Train Terror Suspects Blow Themselves Up in Spain

Spain is shuddering with fears of additional terror attacks after three suspects in the Madrid terror attacks committed suicide by blowing themselves up just before taken into custody, and after another explosive device was found on a high-speed rail line between Madrid and Sevilla.

Spanish Interior Minister Angel Acebes said on April 3 that an explosive was set off in a building while carrying out a roundup of terror suspects in Leganes, in the southwestern part Madrid, and while officials were evacuating its residents.

The explosion occurred just before that suspects were arrested, and one policeman died and fifteen others were hurt in the blast in addition to the three suspects. Meanwhile, a total of 191 passengers died in the Madrid terror attack on March 11.

The police found an explosive weighing 12 kg under the railway line 60 km south from Madrid one day before. The explosive using dynamite was the same sort used in the Madrid terror attacks. The authorities immediately stopped high-speed train service on this line and began a nationwide search of the railway system.

The Spanish daily newspaper El Mundo reported that the Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri sent a letter to the Spanish Embassy in Egypt saying it would attack Spanish diplomatic organizations in North Africa and Mediterranean areas if Spanish troops did not withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan. ZDF of German broadcasting also reported on April 2 that Al Qaeda gave an order to its combatants to “open a terror campaign in every pagan country.”

Hye-Yoon Park parkhyey@donga.com