Across the Divide

The aftershocks of 3/11 are making life even harder for young Moroccans in Europe. In Lavapiés, the poor, bustling immigrant Madrid neighborhood where many of the 3/11 terrorists lived, a 29-year-old unemployed construction worker named Avdun loiters in the chilly sunlight. Eight years ago, Avdun received his residence permit and moved in among the area's fruit stands, bars and phone shops. But the dream has soured. Since last March 11, he says, police are everywhere. As he speaks, a team of officers move through the square, demanding papers from the idling men. Mohammed, a 23-year-old Tangier native who lost his construction job six months ago, grumbles that since the attacks, Spaniards view Moroccans as "all either drug traffickers or terrorists." Avdun agrees: "The economic situation is worse in Morocco, but they treat you like a person there. Here you lose your dignity."

In fact, very few incidents of revenge or xenophobia have been directed against Moroccans in Spain since the Madrid bombings. Spain's Socialist government has launched a program to grant residence permits to illegal immigrants with jobs, and Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos says the government is committed "to re-establishing a sense of trust and mutual confidence" with Morocco. Still, authorities on both sides of the Mediterranean will keep a close watch on the tiny minority of Moroccans committed, like Ahmidan and his fellow jihadists, to the kind of unspeakable violence that last week silenced Madrid.