when will people learn that these terrorists just cannot be baragined with?
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Suicide-bombing plot against Spain revealed in report
Judges probing train attacks targeted
Thursday, October 21, 2004
Mar Roman
Associated Press
Madrid, Spain- A Muslim militant schemed to punish Spain with the "biggest blow of its history" - a half-ton suicide truck bombing of the National Court aimed at killing judges investigating Islamic terror, including the Madrid train attacks, according to a police intelligence report obtained Wednesday by the Associated Press.
"If Spain loses three or four of its most important judges, that is worse than losing its prime minister," the report said. It quoted an informant whose testimony on his contacts with the militant triggered the arrests of eight suspects this week in Spain.
Western Europe has never suffered a major suicide bombing, although suicide blasts killed 61 people last November in Istanbul, Turkey.
An estimated 220 pounds of explosives was used in the 10 backpack bombs that hit the Madrid commuter rail network March 11, killing 191 people. Al- Qaida-linked militants were blamed.
Seven suspects in that attack, including several alleged ring leaders, blew themselves up on April 3 as police closed in. But their goal was apparently to evade arrest and become martyrs for Islam, not kill a large number of people. One special-forces officer died.
In the new investigation, police said they had intercepted hundreds of letters from suspected cell members in Spain in which they said they were willing to stage suicide attacks.
The National Police intelligence unit report detailed a plot to blow up the National Court - Spain's nerve center for investigating Islamic terror - on a busy avenue in downtown Madrid.
The report said the protected witness had been in contact with suspected cell ringleader Mohamed Achraf, an Algerian born in the United Arab Emirates.
Switzerland confirmed Wednesday that he is in custody there for entering the country illegally, and Swiss officials said deportation proceedings had been pending when his alleged link to the plot surfaced.
Spain's leading anti-terrorism magistrate, Judge Baltasar Garzon, is preparing to send the Swiss authorities a warrant spelling out specific charges against Achraf, setting the stage for Spain's government to request his extradition, sources at Spain's National Court said.
The eight suspected members of Achraf's cell were arrested in Spain on Monday and Tuesday. All eight had been with him at the Salamanca jail, police said.
The Interior Ministry said wiretapped phone conversations showed the cell had been talking about bombing the National Court, but no explosives were found in the raids.
"Achraf told the witness, in a closed meeting, that he needed to give Spain the biggest blow of its history, for which he needed 1,000 kilograms [2,200 pounds] of Goma 2 (compressed dynamite)," the report read.
The witness told police Achraf was using half the explosives for a first attack targeting the National Court. The report made no mention of what he planned to do with the rest.
"He wanted the attack to be at the National Court in Madrid or the Supreme Court," the report said. "Furthermore, with this attack, many case files related to mujahedeen would be destroyed," the witness added.