Spanish police arrest four more suspects, one week after Madrid bombings

<br> <br>MADRID, Spain (AP) _ Spanish police have arrested four more suspects, believed to be of Moroccan origin, in the Madrid terror bombings, court officials said Thursday. <br><br>Three were arrested

Thursday, March 18th 2004, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

MADRID, Spain (AP) _ Spanish police have arrested four more suspects, believed to be of Moroccan origin, in the Madrid terror bombings, court officials said Thursday.

Three were arrested in Alcala de Henares, a town outside Madrid where three of the four trains bombed in the March 11 attacks originated, said the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The fourth suspect was arrested in the north of Spain, the officials said. The arrests came either late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning, the officials said.

Alcala de Henares, 18 miles east of Madrid, is where police found a van with detonators and a cassette tape with verses from the Quran just hours after the bombings. A witness said he saw three men with their faces covered carrying backpacks toward the town's train station before the attack.

The four arrests take the total number of people in custody to 10. They include three Moroccans and two Indians arrested Saturday, two days after the bombing, and an Algerian being quizzed to see whether he had advance word of the attack.

Judge Juan del Olmo was to question the three Moroccans and two Indians later Thursday to determine whether they should be freed or jailed for further investigation.

Those five have been held under anti-terrorism statutes that allow police to detain suspects for interrogation for up to five days before presenting them to a judge.

Authorities had said as recently as Tuesday that the attack death toll had risen to 201. But on Thursday, the Madrid regional government said only 194 bodies have been identified and that the definitive toll would not be known before next week.

The key suspect is Moroccan Jamal Zougam, 30. Spanish police were reported to have been seeking another 20 people _ nearly all Moroccan _ for questioning.

Spanish law enforcement agencies were aware of Zougam's alleged links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network since at least 2001, when they searched his Madrid apartment. They found videos, including one that contained a bin Laden interview, and phone numbers for suspected al-Qaida members.

Later Thursday, Judge Baltasar Garzon was to quiz Imad Yarkas, the alleged leader of al-Qaida's cell in Spain. Yarkas is in jail on suspicion that he helped plan the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

Zougam and Yarkas have known each other since at least 2001, according to Garzon's painstaking probe of al-Qaida operations in Spain. Garzon's dossier shows that Zougam telephoned Yarkas in a call monitored on Sept. 5, 2001, to tell him that he had returned to Madrid following a trip to Morocco.

Zougam also is suspected of having links to Said Chedadi, another alleged al-Qaida operative arrested with Yarkas on Garzon's orders in 2001. Chedadi's phone number was among those found in the 2001 search of Zougam's home.

Chedadi remains in jail. On Wednesday night, police started searching his shop and house in Madrid on Judge Del Olmo's orders. The judge has ordered that the investigation be conducted in secret, apparently to avoid compromising the hunt for more suspects and evidence.

Moroccan authorities say they suspect Ansar al-Islam, an Islamic extremist guerrilla group blamed for terrorist strikes in Iraq, Jordan, Turkey and Morocco, of being behind the Madrid bombings.

Moroccan officials said evidence shows Zougam had links to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi _ a key operative with strong ties to Ansar.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, believe the perpetrators of the March 11 attack in Madrid also have ties to those responsible for suicide bombings in Casablanca, Morocco, that killed 33 people and 12 bombers last May.

Interior Minister Angel Acebes insisted Wednesday that the Madrid probe is making progress. Investigators are still combing for clues, including from a videotape found in a trash bin last Saturday in which a purported al-Qaida spokesman claimed responsibility for the attacks.

European and U.S. police and intelligence agencies are helping the inquiry.