In Madrid probe, drugs sales seen as a weapon of jihad

MADRID, Spain -- The odd crew of longtime extremists and radicalized gangsters accused of committing the March train bombings nourished their holy war with holy water.

And hashish.

The water came from Mecca. The conspirators drank it during purification rituals at a barbershop that was an after-hours prayer hall for disciples of Takfir wal Hijra, a secretive Islamic sect active in the criminal underworld of Europe and North Africa.

The hashish came from Morocco. The ideologues of the terror cell justified selling drugs as a weapon of jihad. The Moroccan dealer who financed the plot traded a load of hashish for the dynamite that slaughtered 191 people aboard commuter trains on March 11. The drug trafficker led the cell along with a Tunisian economics student, a duo whose disparity reflects the evolving nature of Islamic terrorism. Both blew themselves up after a standoff with police last month.

As European investigators analyze the Madrid bombings and try to prevent new attacks, the intensity of the drug connection intrigues them. The predominantly Moroccan cell came together with remarkable speed, teaming a drug gang with students and shopkeepers and raising the specter of ''narco-terrorism." It also offers a textbook example of the explosive potential of combining Islamic extremism and organized criminal networks.

''It worries us very much," said a high-ranking Spanish police commander.

''Until now, Islamic terrorism and drugs were two separate areas. Now you are not sure where to look. You are not sure whom you are dealing with. I don't know of any previous cases like this in the West."

Madrid's hidden jihad reflects a wider effort by Islamic networks in Europe and North Africa to tap the violent energy of criminal networks of diverse ethnicities and specialties, according to anti-terrorist officials.

In Italy, a member of the Camorra, the Neapolitan Mafia, converted to Islam and recently set up an exchange of arms for drugs between the Camorra and Islamic terrorists, according to an Italian prosecutor. In the prisons of Belgium and neighboring countries, recruitment by Islamic groups has accelerated during a worldwide terror offensive stoked by the war in Iraq, said Belgian police antiterror commander Alain Grignard.

''The intermingling of terrorist networks with the criminal milieu is becoming more and more important," said Grignard, an Islamic specialist.

''It's in prisons where political operatives recruit specialists whom they need to run their networks -- specialists in fraudulent documents, arms trafficking, etc. They use concepts that justify crime, that transform it into redemption. . . . The prisons of today are producing the terrorists of tomorrow."