Spain.

This is coolbert:

Now all the recriminations are beginning about the Madrid bombings.

And, the question is asked, "where were the intelligence services?"

Why did they not detect this and take "steps" to stop the bombings?

Very similar to what was being said in the aftermath of 9/11.

Now, whether or not this is an Al Qaeda operation is not fully understood at this time [the Madrid bombings].

Has the hallmarks of being so [as they say], but as of this moment, just not sure.

It is quite reasonable to ask WHY are these events so difficult to detect in advance? [And keep in mind, Spain has been fighting for decades against home grown terrorism, the ETA, and has a very, very strong national police force, the Guardia Civil, so Spain enjoys some advantages when it comes to fighting terrorism]

To begin with, these terrorist groups may not be working with central control.

Maybe, maybe not.

They are maybe semi-autonomous entities, at their discretion, carrying out attacks not centrally planned and commanded.

They have training from Al Qaeda, and then spread out all over the word to do their villainy, without receiving orders or commands from a central authority.

De-centralized command and control is one step to helping the villains use to evade detection.

These villains are also very good at what they do.

The leaders at any rate, many of them, are survivors of the anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan.

By a Darwinian selection process, the best, toughest, and most determined of the Afghan war veterans are now leaders in the world-wide Jihad against the west. These are tough, thoughtful guys and will not be easy to catch.

The level of warfare, backpack bombs remotely detonated, makes this weapon of war very hard to stop.

Low-level methods such as backpack bombs obviate most of the common intelligence techniques such as radio intercepts and photo recon. The two former are more or less useless against this type of warfare.

In the aftermath of the bombings of the U.S. embassies in east Africa, the director of NSA personally went over all the intelligence that was available just prior to the bombings.

He did this to see if something could have been gleaned that would have pointed to the attacks occurring. By his own account, absolutely nothing was present that would have pointed toward attacks happening. Unfortunately, for the west, the Islamic villains are very good at what they do.

coolbert.