SPAIN: A man known as Mohamed the Egyptian who is believed to have masterminded the Madrid train bombings was detained by police in Milan late on Monday night. Mr Yahia Pasyumi, a 21-year-old Palestinian who lived in the same apartment as the Egyptian, was arrested at the same time.
One hundred and nineteen people died and more than more 1,500 were injured when Islamic terrorists blew up three commuter trains as they approached Madrid's Atocha Station on March 11th.
So far some 35 people have been detained in Madrid in connection with the massacre, although only 14 are still in jail. The others have either been released on bail or without charge.
Another 15 suspected Isamic terrorists from Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Palestine were arrested in Belgium yesterday.
Mr Glenn Audenaert, the federal police chief in Brussels, said he did not think the gang had any link with the Madrid massacre although the connection had not been completely discounted.
However, Belgian police do believe that the men were planning a terrorist attack somewhere in Europe in the immediate future, probably to coincide with this week's European elections.
An international arrest warrant for Mr Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, alias Mohamed the Egyptian, was issued on April 4th by Mr Juan del Olmo, the Spanish judge investigating the Madrid bombings.
Italian police are believed to have traced him soon afterwards and have been monitoring his movements and intercepting his telephone calls for several weeks before moving in on Monday night.
The Spanish Justice Minister, Mr Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar, said yesterday that he would be requesting Mr Sayed's extradition to Spain to face terrorism and 191 murder charges.
The arrests are part of a continuing and co-ordinated anti-terrorist operation involving police from France, Spain, Italy and Belgium, which Mr Jose Antonio Alonso, the Spanish Interior Minister, described as "a very important demonstration of co-operation."
He said: "We should congratulate the Italian police as well as all the other police forces who have collaborated in this operation."
In Belgium, police arrested 15 people. "We know them to be part of a terrorist group," said the director of the federal police bureau of Brussels.
He said 200 police were involved in the operation and that the group of those arrested included Jordanians, Palestinians, Egyptians and Moroccans.
He could not confirm any link between the detainees and the Madrid attacks, but said they were in the "early stages" of planning an attack.
He gave no details of where the arrests took place or exactly what the 15 were planning.
A Flemish television station, VRT, reported on its website that heavily armed and masked policemen had raided a house in the Brussels suburb of Schaerbeek early yesterday. Belgian radio also reported that arrests had been made in Brussels and Antwerp.
Mr Audenaert said the 15 had been under surveillance for some time, but police had found no guns or bomb-making equipment.
Mohamed the Egyptian is known to have spent a considerable time in Spain during 2003 when he worshipped at the main mosque and met several of the Islamic terrorist suspects.
Although he left Madrid shortly before the bombings, the Egyptian was close to another of the March 11th terrorists, Serhan Abdelmajid, alias the Tunisian, who died with six others when they blew themselves up just as police were about to raid their apartment on April 3rd.
Mohamed the Egyptian is an expert in the use of explosives, and Mr Giuseppe Pisany, the Italian Interior Minister, said yesterday: "He was one of the principal artificers of the Madrid massacre, and the signs are that he was preparing a new attack in the immediate future."
He is believed to have formed part of the Moroccan-based Salafiste group, a gang closely allied to al-Qaeda which carried out bombings in Casablanca last year.
The ringleader of that gang is Mr Amer Azizi, allegedly the Moroccan-born military chief of al-Qaeda in Europe. Yesterday al-Qaeda issued a warning that it planned to attack European flights.
Two Spanish examining magistrates, Mr Juan del Olmo and Mr Baltasar Garzón, have issued arrest warrants for Mr Azizi's detention in connection with the Madrid massacre and the Casablanca bombings, although his whereabouts are unknown.