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Spain racing to trace bombers' links

White sheets in a drained swimming pool on Sunday cover scattered body parts of the four Islamic terrorists who blew themselves to bits on Saturday when Spanish special police were about to arrest them in connection with the March 11 terror attacks in Madrid that killed 191 people. A veteran Spanish police commander was also killed in the blast that demolished the facade of the five-storey apartment building in the Madrid suburb of Legans in which the terrorists were holed up, but that had been previously evacuated by police. PHOTO: EPA

With most of the Madrid train bombers believed captured or dead, investigators are hunting a handful of accomplices still at large and trying to trace their ties to international Islamist groups.

The trail from the blasts that killed 191 people and wounded 1,900 on March 11 led to a weekend raid on a suburban apartment where the suspected ringleader and three or four other bombers blew themselves up rather than surrender.

The blast also killed a police special agent and wounded 15 others, in the latest dramatic event to rock Spain.

The Madrid train bombings came three days before Spain's March 14 general elections, when voters threw out a strongly pro-American party in favor of incoming Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who is threatening to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq.

Last week, authorities reported finding letter bombs sent to three media outlets and a bomb planted beneath a high-speed rail line.

Then came Saturday's suicide blast.

On Sunday Interior Minister Angel Acebes said one of the men killed in the explosion was Serhane ben Abdelmajid Farkhet, 35, a Tunisian described by the judge leading the investigation as "the energizing force" for holy war in Spain and leader of the train bombing cell.

Another terrorist, who died amid reported cries of "God is great!", was identified as Abdennabi Kounjaa, 28, who, like the Tunisian, was the subject of an international arrest warrant.

Investigators were attempting to determine if a fifth bomber died in the blast and whether he was one of those sought in the six international arrest warrants issued last week by High Court Judge Juan del Olmo.

"The investigation is focusing on two or three people who could have escaped [before the suicide blast] ... and of course the international connection or connections with terrorist groups that might exist," Interior Minister Angel Acebes said.

Judge del Olmo considered the Tunisian to be the "personal leader and coordinator" of the attacks in Spain, but investigators have been trying to determine if someone abroad masterminded and financed the attacks, believed to be the first al-Qaeda strikes on the West since Sept. 11, 2001.

Last week Acebes said the prime suspect was the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, a shadowy organisation believed to have ties to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

In all 15 people, mostly Moroccan, are in jail and formally accused of either carrying out the attacks or collaborating.

Spaniards will pay their respects to the fallen police officer at midday today with a minute of silence in Guadalajara, about 60 km northeast of Madrid, where the elite Special Operations Group has its headquarters.

A demonstration for peace has been called for Monday evening in Leganes, the Madrid suburb where Saturday's suicide bombing took place.
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