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| Europe |
| Spanish al-Qaeda leader helped 3 3/11 suspects flee the country |
| 2006-01-13 |
| Spain said yesterday that it had arrested a Moroccan man who police say helped three key suspects in the 2004 Madrid train bombings flee the country. The Interior Ministry identified the man as Omar Nakhcha, 23, and said he helped Mohamed Afalah, Mohamed Belhadj, and Daouh Ouhnane escape from Spain after the March 11, 2004, Madrid train bombings, which killed 191 people. Nakhcha, who authorities believe was in Belgium at the time, arranged for their passage to Iraq via Syria, the ministry said. Spanish authorities believe Afalah died in a suicide attack in Iraq in May 2005, and a government source said it was likely the other two also joined the insurgency against the Iraqi government and the US-led forces supporting it. ''The other two arrived in Iraq, but we don't know where they are now," the source said. Nakhcha's arrest and that of 20 people earlier this week point to growing evidence that Iraqi militants recruited fighters in European countries to join the insurgency in Iraq. French officials said last year that at least five young men from a single Paris district had already died fighting in Iraq, one of them in a suicide attack. A 38-year-old Belgian woman blew herself up near Baghdad in November in what was believed to be the first suicide attack in Iraq by a European woman. The Interior Ministry said Nakhcha, who was arrested while walking down a street in the northeastern region of Catalonia, led two militant cells that sent fighters to Iraq. Police on Tuesday arrested 15 Moroccans, three Spaniards, one Turk, and an Algerian accused of being members of the cells. But Nakhcha's most intriguing suspected link is to the March 11 bombings. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |