June 06, 2008	Friday	Jamadi-us-Sani 01, 1429

MADRID, June 5: A judge in Spain on Thursday filed terrorism charges against nine Pakistanis and two Indians suspected of planning suicide attacks in Barcelona and elsewhere in Europe, judicial sources said.

Ten were arrested in Barcelona, northeastern Spain, in January in raids in which police also recovered bomb-making equipment. It was not immediately disclosed where the 11th person was held.

All were charged with belonging to a terrorist group, and eight were additionally accused of possessing explosives.

The charges were based on the declarations of a witness who is a former member of the cell, which is suspected of planning suicide attacks on the Barcelona metro and other European cities.

After the arrests, Spain’s intelligence services had warned Paris, London and Lisbon of the threat of attacks linked to a European tour by Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said in February that the cell was linked to Baitullah Mehsud, suspected of involvement in the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

The cell had “acquired operational capability at a human level and was close to achieving full technical capability in making explosives”, Judge Ismael Moreno said.

Three of those held, Pakistanis Mohamed Shoaib, M. Khalib and Imran Cheema, had been tasked with carrying out the suicide bombings, and had recently arrived in Barcelona, the judge said.

Three others, Hafeez Ahmed, Qadeer Malik and Sahib Iqbal, were allegedly explosives experts.

Had it succeeded, the plot would have been chillingly similar to the March 11, 2004, bombings on the Madrid commuter rail network, which killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800.

Spain’s El Pais newspaper has reported the Barcelona plot was uncovered thanks to a French secret agent identified as F-1 who arrived on a train from France to infiltrate the cell.—Agencies