A videotape found in an apartment where suspected terrorists blew themselves up last weekend gives Spain a deadline to withdraw its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan or face more bloodshed at home, the Interior Ministry said.
In the video, three heavily armed people read a statement in the name of the Al Mufti Brigades and Ansar al-Qaeda giving Spain one week to "leave Muslim lands immediately," authorities said. A copy of the text was sent by the Interior Ministry to AP on Thursday.
"Should you not do this within the space of a week, starting today, we will continue our jihad until martyrdom," it added.
"You know that you are not safe, and you know that [US President George W.] Bush and his administration will bring only destruction. We will kill you anywhere and in any manner," it read.
It was not clear when the video had been filmed or when the deadline would begin. Police said they don't rule out that the video was filmed by some of the suspected terrorists before their collective suicide during a police raid last Saturday.
An Interior Ministry spokesman said the video was found in the rubble of the apartment during recent searches. He added that it was damaged in the explosion and had to be minutely analyzed by police forensic scientists. It has been sent to the National Court as evidence.
Spain has 1,300 troops in Iraq and 125 in Afghanistan. The incoming Socialist government has said it will withdraw the soldiers from Iraq by June 30 unless the UN takes control of the postwar occupation.
Last week, a Spanish newspaper said it received a threat from a group linked to al-Qaeda saying Spain would be turned into "an inferno" unless Madrid withdrew its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Also Thursday, the Madrid daily El Mundo reported that the suspected terrorists who perpetrated the March 11 commuter railroad bombings, which killed 191 people and injured more than 1,800 others, were plotting to attack a shopping center outside Madrid.
Police combing through the suspects' apartment found maps of Parquesur, a retail and leisure complex less than 1km from the apartment in Leganes, and at least two backpacks and a belt, all packed with dynamite and wired to detonators, the newspaper said.
A National Court official said Wednesday that the suspects had planned another major attack in Madrid, possibly during this week's Easter celebrations, but did not give more details.
El Mundo said the attack was to have been staged last Sunday or during the week before Easter, when millions of Spaniards are on vacation and schools are out, making the crowds that normally pack Parquesur even larger. The facility has 193 stores, a hotel and a 2,500-seat cinema complex.
In Sarajevo, authorities said on Thursday that they were investigating whether a Bosnian national was among the suspects in the March 11 train bombings.
Spanish police asked the Bosnia office of Interpol to look into the suspect, who was identified as 23-year-old Sanel Sjekirica, said Brane Pecanac, the head of the local Interpol bureau.
The Spanish news agency Europa Press reported that from last November Sjekirica was registered as a computer science student at the University of Oviedo in northern Spain.
Seventeen people, including 13 Moroccans, have been charged in the case -- six with mass murder and the rest with collaborating or belonging to a terrorist group.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS