18 March 2005

MADRID-Spanish police have arrested a Syrian for the second time for his alleged links to the Madrid bombings.

Mohannad Almallah Dabas was detained in his home in Madrid for his alleged links to the massacre in which 191 people were killed and 1,500 injured when four commuter trains were bombed on 11 March last year.

Dabas was arrested in March last year in the wake of the attacks, but later released.

He and his brother Moutaz Almallah were accused of recruiting young men and turning them into Islamic extremists and sending them abroad.

They were also said to have sheltered Islamic extremists in Spain.

Dabas was linked to Basel Ghalyoun, who is being held in custody accused of the same terrorist activity.

The three men were said to have held meetings to indoctrinate young recruits to the cause of jihad or Holy war.

They were said to be part of the group led by Serhane Ben Abdelmajid Farket, alias 'The Tunisian', who was the supposed mastermind of the bombings.

Farket later committed suicide with six other Islamic extremists when they blew themselves up in an apartment in Leganes near Madrid on 3 April last year. A police officer was also killed.

The Almallah brothers were also allegedly in contact with Rabei Osman Al Sayed, alias Mohamed 'The Egyptian', an ex-soldier and bomb expert who was said to have helped put together the explosives used in Spain's worst terrorist atrocity.

Al Sayed is currently in custody after being arrested in Milan last year.

The brothers used strict security measures to stop their detection by police, police sources said.

Police also linked the brothers to Abu Dahdah, in custody accused of heading the Spanish cell linked to the 9/11 atrocity.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news