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| Europe |
| Details of the Madrid seige ’n’ boom |
| 2004-04-05 |
| About a dozen children were playing football in the garden between the blocks of flats in Carmen Gaite Street in the multi-racial Madrid suburb of Leganes when the first shots rang out. All around, plainclothes policemen were drawing their weapons to exchange fire with gunmen holed up in a first-floor flat nearby, shouting: "Get down on the ground! Everybody down!" Jose, who was overseeing the football session, recalled: "I fell to the ground taking two of the boys with me. The police were shooting only 20 metres away. It was terrifying. They shouted for us to lie on the ground. Between shots, the terrorists kept on shouting Allahu akbar [God is great] and Muslim chants. They were terrifying shouts." Jose lay on top of two children to shelter them for a quarter of an hour until a lull in the shooting allowed them to find better cover. Luisa Monino joined a crowd of curious onlookers. She was promptly sent back to her flat by police and told to draw the curtains. In surrounding houses, children were told to lie on the floor. Amid the gunfire and confusion, police tried to move residents out while the crack anti-terrorist unit - the Grupo Especial Operaciones (GEO) - prepared to storm the hideout. Good police work, and probably some lucky breaks, had led police to the flat. But the security forces had been spotted and the quiet residential area became a battlefield. According to the Spanish daily El Pais, police were drawn to Carmen Gaite Street when a member of the terrorist cell activated one of a batch of 100 stolen pay-as-you-go SIM cards. Police declined to confirm that, saying: "We don’t want the bad guys to know what we know." Within days of the Madrid train bombings on March 11 - "11-M" as it is known, a date as deeply seared in Spanish minds as 9/11 is in America - investigators were on the trail of the main suspects. Ten bombs were detonated almost simultaneously on commuter trains on 11-M, killing 191 people. But four devices malfunctioned. Three of those were blown up by sappers for fear that they could be detonated by a timer or remote control. A fourth unexploded bomb was later found among lost luggage. This yielded the vital clues about the type of explosive used, the manufacture of the copper detonators and, above all, a mobile telephone alarm as a timer. Police traced the SIM card to a small shop in the multi-ethnic Madrid neighbourhood of Lavapies. The three owners were arrested and the trail led to the arrest of more than 20 other people. Fifteen are now in jail, six on mass-murder charges. Witnesses said detectives had been combing the area of Leganes for days, showing local shopkeepers pictures of six suspects still at large. By Saturday evening, investigators seem to have identified the hideout. Around 6pm, as families were preparing to celebrate Holy Week, Spanish security forces began to deploy around the flats of Carmen Gaite Street. Angel Tajuelo, 59, was at first confused by the scene below his window. "I saw two police cars crossing the road in front of me and stop in front of the garage of the block opposite." He craned his neck to look up as a helicopter whirred overhead and GEO police began to arrive outside. One resident recalled that he was at home when his mobile telephone rang after 6.30pm. "The police told us to leave slowly but they did not give us any explanation." Within minutes, shots began to ring out. "I knew then that something very serious was up," said Mr Tajuelo. "The police said we had to leave the house but my mother is 89 and cannot walk fast. They said we could stay but we had to go to the furthest room in the flat." The gun battle continued intermittently for two hours and police talked to the terrorists through the door of the flat. According to a police source, the gang replied: "Allah is great and we are going to die killing." A GEO squad blew the door with small explosive at 9.03pm but, as they charged in, the militants blew themselves up. The first policeman through the door carried a protective shield but that was not enough to save him from an explosion that left a dozen nearby flats in rubble. Javier Torrontera, 41, became the first GEO operative to be killed since the special unit was set up in 1978. At least 11 other GEO men were injured. Debris and body parts were hurled 60 yards into the road and communal gardens. The body of one terrorist, with a belt of explosives still tied around his waist, was found in the bottom of an empty swimming pool. Terrified screams and the sound of children wailing created an atmosphere of panic. Mr Tajuela remembered that after the "terrifying explosion", he waited for a while before peering out of his window. "The first floor of the flat was destroyed," he said. Thick black smoke billowed from the building. People who had been pushed behind police barriers frantically called on mobiles to see if relatives inside the buildings were safe. Television footage shot from a flat down the street showed the flat’s windows explode in a cloud of dust, immediately before the impact blasted the flat’s walls across the street. Hundreds of people left homeless were taken to a nearby hotel and tended by doctors and psychiatrists. "This has shown what savage bastards that lot are," said Rafael Mendez, a retired builder. "The trauma here is big. Everybody is in shock." The four-storey building was being propped up by hydraulic beams to prevent its collapse yesterday as investigators picked their way through the site to discover the number of terrorists and their identities. They also found 22lb of dynamite and 200 copper detonators of the kind used in the Madrid train bombings. Piecing together the events of the weekend, neighbours recalled their encounters with the strange North African men who moved into the first floor flat three weeks ago. One woman said: "They were odd. They always kept the windows shut." Alberto, who lived two floors above, said: "They always had their lapels turned up." Welcome to the real world, Zappy. Not nearly so much fun as life in opposition, huh? |
| Posted by:Bulldog |
| #2 Spanish authorities are now saying there were 6 bad guys... Sifting thru body parts... |
| Posted by: .com 2004-04-05 2:13:10 PM |
| #1 Would that only the Spanish voting public were worthy of the sacrifice that Javier Torrontera made. God bless him. |
| Posted by: Dar 2004-04-05 12:37:03 PM |