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Madrid attackers were trained in Afghanistan
 MADRID: Techniques used to detonate the bombs which killed 191 people and injured 1,900 in Madrid in March 2004 were learnt in a training camp in Afghanistan, the daily El Pais said on Wednesday, quoting a confidential police report. These techniques, using the vibrators of mobile telephones to simultaneously detonate several bombs, were taught in a camp near Jalalabad run by the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM), said the report. The Spanish judiciary says the militant Islamic group is principally responsible for the March 11, 2004 attack for which 29 people have been charged.The report says that investigations have revealed the existence of other individuals involved in the attacks apart from those who have been arrested and charged, El Pais said. It adds that these carefully planned attacks could have been the work of one of more terrorists with know-how and experience gained in Afghanistan or other combat zones. The attacks on the trains which were approaching Madrids Atocha train station from Alcala de Henares were the worst in Europe since the explosion of a PanAm airliner over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988 which killed 270 people. Spanish courts on Monday confirmed charges against 29 people accused of taking part in or being an accomplice to the attacks, most of them radical Moroccan Islamists resident in Spain. Their trial is expected to open in late January or early February 2007. Examining magistrate Juan del Olmo in charge of the case, believes the attacks were undertaken by a local Islamist cell inspired by Al-Qaeda but which acted under its own initiative to force Spanish troops to leave Iraq before claiming responsibility for the attacks in the name of Al-Qaeda. Posted by: Fred 2006-09-28 |
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