Spanish police officers label raid on terrorists as madness

11.45am

MADRID - Two members of an elite Spanish police unit have described their terror at hearing the defiant shouts of trapped Islamic militants just before they blew themselves up rather than face arrest.

One police officer and up to seven militants were killed at the weekend when suspects in the March 11 Madrid train bombings detonated a bomb rather than surrender to police who had them cornered in a suburban Madrid apartment.

In an interview with a Spanish radio station, two unidentified members of the elite unit criticised the operation, saying they had wanted to negotiate but a police commander ordered an immediate attack.

"It was madness...And they call us heroes. We aren't heroes. You could even say we were stupid, to go where we went," one of the agents said.

The unit, specially armed and trained for assaults, was called in when attempts by regular police to arrest the suspects in the southern suburb of Leganes turned into a confrontation.

"When we were on the stairs and we heard them talk, many of us thought it was the last moment of our lives," the other officer told Cadena Ser radio, his voice distorted so he could not be recognised.

The first officer said the suspects had shouted a phrase in Arabic that he had later been told was often used by militants about to commit suicide. He recalled "...the terror that runs through your whole body when you hear them talking and shooting."

At least three of those killed in the blast were wanted for the bombings of four Madrid commuter trains that killed 191 people. Authorities have praised the police operation, saying it may have averted many more deaths.

One of the officers said they had fired gas into the apartment to make the suspects come out, but the militants shot back.

"They said a few words that we understood as 'come in yourselves' and at the end something about 'the messenger', which was when everything blew up," he said. "They were hoping we would move forward, to blow us all away."

The bomb went off while the police waited on the stairs. "All we did was get our mates out and count up to see who was missing, because we didn't know if anybody had been buried under all that rubble," he said.

"I think our bulletproof vests and helmets...saved our lives," he said.

The policemen said their commanders had asked for more time to talk to the militants, but the police deputy director general in charge ordered the raid.

One police officer said it would have been better to wait. "Tire them out, use gas and anything else until they give themselves up," he said.

The police denied any undue haste. "The decision to intervene was evaluated, decided on and executed with a view to the necessary neutralisation of the terrorists and making citizens' safety a priority," a police statement said.

- REUTERS