Busy Spanish mall was terror target

Terrorists who blew themselves up last weekend as rather than be arrested in connection with the Madrid train bombings had been plotting an attack on a sprawling shopping centre outside Madrid.


Police combing through the apartment found evidence that included maps of Parquesur, a retail and leisure complex less than a mile (1.6km) from the apartment in the town of Leganes, El Mundo newspaper said, quoting police.


The facility has 193 stores, a hotel and a 2500-seat multi-cinema.

Another newspaper, El Pais, said four days before the March 11 attacks, police acting on a tip-off from neighbours visited the rural house 30km south-east of Madrid where officials say the bombs used in the railway attacks were assembled.

Seventeen people are now charged in the case – six with mass murder and the rest with collaborating or belonging to a terrorist group. Thirteen of the total are Moroccan.

The attacks on four commuter trains left 191 people dead and more than 1800 injured.