Sitting in an empty barbershop along the seaport promenade, Redwan El Heddonti looked fearful, wondering when the next police officer was going to walk by.
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Fewer customers are patronizing the commercial strip, where many Moroccans such as El Heddonti have run successful businesses for years.
Ever since three of the five suspects arrested in connection with last week’s train bombings that killed 201 people in Madrid were identified as Moroccans, a large segment of Algeciras’ Moroccan community is staying home. They are avoiding such things as getting a haircut, afraid the increased police presence is meant for them, the barber said.
The fact that many Moroccans living in Algeciras are illegal immigrants exacerbates the uneasiness, said El Heddonti, 35, a legal resident for the past 16 years.
The angst intensified Tuesday when Spanish authorities began focusing their investigation on five more Moroccans, plus one of those already arrested, as prime suspects in the bombing. Those six Moroccans, described as Islamic extremists, are also believed to have been involved in a bombing in Casablanca last May that killed 45 people, including 12 suicide bombers, officials said.
`People are afraid’
The suspects’ backgrounds have stirred deep anxiety among Moroccans and other Arabs in Spain, according to several businessmen along Virgen del Carmen Avenue, the main thoroughfare hugging the Algeciras port. Arabs in Spain fear the sort of harassment that many American Muslims complained about after the Sept. 11 attacks.
“People are afraid to come,” El Heddonti said inside Ismael’s Barber Shop. “The police are checking for [residency] papers and they’re afraid they’re going to be taken away.
“The people behind bombs say, `Killing is necessary.’ No, it’s not,” El Heddonti said.
Next door, Restaurant Andaluz owner Salam Ahlal raised the volume on an Al Jazeera television newscast about Arabs in Madrid who are fearful of a backlash.
“This is really bad,” said Ahlal, 51, who has lived in Spain for 18 years. “I’m Moroccan, but I live in Spain. Morocco, Spain–what’s the difference? None. We’re all people. We all eat, dress, have families. We all have one God.”
Such co-existence has a rich history for Arabs and Spaniards.
From 711 to 1492, the Moors, Muslims who spoke Arabic and lived in Northern Africa, controlled Spain’s southern, Andalusia region during Islam’s golden age. Moorish architecture draws millions of tourists to Spain yearly. Even Algeciras’ name is Arabic, referring to the green island of Isla Verde.
“This used to be the seat of the entire Arab world,” El Heddonti said.
Its status today is different. Algeciras and the surrounding deep south of Andalusia are the final destination of one of the world’s deadliest routes of illegal immigration. Moroccans and other North Africans try to cross the Strait of Gibraltar packed in small duck-hunting boats, and they often drown.
Solidarity expressed
In the Moroccan capital of Rabat on Tuesday, Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio expressed solidarity between the two countries–separated by 9 miles of water–at a memorial service for the bombing victims.
At the imposing Central Mosque of Madrid, Riay Tatary Bakry, who as president of the Union of the Islamic Communities of Spain is the head of the country’s 500,000 Muslims, emphasized the intertwined history and geographic proximity of Spain and the Islamic world.
“That is why Spain has a place in every Muslim’s heart. A Spaniard always receives very good treatment in the Muslim world. It’s difficult for me to understand why anyone would want to harm Spain,” said the Syrian-born Bakry.
He reminded visitors that Madrid was founded by Muslims in the 9th Century. The Central Mosque, built in 1988, is the first newly constructed mosque in the city since 1090.
Bakry praised Spain for a religious freedom law in 1992 that gave all religions equal status with Catholicism, but said he now feared a crackdown that might deprive Muslims of their civil rights.
Meanwhile, much of Spain was reeling under further revelations that one of the Moroccans arrested last week, Jamal Zougam, was known to authorities shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks as a follower of an alleged Al Qaeda cell leader in custody in Spain.
Zougam, 30, and the other two Moroccan suspects who were arrested have not been accused of direct involvement in the bombing. The three sold prepaid mobile phone cards from a tiny shop in Madrid’s Lavapies district. Authorities linked them to a mobile phone rigged to a bomb that failed to go off during last week’s attacks.
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Residents remembered Zougam as a zealous young man who shaved his long beard only after he was taken in for questioning by authorities after the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S.
After his release a short time later–there were no charges against him–he continued to pray in a mosque every day, residents said.
Last Saturday about 2 p.m., two police officers came to the shop and took Zougam and one of the other suspects away. Twelve hours later, at 2 a.m. Sunday, six police cars sealed off the street. The police brought Zougam back, reopened the shop and carted everything out: merchandise, records, equipment, according to a young Moroccan neighbor who said he witnessed it all.
“I’m convinced the only thing Jamal did was sell fake phone cards and mobile phones. That was their business,” the neighbor said.