WORLD IN BRIEF

Pakistani Says Detainee May Be Madrid Suspect

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Police captured an Arab man suspected of belonging to al Qaeda and killed another during a shootout this week in the southwestern city of Quetta, authorities disclosed Thursday.

The Associated Press reported that an unnamed senior government official had raised the possibility that the captured man was a Syrian linked by media reports to the 2004 commuter train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people. The United States has offered a $5 million reward for the capture of the Syrian, Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, 47, a Spanish citizen by marriage.

Pakistan's information minister told the Geo television network that he could not confirm the report. A U.S. Embassy spokesman said he had no information on the arrest.

Authorities said the man was captured during a police raid Tuesday at a shop in Quetta that serves as the office of an Islamic charity tied to a radical group, the AP reported. A third man with links to a Pakistani extremist group was also reportedly detained.

-- John Lancaster

EUROPE

? BELFAST -- Northern Ireland police charged a man with the $47 million robbery of a Belfast bank last December. Four others have been arrested in the case in the last four days. The robbery was widely blamed on the Irish Republican Army, which has denied having any part in it.

? ROME -- Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said in a published interview that a suicide bomber was plotting to blow him up at a soccer match, and accused his political rivals of exposing Italy to terrorist attacks by questioning his word.

Berlusconi -- who owns AC Milan, a top soccer club, and sometimes watches matches at Milan's San Siro stadium -- did not say when the plot was discovered or if it was a current threat.