SPAIN: Spanish authorities announced two more arrests in the Madrid train bombings investigation yesterday as a purported letter from al-Qaeda threatened more attacks that would "make blood flow like rivers" in Spain.
After a weekend siege in suburban Madrid in which four or five suspected train bombers blew themselves up during the police raid, a handful of suspects remained on the run.
The handwritten letter in Arabic was received at 6 p.m. on Saturday, just as police moved in to surround the apartment building in the suburb of Leganés where five terrorists later blew themselves up, although the paper only published the letter yesterday.
The message was signed by Abu Duham al-Afghani, the same man who sent the videotaped message claiming responsibility for the Madrid bombing on March 11th. He described himself as the representative of al-Qaeda in Europe and warned that the group would turn Spain into "a hell and make your blood flow like rivers" if it did not withdraw its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan by last Sunday.
The writer of the letter claimed responsibility for placing the explosives on the high-speed train line 60 km from Madrid at the end of last week. "We could have blown up the trains which passed over those lines on Thursday or Friday, but we did not do so because our aim was merely to warn you and to show that we have the power and the ability, with the permission of Allah, to act when and how we wish."
The authorities are still studying the communique, but have described it as "credible".
Security has been tightened in many parts of the country as Spaniards begin their traditional Holy Week holidays. The Madrid metro is being patrolled by police, and the airline check-in facilities in the centre of the city have been closed indefinitely.
The two men detained yesterday, who have still not been named, were arrested over the weekend - one in the Madrid suburb of Fuenlabrada and the second in the Spanish north African enclave of Ceuta. The latest arrests bring to 26 the number of people detained since the bombing, of whom 15 remain in jail.
Mr Angel Acebes, the outgoing interior minister, claimed that the nucleus of the Islamic terrorist cell which carried out the Madrid bombing are now either dead or under arrest.
He confirmed that five terrorists, not four, had died in the suicide blast in the apartment building on Saturday night, in which a member of the elite anti-terrorist police also died.
Police believe that one, or even two, terrorists managed to escape from the flat shortly before it was surrounded by the anti-terrorist squad.
Four of the terrorists have been identified as Serham bin Abdelmajid, "the Tunisian", and the alleged leader of the gang; his second-in-command, Jamal Ahmidan, alias "the Chinaman"; Rifaat Anduar; and Abdennabi Kounjaa.