The Metropolitan police and security services were last night investigating links between a prime suspect in the Madrid bombings and Islamist extremists in London. A senior police source told the Guardian there were definite links between terrorists in the two cities. Intelligence officers also believe that Jamal Zougam, arrested by Spanish police in connection with the bombings, has contacts with a number of individuals of north African origin who are at large in the UK. But security sources are reluctant to go into detail, and they dismiss what they say are exaggerated suggestions that the Spanish inquiry is being "exported" to Britain.
But intelligence sources say it would be surprising, given the nature of the loose international networks of al-Qaida supporters, if there were not some links between those suspected of being behind the Madrid bombings and individuals in Britain. Some of those may be of Algerian background, former members of the Armed Islamic Group responsible for attacks on the Paris underground nine years ago. The question now, sources said, was to discover just how relevant the links were to last week’s Madrid terrorist attacks on commuter trains. It is known that Mr Zougam met a French Islamist convert, David Courtailler, at a Madrid mosque in 1998. Mr Courtailler is due to stand trial in Paris today in connection with a terrorist group which recruited fighters for Afghanistan in the mid-90s. Mr Courtailler and his brother Jerome moved to London, where they are believed to have shared a flat in Brixton with Zacarias Moussaoui. Mr Moussaoui is in custody in the US, suspected of having planned to be one of the September 11 hijackers. He is reported to have said he was given cash and a fake passport at the Finsbury Park mosque under the radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza, and sent to a training camp in Afghanistan.
The Metropolitan police has sent a three-strong team to Madrid to help the Spanish investigation and see if it throws up any clues relevant to Britain or the fight against terrorism in general. Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan police commissioner, refused to comment on any possible links between the Madrid bombers and the UK, saying it was early days and the Met team was there in a non-investigative capacity. Sir John said that, if necessary, his officers would question detainees in Belmarsh high-security prison in south-east London and elsewhere if the Spanish inquiry pointed in that direction. "We will go where the evidence takes us," he said.
What is concerning intelligence officials is the apparent failure to keep tabs on Mr Zougam, who was arrested and then released three years ago in Spain. Potentially more worrying, the sources say, was the ability of the Madrid bombers to carry out terrorist attacks without any hint of what they were planning. This, sources said yesterday, suggested the bombers had worked out counter-intelligence methods to foil western electronic surveillance. Security sources have spoken about the lack of "chatter" that preceded the Madrid attack. Previous attacks by al-Qaida or offshoot terror groups have provided western intelligence with a marked increase in background communication between suspects. |