Roadtoad
4th April 2004, 09:37 AM
All I can say is, SEE YA, @$$HOLE!!!!
LEGANES, Spain (Reuters) - The Tunisian suspected ringleader of last month's Madrid train bombings blew himself up with three accomplices after police cornered them in a suburban Madrid apartment, officials said Sunday.
Serhane ben Abdelmajid Farkhet, 35, known as El Tunecino (The Tunisian), was one of several men who yelled defiant Arabic slogans before detonating a charge that also killed a policeman, Interior Minister Angel Acebes told a news conference.
Another of the dead, Moroccan Abdennabi Kounjaa, was also among six suspects being hunted in connection with the March 11 bombings of four commuter trains, which killed 191 people.
Fifteen police officers were wounded by the explosion during the Saturday night raid in Leganes, a Madrid suburb. One of the wounded officers was in serious condition.
"The core group of those who carried out the terrorist act (the train bombings) have been detained or died in the collective suicide," Acebes said. "We have to highlight the magnificent work done by the security forces."
Investigators have clearly tied together three events that have rocked Spain in recent weeks: the March 11 train bombings, the discovery of a bomb wedged beneath a high-speed rail south of Madrid Friday, and Saturday's suicide blast.
Spain is holding 15 people, most of them Moroccan, over the March 11 attacks.
Investigators are also searching further afield for a possible mastermind who may have ordered the attacks from abroad with all signs pointing to Islamist radicals sympathetic to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
Two days after the bombings and on the eve of Spanish general elections, a videotape surfaced in which a purported al Qaeda spokesman claimed responsibility for the attacks and called them revenge for Spanish support of the war in Iraq.
The following day Spanish voters threw out the strongly pro-American ruling party, electing Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialists who have pledged to pull Spain's 1,300 troops out of Iraq unless the United Nations takes charge there by June 30.
SUICIDE BELT
Acebes did not say what led police to swoop on the working-class Madrid suburb of Leganes Saturday evening in an attempt to round up several suspects.
The occupants of the first-floor flat spotted the police and began firing while shouting and chanting in Arabic, officials and local residents said.
The police were about to raid the flat when the suspects set off an explosion, demolishing the front of the five-storey apartment block. The 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.
One body which had yet to be identified was wearing an explosives belt of the type favored by Palestinian militants, the minister added. It contained two kg (4.4 pounds) of explosives.
"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.
A further two or three people may have escaped before the explosion, Acebes said, adding that the group appeared to have been planning more attacks.
Police also found 200 detonators and 22 pounds of dynamite, of the same type used in the train bombings and Friday's thwarted rail bomb.
PREACHED JIHAD
In the six arrest warrants issued Thursday, 35-year-old Farkhet was identified as the "personal leader and coordinator" of the suspected Islamist group implicated in the train bombings.
He had been agitating for "jihad" (holy war) in Madrid in mid-2003 if not earlier, the warrant said.
Acebes has singled out the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group -- a shadowy organization believed to be tied to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network -- as prime suspect in the bombings.
Investigators believe Friday's defused bomb was intended to derail the high-speed train running from Madrid to Seville in an attack that might have killed hundreds.
High-speed trains began running again Saturday, taking thousands to the southern city of Seville for its renowned Holy Week Christian celebrations culminating in Easter next Sunday.
LEGANES, Spain (Reuters) - The Tunisian suspected ringleader of last month's Madrid train bombings blew himself up with three accomplices after police cornered them in a suburban Madrid apartment, officials said Sunday.
Serhane ben Abdelmajid Farkhet, 35, known as El Tunecino (The Tunisian), was one of several men who yelled defiant Arabic slogans before detonating a charge that also killed a policeman, Interior Minister Angel Acebes told a news conference.
Another of the dead, Moroccan Abdennabi Kounjaa, was also among six suspects being hunted in connection with the March 11 bombings of four commuter trains, which killed 191 people.
Fifteen police officers were wounded by the explosion during the Saturday night raid in Leganes, a Madrid suburb. One of the wounded officers was in serious condition.
"The core group of those who carried out the terrorist act (the train bombings) have been detained or died in the collective suicide," Acebes said. "We have to highlight the magnificent work done by the security forces."
Investigators have clearly tied together three events that have rocked Spain in recent weeks: the March 11 train bombings, the discovery of a bomb wedged beneath a high-speed rail south of Madrid Friday, and Saturday's suicide blast.
Spain is holding 15 people, most of them Moroccan, over the March 11 attacks.
Investigators are also searching further afield for a possible mastermind who may have ordered the attacks from abroad with all signs pointing to Islamist radicals sympathetic to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
Two days after the bombings and on the eve of Spanish general elections, a videotape surfaced in which a purported al Qaeda spokesman claimed responsibility for the attacks and called them revenge for Spanish support of the war in Iraq.
The following day Spanish voters threw out the strongly pro-American ruling party, electing Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialists who have pledged to pull Spain's 1,300 troops out of Iraq unless the United Nations takes charge there by June 30.
SUICIDE BELT
Acebes did not say what led police to swoop on the working-class Madrid suburb of Leganes Saturday evening in an attempt to round up several suspects.
The occupants of the first-floor flat spotted the police and began firing while shouting and chanting in Arabic, officials and local residents said.
The police were about to raid the flat when the suspects set off an explosion, demolishing the front of the five-storey apartment block. The 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.
One body which had yet to be identified was wearing an explosives belt of the type favored by Palestinian militants, the minister added. It contained two kg (4.4 pounds) of explosives.
"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.
A further two or three people may have escaped before the explosion, Acebes said, adding that the group appeared to have been planning more attacks.
Police also found 200 detonators and 22 pounds of dynamite, of the same type used in the train bombings and Friday's thwarted rail bomb.
PREACHED JIHAD
In the six arrest warrants issued Thursday, 35-year-old Farkhet was identified as the "personal leader and coordinator" of the suspected Islamist group implicated in the train bombings.
He had been agitating for "jihad" (holy war) in Madrid in mid-2003 if not earlier, the warrant said.
Acebes has singled out the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group -- a shadowy organization believed to be tied to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network -- as prime suspect in the bombings.
Investigators believe Friday's defused bomb was intended to derail the high-speed train running from Madrid to Seville in an attack that might have killed hundreds.
High-speed trains began running again Saturday, taking thousands to the southern city of Seville for its renowned Holy Week Christian celebrations culminating in Easter next Sunday.