Spain Arrests Five Moslem Terrorists

MADRID, Spain (AFP) - Spain arrested three Moroccans and two Indians on Saturday in connection with the Madrid train bombings, the strongest indication yet of a possible Islamic link to the attack on one of Washington's staunchest allies in Iraq.

The announcement by Interior Minister Angel Acebes came just hours before polls were to open Sunday in general elections weighed down by increasingly politicized debate over who carried out Europe's deadliest terrorist assault in 15 years.

The arrests came amid opposition charges that the government, which had blamed Basque separatists for the bombings, was concealing details of the investigation into Spain's worst terror attack.

A demonstration in Madrid drew a crowd of 5,000 protesters outside the ruling party headquarters who held up signs saying, "Paz" - or "peace" in Spanish - and "No more cover-up."

Demonstrators said they also believed the government might be hiding information about a connection to Islamic militant groups, blaming Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's government for making Spain a target with its support for the war in Iraq.

One banner read: "Aznar, because of you we all pay."

Acebes, speaking at news conference, said the five suspects were all detained around Madrid and that one "could be related to Moroccan extremist groups." Two Spanish citizens of Indian origin also were being questioned.

The five were arrested in connection with a cell phone inside an explosives-packed gym bag found on one of the four bombed rush-hour trains, the minister said. The attacks killed 200 people and injured 1,500.

Acebes did not mention al-Qaida and said that the investigation was continuing. Asked whether ETA was no longer considered a suspect, he said: "We must not rule anything out."

Police are still investigating all avenues," he added. "This opens an important avenue."

Spain was a target of Moroccan terrorism last year, with its citizens among 33 people killed in suicide bombings in Casablanca at a Spanish restaurant and Jewish targets. Twelve suicide bombers also died.

Before the arrests were announced, police had said Saturday that they were hunting for three men seen wearing ski masks and carrying backpacks toward the rail line where the trains were bombed. The government also said autopsies conducted so far on victims showed no signs of suicide bombings - a hallmark of Islamic militants.

Mourners began burying the 200 victims on Saturday, filling Madrid's two main funeral parlors beyond capacity. Sports facilities also were housing coffins.

The massive police hunt for the bombers was focusing in part on a stolen van found with seven detonators and an audiotape of verses from the Quran. A witness told Associated Press Television News he saw three suspicious men go from the vehicle to a station where three of the four bombed trains originated.

The men's faces were covered but "it wasn't cold ... I thought it was very strange," said the man, who did not want to be named. "They went into the train station ... I tried to follow one of them but I couldn't because he was very fast."

Government suspicions have fallen heaviest on ETA, an armed Basque group that has killed more than 800 people in a four-decade campaign of bombings and assassinations to carve out an independent homeland in northern Spain.

"I have a moral conviction that it was them," Popular Party candidate Mariano Rajoy, picked by Aznar as his successor as prime minister, told the daily El Mundo.

Rajoy was 3-5 percentage points ahead of Socialist candidate Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in opinion polls before they were stopped; the blasts came in the last week of campaigning.

Spain's spy chief, Jorge Dezcallar, quickly denied a radio report that said intelligence agents were "99 percent sure" that Islamic elements, not Basque separatists, were responsible.

Broadcaster Cadena Ser, which is close the opposition Socialist Party, cited sources at the national CNI intelligence agency as saying agents think a 10-15 member cell placed the bombs on the trains and may now have fled the country.

But Dezcallar, a government appointee, told the national news agency Efe that agents do not favor one line of investigation over another.

The finger of blame is politically loaded because of Aznar's support of the U.S.-led campaign that ousted Saddam Hussein. Any al-Qaida involvement in the Madrid bombings could play into the hands of Aznar critics who opposed sending 1,300 peacekeepers to Iraq.

"If it was al-Qaida, this was a reprisal for sending troops to Iraq, where we have no business being," said Damian Garcia, whose 86-year-old father died in the bombings.

But the refusal by Aznar and Rajoy, his former interior minister, to negotiate with ETA could be vindicated if the group is found responsible for the 10 bombs that tore through four rush-hour trains.

The death of a man in a hospital overnight pushed the toll up to 200 Saturday. Of the 1,511 injured, 266 remained hospitalized - with 17 in critical condition.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, only the Bali bombing in Indonesia in October 2002 was deadlier, with 202 people dead.

While the attack's lethal coordination - 10 explosions within 15 minutes - pointed to al-Qaida, the lack of evidence of suicide bombers suggested otherwise.

The compressed dynamite used in the attacks, however, is favored by ETA. But ETA attacks have never been so deadly and mostly targeted police and politicians. On Friday, a caller claiming to represent ETA told a Basque newspaper it was not responsible - the first time ETA is known to have ever denied an attack.

Asked earlier Saturday whether police are investigating any possible collaboration between ETA and Islamic terrorists, the interior minister had said: "Of course, it cannot be ruled out that terrorist organizations, of whatever kind they are, have connections, reach accords and help each other."

CFPA: Maybe now the Europeans will finally wake up to the Moslem menace in their midst.

20 Jun 2006