Madrid, Spain ? A Moroccan arrested in last week’s train bombings here surfaced nearly three years ago in an investigation that indicated he had wide-ranging contacts with Islamic extremists, including a group later accused of being accomplices in the Sept. 11 attacks, according to court documents and interviews Sunday.

Spanish police searched the Madrid apartment of Jamal Zougam in August 2001, according to investigators. The search revealed that Zougam, 30, associated with key figures in a Madrid al-Qaida cell whose alleged leader, Imad Eddin Barakat, was accused three months later of involvement in the plot to attack the United States that year, according to Spanish court documents.

Police determined that Zougam was a follower of Barakat, a Spanish citizen born in Syria, and they wiretapped at least one phone conversation between the two, documents show. Zougam also had ties to Ansar al-Islam, the largely Kurdish group now active in terror attacks in Iraq, and to suspects in last year’s suicide bombings in Casablanca, Morocco, that killed 45 people.

But Zougam was not among the nearly 50 suspected extremists who were arrested in a post-Sept. 11 crackdown led by Baltasar Garzon, a top Spanish anti-terror magistrate. Zougam sold cellular phone equipment at a store he ran with his half-brother, Mohamed Chaoui, who also was arrested in the train bombing, and then with a third Moroccan suspect in the case, according to police and neighbors.

The Moroccans are suspected of providing cell phones that served as timers in the backpack bombs that tore apart four commuter trains on Thursday, killing 200 and wounding more than 1,500.

‘Sleepers’ awakened

Their arrests have focused attention on Islamic extremists who were already well known to European law enforcement. If the Moroccans were involved in last week’s bombings, they would be examples of Islamic “sleeper cells,” who once were limited to logistics and recruitment, transforming into front-line killing teams.

It was not clear Sunday whether the three had been under surveillance by Spain’s elite counter-terror units, which monitor Islamic extremists. A high-ranking Spanish investigator said Zougam had not been arrested during the 2001 crackdown because he was not implicated in specific crimes.

As interrogations continued Sunday, investigators said they believed the Moroccan half-brothers and their business associate, identified as Mohamed Bakaliboutaliha, may have done more than just provide equipment for the bombs.

“We haven’t determined whether they were the ones who planted the bombs, but we certainly haven’t ruled it out either,” a high-ranking Spanish investigator said.

Police are trying to identify three men seen by a witness and taped by a video camera Thursday morning at a train station where some of bombs were probably planted aboard commuter trains.

In addition, investigators have enlisted the help of intelligence services in other countries to analyze a videotape received Saturday that claimed responsibility for the attacks. A man shown in the tape said he spoke for the purported “military chief” of al-Qaida in Europe, whom he identified as Abu Dujan al Afghani.

Interior Minister Angel Acebes told reporters Sunday that police had not yet identified anyone by that name, which suggests Afghan origin, a stint fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, or time spent in one of al-Qaida’s Afghan training camps.

Al-Qaida profile fits

The three Moroccans have criminal records for offenses including battery and involvement in a homicide, Acebes said. That description fits the profile of other al-Qaida operatives from North Africa. Many were legal immigrants and owned small businesses, but they also moved in an underworld of robberies, credit card fraud and forgery.

Acebes did not provide many new details about the bombing investigation. But two other Spanish law enforcement officials said police are examining possible links between the train bombings and the suicide attacks in Casablanca last May. The random cruelty of the Madrid attacks resembled the Casablanca bombings by inexperienced recruits who were rapidly groomed by al-Qaida operatives, officials say.