences of tens of thousands of years.

Investigators have linked the attack to Spain's initial participation in the U.S.-led Iraq war.

Even though the Socialist government withdrew troops when it won power shortly after the Madrid bombings, officials still see Islamists as a major security threat.

Officials are particularly worried about Spain's North African enclaves Ceuta and Melilla. Al Qaeda also makes repeated references al Andalus -- the old name for the large part of Spain that was under Islamic rule for nearly eight centuries.


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"The conversion of the entire population to Islam and the extinction of every form of dissent is the ideal of the Muslim State - This is Islamic Peace"

A moderate Moslem is one who sends others blow themselves up.