Madrid investigation focuses on Moroccans

Police suspect that at least six Moroccans took part in the Madrid train bombings as the growing international investigation increasingly focused on Islamic militants possibly linked to al-Qaida.

Cardinal Antonio Rouco Varela led a Mass at Madrid’s cathedral last night remembering the victims of the bloodiest terrorist attack in Spain’s history.

A huge black ribbon hung from a wall above the altar.

“The tragic attacks of March 11 have sunk us all into deep pain,” Varela said. “To kill your own kind, to kill a brother, is to attack God himself.”

The main suspect in custody in the attacks, Moroccan immigrant Jamal Zougam, has already been identified by Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon as a follower of Imad Yarkas, the alleged leader of Spain’s al-Qaida cell who is jailed on suspicion that he helped plan the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

The daily newspaper El Pais reported that police believe they have identified five other Moroccans who directly participated in the attacks and are at large.

Spain’s Interior Ministry refused to comment.

Two people who were travelling on one of the attacked trains have said Zougam was aboard just before the bombs began exploding, El Pais said.

With signs that the bombings were carried out by Islamic extremists who operate and have confederates in several countries, US investigators are helping Spanish police in using fingerprints and names to seek a full picture of Zougam and four other suspects in custody, a senior US law enforcement official said in Washington.

Spanish police also have arrested two more Moroccans and two Indians, but their possible roles in the attacks have not been specified.

European countries were searching their databases for any information pertinent to the attack.

A US official said ”it’s increasingly likely Islamic extremists were involved in these attacks. In terms of assigning responsibility, it isn’t clear.”

“It’s not clear who these groups were,” the official said, referring to whether they had links to al-Qaida and other extremist groups or even to the Basque separatist group ETA.

A suspected link between the Madrid bombings and suicide bomb attacks in Casablanca, Morocco, last year grew stronger yesterday when French private investigator Jean-Charles Brisard described a phone conversation on a tapped line in which Zougam said he had met with Mohamed Fizazi, the spiritual leader of Salafia Jihadia, a clandestine Moroccan extremist group.

Salafia Jihadia is suspected of involvement in the Casablanca attack, which killed 33 people and 12 bombers and has been linked to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terror network.

Fizazi was among 87 people sentenced in Morocco in August in a trial that centred on the Casablanca attacks.

Fizazi received a 30-year sentence after being convicted of preaching radical Islam in mosques and meeting with the Casablanca attack’s perpetrators.

Police in the Basque city of San Sebastian, meanwhile, said they detained an Algerian who allegedly talked about a terrorist attack in Madrid two months before it happened.

Ali Amrous, who is apparently homeless, was picked up on Monday to learn if he had advance knowledge of the attacks, police said.

He was first arrested in January after a neighbourhood disturbance and while being questioned told police, “We will fill Madrid with the dead,” according to authorities.

A 45-year-old woman died of her injuries yesterday, raising the death toll from last Thursday’s bombings to 201. Of the more than 1,600 wounded, eight are in critical condition.

The Madrid attacks are just one death short of the 202 killed in October 2002 in the nightclub bombing in Bali – blamed on an al-Qaida-linked group – which was the deadliest terror attack since September 11, 2001.