Spain on terror alert ahead of holiday weekend

SPAIN was building up to a tense long Easter weekend yesterday, aware that Islamic militants who blew themselves up when cornered by police on Saturday had planned more attacks.

Police and troops were deployed to guard dams, power plants, rail lines and other possible targets in a country still shaken by the Madrid train bomb attacks that killed 191 and injured more than 1,800 people.

Terrorists who blew themselves up last weekend as police moved to arrest them had been plotting an attack on a shopping centre outside Madrid, according to reports yesterday.

Police combing the apartment found maps of Parquesur, a retail and leisure complex near the apartment in the town of Leganes.

Police also found at least two backpacks and a belt, all packed with dynamite and wired to detonators. Interior Ministry officials were not available to comment.

The attack was supposed to have been staged on Sunday the day after the raid that prompted up to seven terrorists to take their lives or during the week before Easter, when millions of Spaniards are on holiday and schools are out.

The Parquesur facility has 193 stores, an hotel and a 2,500-seat multi-cinema.

Reports also claimed that four days before the Madrid attacks, police acting on a tip-off visited the rural house 20 miles southeast of Madrid where officials say the bombs used in the rail attacks were assembled.

But police did not go into the house as they lacked a court order, and instead noted the numbers of cars outside. On Wednesday, a judge jailed two more Moroccan suspects on terrorism charges. Seventeen people are now charged in the case, 13 of whom are Moroccan.