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Madrid Suspects Were Known Years Ago

(AP/Washington Post) John Leicester - Long before Jamal Zougam was picked up as a suspect in the Madrid bombings, he'd flitted across the radar screens of anti-terrorism investigators. Police searched his apartment in 2001, and both he and his half brother, also under arrest, reportedly had been vouched for by an al-Qaeda suspect in a monitored phone call. A U.S. counter-terrorism official said authorities found no evidence of increased "chatter" - monitored contacts between suspects that might have pointed to a plot - in the days prior to the attack. "You cannot expect the police to secure every citizen, every building in every location from every possible terrorist attack," Interpol chief Ronald Noble said Tuesday at a security conference in Manila. "The only way is to identify terror groups and dismantle them."
2004-03-17 00:00:00
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