Suspects killed in own blast

LEGANES - Three suspects wanted for the Madrid train bombings set off a bomb when cornered in a flat, killing themselves and a policeman, as Spain's search for the perpetrators of the attacks went wrong.

Spanish news agency Europa Press, quoting security force sources, said the suspects were among six men for whom Spain issued arrest warrants on March 31 in connection with the March 11 attacks on Madrid commuter trains that killed 191 people.

Police swooped on the working-class Madrid suburb of Leganes in an attempt to round up several suspects.

The operation turned ugly when the occupants of the first-floor flat, said by neighbours to be Moroccans in their 20s, spotted the police and began firing while shouting in Arabic.

The police were about to raid the flat when the suspects set off an explosion, demolishing the front of the five-storey apartment block. "They shouted 'God is great' or something like that" in Arabic just before the explosion, one of the police officers who took part in the assault told El Pais newspaper.

"There are three bodies of suspected terrorists who may have killed themselves," Interior Minister Angel Acebes said.

A police officer of the elite Special Operations Group was also killed and 11 police were injured.

The powerful blast sent a pall of smoke into the air, left a gaping hole in the front of the block, damaged nearby buildings and left a pile of rubble on the ground.

Police cordoned off the area. Residents of surrounding blocks were evacuated and 30 families had to spend the night at a hotel because their homes were damaged.

Europa Press said the blast blew the three bodies up to 30m from the living room of the apartment, and police were checking near the building's swimming pool for a possible fourth suspect's body, a woman.

Spain is holding 15 people, many of them Moroccan, over the March 11 attacks.

Acebes has singled out the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group - a shadowy organisation believed to be tied to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network - as prime suspect in the bombings.

Asked whether the raid was prompted by suspicions that the men were planning another bombing, Acebes did not answer directly, saying, "We came to the apartment as a consequence of the police investigation under way since the attacks."

Many details of the police operation on Saturday remained unclear, including how many agents had been involved, and why, after three weeks of quiet arrests and questioning, the authorities had decided to change tactics with a full-blown assault.

Acebes said earlier a bomb found on a high-speed rail track contained the same make of explosive, Goma 2, and may have had a similar detonator to the March 11 bombs.

However, officials cautioned that the explosives and detonators were widely used in mining.

Europa Press said police also found unused detonators in the ruins of the Leganes apartment.

Investigators believe extremists planned to derail a high-speed train in an attack that might have killed hundreds.

The Government refused to blame any group for Friday's thwarted bomb attack.

High-speed trains from Madrid to the southern city of Seville began running again yesterday after the 12kg bomb was defused. The bomb could not have exploded - officials say the person who was planting it might have been scared off before finishing.

Police and Army, backed by helicopters and armoured vehicles, were guarding the line, but passengers were nervous.

"It always affects you. You can't be calm. Everything seems fairly under control ... but there could have been another March 11 yesterday," said 40-year-old chemist Jose Antonio Perez.

Trains that would normally have been packed with travellers leaving town for the Holy Week holiday had lots of empty seats.

- REUTERS

TERROR RAID

Since the March 11 bombings, Spanish authorities have arrested 24 people, mostly Moroccans or Spanish residents of Moroccan origin, and have jailed 14 of them.

This is the first time in the case that the Spanish authorities have attempted a raid of this scale.

El Pais newspaper said Spain was the main al Qaeda base in Europe and that police believed it could strike in Spain again.