Spanish Police Seek Militant Hideout in Madrid

Reuters | 4/07/04

[kattracks]

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish police are searching for an apartment where Islamist militants may be hiding after a weekend raid on another apartment ended with up to six suspects blowing themselves up, newspapers said on Wednesday.

The Spanish government says most of the suspects in the Madrid 11 train bombings which killed 191 people have either been arrested or killed themselves in the weekend siege of an apartment in the Madrid suburb of Leganes.

But a prosecutor has asked a judge to issue new arrest warrants in the investigation, news reports say, and police believe between one and three suspects may have escaped the Leganes apartment before the police surrounded it on Saturday.

Police and troops have been deployed around the country to guard key installations, such as dams and power plants, and possible targets such as the high-speed rail line from Madrid to Seville where a bomb was found and defused last Friday.

Charles Powell, assistant professor at San Pablo-CEU University, said that while the core group responsible for the March 11 attacks may have been all but wiped out, it was likely there were other independent groups elsewhere in Spain.

He said the high-speed train remained a likely target and Holy Week leading up to Easter this Sunday would be a nervous time. "My hunch is they may try to do something which has some sort of religious significance," Powell said.

Security has also been stepped up at Spain's borders, especially in Ceuta and Melilla, Spanish territories on the North African coast. Several of the militants who died on Saturday were Moroccans, as are many of the 16 in custody.

The latest suspect arrested, a Moroccan detained in Ceuta, was due to appear in court on Wednesday, a court official said.

The head of the Association of Moroccan Immigrant Workers, Mustafa el Mirabet, said in an interview with El Pais newspaper that Spain should set up a council to oversee mosques and imams on the model of the French Council of the Muslim Faith.

"Extremists have used mosques to incite violence when they have been able to, and when they've known that they are being watched they have moderated their tone," Mirabet said.

El Mundo newspaper said police were concentrating their search for the remaining fugitive militants' hideout in eight areas of Madrid and its suburbs.

Forensic experts combing the site of the explosion now believe six militants died because they have found remains of 11 feet, Europa Press news agency said. A policeman also died.

Police are also investigating a letter sent to a newspaper, purportedly from al Qaeda, which threatened more attacks unless Madrid withdrew its troops from Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites).

[livius]

Today it was revealed by the Spanish police that the documents they found in the flat (maps, etc.) indicated that the Muslims were planning to attack crowds in Madrid during Holy Week. There are a lot of processions and outdoor religious events during Holy Week in Spain, and apparently this seemed like an ideal target. The terrorists already had some bombs prepared in bags and knapsacks.

The police also found about 36,000 euros in the apartment, so somebody is financing these cells quite generously.

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