RABAT, March 15: The group that carried out last week's deadly train bombings in Madrid was linked to Al Qaeda network and to extremists responsible for attacks in Casablanca 10 months ago, the Moroccan press alleged on Monday.

"A link exists between the attacks in Madrid and those in Casablanca," wrote Aujourd'hui le Maroc, basing its assertion on the personal ties of Jamal Zougam, one of three Moroccans arrested in Spain after attacks on trains in Madrid on Thursday.

"A Moroccan accused by the Spanish security services was given lodgings by another Moroccan, indicted in a trial against Al Qaeda, who is the brother of yet another Moroccan implicated in the Casablanca attacks" on May 16, 2003, wrote the paper.

Another newspaper, Liberation, said there were "patent links" between terrorist groups in Spain and "the fundamentalist galaxy in Morocco."-AFP