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EPA

Farkhet's last stand

THE investigation into the deadly train bombings in Madrid took a spectacular turn on Saturday April 3rd. Just over three weeks after those devastating attacks, which killed 191 people, and a day after an unexploded bomb was found on the high-speed rail track between Madrid and Seville, police raided an apartment building in the Leganés suburb of the Spanish capital. Before they could make any arrests, up to six suspects inside blew themselves up in a huge explosion that also killed a policeman. Among the dead was Serhane ben Abdelmajid Farkhet, a Tunisian who was the suspected ringleader of the Madrid attacks. The investigation into those attacks has focused on the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (MICG), an outfit with suspected links to al-Qaeda which is said to be intent on starting a holy war in Spain, a Catholic country much of which was, until the 15th century, ruled by Muslims. Of the 16 suspects detained in connection with the March 11th bombings, more than half are Moroccans.

On Sunday, Angel Acebes, interior minister in the Spain’s outgoing government, said the “core” of the group that carried out the attacks was either dead or in custody—though it was not clear if any suspects had escaped during the apartment raid. Mr Acebes said the investigation was shifting to the group’s links with other Islamist organisations. On Monday, investigators said they were taking seriously a letter, purportedly from al-Qaeda, published by ABC, a Spanish newspaper. The letter claims responsibility for the Madrid bombs and rails against Spain’s plans to send more troops to Afghanistan. The incoming Socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero—who won a surprise victory in the general election three days after the Madrid atrocity—is standing by his pledge to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq unless the United Nations takes charge there by June 30th. But, to show that he is not soft on terrorism, he has said some troops may be redeployed to Afghanistan.

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Spain is not the only European country making headway in the hunt for Islamic extremists. On Monday, French police arrested 13 people suspected of being involved in co-ordinated bomb attacks in the Moroccan city of Casablanca last May, and of being members of the MICG (though investigators played down any possible links with Madrid). Although France opposed America’s invasion of Iraq, it has a Muslim population of around 4.5m, the largest in Europe, and has been on high alert since the Madrid attacks. The government recently received threats from a shadowy Islamist group, criticising its recent ban on Muslim headscarves (and other ostentatious religious symbols) in schools. (Last week, the German state of Baden-Württemberg also outlawed Muslim headgear in schools, for teachers.)

But rounding up suspected terrorists is one thing, successfully prosecuting them quite another. On Wednesday, a German court granted bail to Mounir al-Motassadeq, the only man to be convicted of involvement in the September 11th attacks in America. Mr Motassadeq is waiting to be retried on charges of being an accessory to more than 3,000 murders, after his conviction was quashed for lack of evidence.

Across the European Union, governments have been trying to involve leaders of their Muslim communities in the fight against terror. Recently, this has been most apparent in Britain, which has 1.6m Muslims. Last week, following a warning from London’s police chief that an attack on the country was “inevitable”, eight British Muslims were arrested in a big anti-terrorism operation by the capital’s police. Half a tonne of a fertiliser that can be used to make bombs was also seized. A day later, the Muslim Council of Britain, a broad umbrella group, issued an appeal to Islamic clergy and community leaders to co-operate with the police in dealing with “any criminal activity including terrorist threat”; and it was announced that an influential Brighton-based imam would send out an anti-terrorist sermon to be read out at mosques across the country.

This more accommodating attitude suggests that the government and Muslim leaders—in Britain, at least—have decided to put aside their differences and work together against the danger of terrorist attacks. It marks a dramatic improvement on the situation only a few months ago, when Britain’s minister for Europe, Denis MacShane, said the country’s Muslims must choose between the British way and the “way of the terrorist”, and Muslim leaders complained about heavy-handed police tactics and rough treatment of legitimate immigrants.

But European governments seeking greater security are not prepared to rely solely on better relations with their Muslim communities—hence EU foreign ministers’ agreement, at a summit on March 25th, on the need for a new package of anti-terrorism measures. These include closer co-operation between national intelligence agencies, the creation of an EU counter-terrorism chief, and measures that make it easier to trace terrorists who use mobile phones and e-mail. Mobile-phone-related evidence has proved crucial in tracking down the Madrid bombers.

The difficult task for governments will be to guard against terrorism while avoiding swelling the ranks of disgruntled Muslims. Opinion polls suggest there is still a long way to go in eradicating sympathy for terrorists. An ICM poll in early March, for instance, found that 13% of Britain’s Muslims would regard further attacks on America by al-Qaeda as “justified”. Many Muslims accuse Europeans of being rampantly Islamophobic, and of caring much more about anti-Semitism than about anti-Muslim feeling. The leader of France’s extreme-right National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, now hurls most of his abuse at Muslims, not Jews.

There is evidence of a hardening of European attitudes, too. Attacks on Muslims have risen in Europe since the September 11th terrorist attacks. Recently, a number of senior European politicians have spoken out against allowing Turkey, a Muslim state, into the EU. In Rotterdam, the local government is now explicitly trying to change the racial profile of the Dutch city, whose population is projected to be 57% of foreign origin by 2017. An all-party report to the parliament of the Netherlands—viewed in the past as one of Europe’s more liberal regimes—recently concluded that 30 years of multicultural policy had failed, and that more efforts should be made to oblige immigrants to learn the Dutch language and embrace local values. In Britain, too, critics of multiculturalism have been speaking out—among them even Trevor Phillips, head of the country’s Commission for Racial Equality, who said it was necessary to “assert a core of Britishness” for all citizens.

As Europe’s governments step up their efforts to root out Islamic extremists—and attitudes, both Christian and Muslim, shift accordingly—most people think the future holds one of two possibilities: either the continent’s 12m or so Muslims will integrate smoothly into their countries’ economic and political life; or they will remain on the margins, disaffected and potentially dangerous.