|
 |
Ringleader of Madrid Attacks Dies in Raid
|
| By:MAR ROMAN, Associated Press Writer |
April 04, 2004 |
|
|
Ringleader of Madrid attacks was among suspects who blew themselves up, Spain says
|
MADRID, Spain - The ringleader of the Madrid terrorist attack blew himself up along with three other suspects as police prepared to storm their apartment, Interior Minister Angel Acebes said Sunday.
The group had explosives ready for more attacks, he said.
Acebes said the four who died Saturday night included a Tunisian named Sarhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, described by Spanish authorities as the leader of the group suspected of carrying out the March 11 train attacks that killed 191 people.
"The core of the group that carried out the attacks is either arrested or dead in yesterday's collective suicide, including the head of the operative commando," Acebes told a news conference.
As police got ready to storm the apartment in Leganes, south of Madrid, the suspected terrorists set off a thundering blast that also killed a special operations officer and wounded 15 other policemen.
One of the dead suspects was found with an explosives-laden belt around his body, Acebes said.
Fahket was one of six men for whom international arrest warrants were issued. Another man on that list, Abdennabi Kounjaa, a Moroccan, was identified as among the four who died Saturday night. A third man - Asri Rifaat Anouar, was not on the list. The fourth suspect has not been identified, Acebes said.
Two or three people may have escaped before the explosion, he said. The probe in the March 11 attacks will now focus on what connections the bombers may have had abroad or with other terrorist groups, Acebes said.
In the apartment, police found 200 detonators of the kind used in the March 11 attacks and in a bomb that was placed along a high speed rail-line on Friday but failed to detonate, Acebes said. They also found 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of dynamite in the apartment where the four terrorists blew themselves up Saturday night, he said.
"They were going to keep on attacking because some of the explosives were prepared, packed and connected to detonators," Acebes said.
The blast gutted at least one floor of the building _ a square structure with a central courtyard where children had been playing soccer until they were evacuated. The explosion sent up a huge plume of black smoke and revealed rooms littered with concrete and wires dangling from ceilings. Architects will now decide whether it is to demolished altogether because of structural damage.
Police had approached the building at around 7 p.m. to make arrests as part of an escalating manhunt for those responsible for the March 11 bombings.
The suspects spotted the police from a window and shot at them, shouting in Arabic, the Interior Ministry said. No police officers were hurt by the gunfire.
Over the next two hours, police evacuated as many people as they could from the building and surrounding area and prepared for an assault on the apartment.
As the terrorists shot at police from the apartment, "they shouted 'God is great' and Islamic verses," the newspaper El Mundo quoted a resident of the building as saying. It identified him only as Alberto M., who lived two floors up.
El Pais said special forces preparing the assault managed to communicate with the terrorists and gave them a deadline to surrender. But the terrorists shouted back "God is great. We are going to go out killing," the newspaper said, quoting police.
The terrorists set off their bomb in a second-story apartment after police blasted open the ground-floor entrance, the Interior Ministry said.
Acebes did not say how the bodies had been identified. Another ministry official said it was either visually or with fingerprints.
The special forces officer who died in the explosion was identified Sunday as Javier Torrontera, 41. He was married and had two children.
His funeral was planned for Sunday afternoon in the town of Guadalajara, and incoming Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and outgoing premier Jose Maria Aznar were scheduled to attend.
The investigation into the commuter rail attacks has focused on the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, which has links to al-Qaida and is related to a group suspected in last year's Casablanca bombings, which killed 45 people including 12 suicide bombers.
Spain has been a major U.S. ally in Iraq and has been warned previously by al-Qaida that it would be the target of terrorism for its support.
Judge Juan del Olmo, the investigating magistrate, had issued international arrest warrants for five Moroccans and the Tunisian.
Another 15 suspects are already in custody. Six have been charged with mass murder and nine with collaborating with or belonging to a terrorist organization. Eleven of the 15 charged are Moroccan.
After Friday's bomb scare along the high-speed rail line from Madrid to Seville, train service resumed Saturday, but soldiers, police and Civil Guard officers could be seen patrolling the targeted rail lines. Sunday is the start of Holy Week, when many Spaniards take vacation or travel to their hometowns for the Easter holiday.
Also Saturday, the Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported that the Spanish Embassy in Egypt received a letter from an Islamic militant group threatening new attacks if Spain did not withdraw its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the letter, the Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri, a group that also claimed responsibility for the March 11 attacks, threatened to strike against Spanish diplomatic missions in North Africa and the Mediterranean region unless Spanish troops are withdrawn in four weeks.
|
|
©Indiana Printing & Publishing Co. 2009
|
|
|
