Spain Bomb Leader Reported Killed

The alleged ringleader of last month's train bombings in Madrid was among four suspects who blew themselves up as police raided their apartment, Spain's interior ministers said Sunday.

The blast Saturday night killed a special operations police officer and wounded 15 other policemen. Interior Minister Angel Acebes said one of the dead bombers was found with an explosives belt around his body, and two or three suspects may have escaped before the explosion.

Sarhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, a Tunisian accused of spearheading the March 11 attacks, was among the dead, Acebes said. An international warrant had been issued for the arrest of Fakhet and five others last week.

"The core of the group that carried out the attacks is either arrested or dead in yesterday's collective suicide, including the head of the operative commando (unit)," Acebes told a news conference.

Another man on that list, Abdennabi Kounjaa, a Moroccan, was identified as among the four who died Saturday night. A third man Asri Rifaat Anouar, was not on the list. The fourth suspect has not been identified, Acebes said.

Police also found 200 detonators of the kind used in the March 11 attacks and in a bomb that was discovered Friday before it could explode along a high speed rail line, Acebes said.

Police also found 22 pounds of dynamite in the apartment where the four terrorists blew themselves up as police closed in, Acebes said.

"They were going to keep on attacking because some of the explosives were prepared, packed and connected to detonators," Acebes said.

The group set off the deadly explosion as police prepared to storm their apartment in Leganes south of Madrid. Police had approached the building about 7 p.m. to make arrests as part of an escalating manhunt for those responsible for the March 11 bombings.

The suspects spotted the police from a window and shot at them, shouting in Arabic, the Interior Ministry said. Over the next two hours, police evacuated as many people as they could from the building and surrounding area and prepared for an assault on the apartment.

No police officers were hurt by the gunfire.

As the terrorists shot at police from the apartment, "they shouted 'God is great' and Islamic verses," the newspaper El Mundo quoted a resident of the building as saying. It identified him only as Alberto M., who lived two floors up.

El Pais said special forces preparing the assault managed to communicate with the terrorists and gave them a deadline to surrender. But the terrorists shouted back "God is great, we are going to go out killing," the newspaper said, quoting police.

The terrorists set off their bomb in a second-story apartment after police blasted open the ground-floor entrance, the Interior Ministry said.

The special forces officer who died in the explosion was identified Sunday as Javier Torrontera, 41. He was married and had two children.

The investigation into the Madrid attacks has focused on the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, which has links to al-Qaida and is related to a group suspected in last year's Casablanca bombings, which killed 45 people including 12 suicide bombers. Acebes said the probe will now focus on what connections the bombers may have had abroad or with other terrorist groups.

Spain has been a major U.S. ally in Iraq and has been warned previously by al-Qaida that it would be the target of terrorism for its support.

Fifteen suspects are already in custody. Six have been charged with mass murder and nine with collaborating with or belonging to a terrorist organization. Eleven of the 15 charged are Moroccan.