Spanish police believe a top al-Qaida operative in Europe put two key suspects in the Madrid bombings in contact with each other and gave the planned attack the blessing of Osama bin Laden's terror organisation, a newspaper reported today.
Alleged attack co-ordinator Sarhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet of Tunisia met with al-Qaida operative Mr Amer Azizi in Turkey to ask for fighters to stage an attack in Madrid, El Mundosaid.
Mr Azizi, a Moroccan who remains at large, was indicted on terrorism charges last September by Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon as part of his probe into an al-Qaida cell he accused of helping prepare the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington.
Mr Azizi, approached by Fakhet, apparently told Fakhet he could not supply ujahedeen fighters but urged him to contact Moroccan compatriot Mr Jamal Zougam in Madrid, the paper added, citing unidentified police officials.
Mr Zougam is one of six people charged with mass murder in connection with the Madrid attacks, which killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800.
Fakhet was one of up to seven suspected terrorists who blew themselves up last Saturday when their apartment south of Madrid was about to be stormed by Spanish police.
Court officials say Fakhet had been campaigning among friends for a jihad in Spain since mid-2003.
The meeting in Turkey was said to have taken place in late 2002 or early 2003. Azizi is one of at least a half dozen suspects police are searching for in relation to the train massacre.
Seventeen people, 13 of them Moroccan, have been charged in the case. Spanish authorities yesterday distributed the text of a videotape found in the apartment where Fakhet and the other suspected terrorists blew themselves up last weekend. In the tape, Spain is given a deadline to withdraw its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan or face more bloodshed.