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Terrorists 'missing'
25/07/2004 22:42 - (SA)
Madrid - Morocco, home to most of the suspects in the Madrid train bombings, has warned Spain it has lost track of about 400 suspected Islamic terrorists, a newspaper reported Sunday.
Moroccan authorities alerted Spanish anti-terrorism judge Baltasar Garzon during a meeting in Rabat, Morocco, in early July that some 600 Moroccans Muslims were known to have trained in Afghanistan in camps sponsored by Osama bin Laden, the daily El Pais said, quoting unidentified sources close to police and judicial officials.
But Morocco only had tabs on 200 of them. The whereabouts of the 400 others are unknown, El Pais said.
Spanish officials refused to comment on the report, but the newspaper story backs up statements Garzon made earlier this month to a Spanish parliamentary commission investigating the Madrid bombings.
He told the commission that Morocco was teeming with some 100 al-Qaida-linked cells capable of staging suicide attacks in Europe.
More than 50 people, mostly Moroccans, have been arrested and 16 remain in jail in connection with the train bombings that killed 191 people and injured some 2 000.
Garzon told the commission that many of the cells are in northern Morocco and contain members who speak perfect Spanish, allowing them to slip easily in and out of Spain _ just a short ferry ride across the Strait of Gibraltar.
He also said the groups raise money by dealing hashish, selling stolen cars and smuggling people into Spain.
El Pais reported on Sunday that Moroccan officials and Garzon also discussed greater anti-terrorism co-operation between Spain and Morocco and among North African countries, like Algeria, and European countries, like France and Italy.
- AP
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