Spanish police picked up five more suspects including a Spaniard and four Arabs on Thursday in connection with the Madrid train bombings, sources in the investigation said, as the death toll hit 202. The arrests bring the number of detainees to 10 since the blasts on rush-hour trains a week ago, believed linked to al Qaeda and the first Islamist militant strike in the West since September 11, 2001. State radio said one of those taken on Thursday, who was arrested in a northern city, was suspected of the attack and was also wanted over last May's Casablanca bombings, in the latest indication that the two strikes are linked. The arrests were the first since last Saturday's detention of three Moroccans and two Indians, who were taken to Spain's High Court on Thursday amid tight security. They had their rights read to them, were given a medical check, and were then due to give testimony behind closed doors later in the day, when a judge will decide whether to release them or keep them in custody.
Investigators say the train bombs, the bloodiest guerrilla attack in Europe since the 1988 Lockerbie plane bombing, were likely to have been planted by a group linked to al Qaeda, possibly in retribution for Spain's support for the Iraq war. A 22-year-old Peruvian woman died on Thursday, bringing the death toll to 202 -- matching the number of dead in the Bali bomb attacks in 2002. More than 1,750 people were injured. The attack has prompted a security shake-up across Europe and beyond and has sparked jitters in major Western cities. A fake bomb near Paris held up rail traffic to northern France and London on Thursday, unsettling Europe's already shaky financial markets. Separately, UK police said they had closed off a domestic rail line in southern England near the Channel Tunnel link to France and held a man under anti-terrorism laws. |