MADRID TRAIN BOMBERS "WERE PLANNING FURTHER ATTACKS&quo

Madrid, 10 March (AKI) - Almost two years to the day since al-Qaeda linked bombers killed 191 passengers and injured almost 1,000 in devastating train bombings the Spanish capital on 11 March, 2004, it has emerged that the bombers had planned to carry out further attacks in Spain, according to disclosures published on Friday in the Spanish daily, ABC.

A particuarly disturbing relevation in the ABC report is that other terrorist attacks were planned on Spanish soil. Investigators reportedly found details of planned attacks by the Madrid cell on the computer of one of the bombing suspects, Jamal Ahmidan, known as 'the Chinaman'. Among the cell's possible future targets were an English school in Madrid, and the Avila and Toledo synagogues, ABC reported.

Investigators found a kind of manual on how to organise a terrorist group that Ahmidan had downloaded onto his computer one week after the deadly attacks from an 'online al-Battar training camp' based in Saudi Arabia. The 'instructions' received by Ahmidan included how to form a terror command structure in a large city.

The manual contains information on the composition of an al-Qaeda cell. This needs to be made up of five groups: the leadership, information and logistics staff, operatives who carry out attacks, and financial officers. Only the leadership of a cell can know the objective of an attacks, according to the manual.

Just a few days after Ahmidan downloaded the manual, police found 12 kilogrammes of explosives near Toledo, on the tracks of the high-speed Madrid-Seville express train.
Ahmidan and several other Madrid train bombing suspects blew themselves up in a flat in a Madrid suburb when police moved in to arrest them three weeks after the bombings. A police special operations officer was killed and 18 police officers were injured in the blast.

The second anniversary of the Madrid train bombings will be marked in a low-key climate, with little pomp and ceremony - at the request of relations of the victims. More than 200 of the attacks still need medical assistance, and a further 264 need psychological help.

On Friday night prime minister Jose Luis Zapatero and King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia will attend a memorial concert for victims of the Madrid attacks and the 7 July 2005 bombings of the British capital London's transport system that killed 54 and injured 700.

No bombing suspect has yet stood trial. Judge Juan del Olmo is expected to present his first indictments in the complex investigation by 10 April: some 30 people out of 116 suspects, many of whom are Moroccan, are expected to be charged.

Del Olmo and the National Court have been warned that unless the investigation is stepped up, some of the 25 defendants currently detained might have to be released from custody before any trial ends. Spain's 11th March Association of Terrorism Victims president, Pilar Manjon said on Thursday she was starting legal action against del Olmo. Manjon is angry that del Olmo has so far asked only 10 of the hundreds of victims of the deadly attacks to testify before him.


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"The conversion of the entire population to Islam and the extinction of every form of dissent is the ideal of the Muslim State - This is Islamic Peace"

A moderate Moslem is one who sends others blow themselves up.