The alleged ringleader of Madrid’s March 11 railway massacre, in which 191 people died, killed himself and four other suspects when police stormed their flat on Saturday night. Sarhane Ben Abdelmajid Farkhet, a 35-year-old Tunisian, was the head of the operative commando unit that planned the train bombings and attempted to blow up a high-speed train on Friday, Interior Minister Angel Acebes said yesterday. With an almost siege-like atmosphere hanging over the Easter holidays, newspapers reported yesterday that the army was maintaining daily checks on Madrid’s 14 water reservoirs because of fears of a poisoning attack. French counter-espionage services have arrested 15 people in raids aimed at suspected radical Islamists believed to have been involved in bombings that killed 45 people in the Moroccan city of Casablanca last year.
