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Pakistan May Have Tipped Spain To Terror Risk

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By VICTORIA BURNETT, The New York Times

Published: January 21, 2008

MADRID, Spain - Intelligence agents Sunday were sifting through evidence collected during a weekend crackdown on a group of suspected Islamic militants who the police say were plotting an attack on Barcelona.

Police arrested 14 men and raided several apartments, two mosques and a bakery in Barcelona, the capital of the northeastern region of Catalonia, a security official and local Muslim representatives said. The arrested included 12 Pakistanis, one Indian and a Bangladeshi, they said.

Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, the Spanish interior minister, said Saturday that the detainees "belonged to a well-organized group that had gone a step beyond radicalization."

They confiscated material for making bombs, including four timing devices, Rubalcaba said. Local news reports said the police also had taken phone records from the mosques and the bakery. Photographs of material found in the raids included the timing devices, a small bag of ball bearings, batteries and cables.

Spanish intelligence acted with the help of information from foreign intelligence agencies, Rubalcaba said, though he did not say from which countries.

Newspaper reports Sunday said intelligence officials based in Pakistan had tipped off the Spanish authorities about a known Pakistani militant having left Pakistan for Barcelona to help put a terrorist plot in motion. Those reports could not be independently confirmed Sunday.

With a general election scheduled for March 9, Spain is on the alert for terrorist attacks by Islamist groups or the Basque militant group ETA. An Islamist attack on Madrid commuter trains on March 11, 2004 - three days before the last general election - killed 191 people.

Since the Madrid bombings, Spanish police have become very aggressive in their efforts to break up suspected Islamist plots. Groups of suspects are arrested fairly frequently, though often are released within five days, the standard period that someone suspected of being a terrorist can be held without charge.

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