Police find terror tape in flat wreckage

A videotape found in a flat where suspected terrorists blew themselves up gives Spain a deadline to withdraw its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan or face more bloodshed at home.

In the video, three heavily-armed people read a statement in the name of the Al Mufti Brigades and Ansar al-Qaida, giving Spain one week to “leave Muslim lands immediately”, authorities said.

“Should you not do this within the space of a week, starting today, we will continue our Jihad until martyrdom,” it added.

“You know that you are not safe, and you know that Bush and his administration will bring only destruction. We will kill you anywhere and in any manner,” it read.

It was not clear when the video had been filmed or when the deadline would begin. Police have not ruled out a theory that the video was filmed by some of the suspected terrorists before their collective suicide during a police raid last Saturday.

An interior ministry spokesman said the video was found in the rubble of the flat during recent searches. It was damaged in the explosion and had to be minutely analysed by police forensic experts. It has been sent to the National Court as evidence.

Spain has 1,300 troops in Iraq and 125 in Afghanistan. The incoming Socialist government has said it will withdraw the soldiers from Iraq by June 30 unless the United Nations takes control of the post-war occupation.

Last week, a Spanish newspaper said it received a threat from a group linked to al-Qaida saying Spain would be turned into “an inferno” unless Madrid withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the Madrid daily El Mundo reported that the suspected terrorists who perpetrated the March 11 commuter railway bombings, which killed 191 people and injured more than 1,800 others, were plotting to attack a shopping centre outside Madrid.

Police combing through the suspects’ flat found maps of Parquesur, a retail and leisure complex less than half a mile away in Leganes, and at least two backpacks and a belt, all packed with dynamite and wired to detonators, El Mundo said.

A National Court official said on Wednesday that the suspects had planned another major attack in Madrid, possibly during this week’s Easter celebrations, but did not give more details.

El Mundo said the attack was to have been staged last Sunday – the day after the police raid that prompted up to seven terrorists to take their own lives - or during the week before Easter, when millions of Spaniards are on holiday and schools are out, making the crowds that normally pack Parquesur even larger.

The centre has 193 stores, a hotel and a 2,500-seat multi-cinema.

In Sarajevo, authorities are investigating whether a Bosnian was among the suspects in the March 11 train bombings.

Spanish police asked the Bosnia office of Interpol to check the suspect, who was identified as 23-year-old Sanel Sjekirica.

The Spanish news agency Europa Press reported that as of November last year, Sjekirica was registered as a computer science student at the University of Oviedo in northern Spain.

Seventeen people, including 13 Moroccans, have been charged in connection with the case – six with mass murder and the rest with collaborating or belonging to a terrorist group.

A Moroccan, Fouad Almorabit, was re-arrested Thursday for third time since the Madrid 11 bombings as new evidence was found, police said. With Almorabit there are currently 18 people in custody.

Key suspects still at large include Amer Azizi, a Moroccan charged with terrorism in an indictment by Judge Baltasar Garzon last September against members of an alleged Spain-based al-Qaida cell that he says helped prepare the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.