Spain seeks shadowy 'Emir'

Spain is hunting a shadowy Islamist radical identified only as "The Emir" who may have inspired last month's Madrid train bombings and may be abroad, Interior Minister Angel Acebes said yesterday.

He may have died when seven train bombing suspects blew themselves up to avoid capture. Or he may be at large, possibly after escaping the bombers' apartment before the suicide blast.

Yet he may, however, not even exist at all, officials said. The mainly Moroccan bombers, who killed 191 people aboard four commuter trains in the Spanish capital on March 11, formed an autonomous cell organised in Spain, Mr Acebes said.

"But... its leaders had links with other leaders or other fundamentalists in other countries in Europe or outside Europe.

"Above them there may have been a leader with more experience of radical Islam, who may even have trained in or visited Afghanistan or some training camp," Mr Acebes said.

An Interior Ministry source said investigators suspected the existence of a spiritual leader, whom they have dubbed "The Emir", based on the organisation of similar militant groups. But it had no hard evidence even of his existence.

Four suspects killed in the April 3 suicide blast at a Madrid apartment have been identified, including suspected cell leaders Serhane ben Abdelmajid Farkhet, known as "The Tunisian", and chief lieutenant Jamal Ahmidan, nicknamed "The Chinaman". The remains of three others have yet to be identified.

Mr Acebes said that most of those involved in the bombings were now either dead or among 24 people in custody.

Mr Acebes said police were also following leads in at least seven other countries - Britain, France, Germany, Bulgaria, Belgium, Tunisia and Morocco. Spain is still probing the possible involvement of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, believed to have links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.

Intelligence officials from 25 European Union states were meeting in Madrid yesterday to swap information on the attacks, an investigation source said.

Mr Acebes said yesterday that bombing suspects swapped drugs for around 200 kilogrammes of dynamite. Police believe virtually all these explosives were detonated or have been recovered. But Mr Acebes said there remained a risk of further attacks.

"We can never rule out that possibility that other sympathetic groups... could have acquired these types of explosives or others," he said.

Investigators believe the bombers were divided into three groups, Mr Acebes said - a hard-core group of Islamic radicals, a second group that devised and helped implement the plot, and a third group of "habitual criminals involved in drug-trafficking" who acquired the explosives and helped plant the bombs.