Here is a lengthy news article about it.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4502950/
All lines of investigation open in Spain probe
Basque separatists, al-Qaida both considered as possible culprits
MADRID, Spain - Spain vowed on Friday to follow every lead to hunt down the bombers who blew up four trains, killing at least 198 people, while Spaniards gathered for nationwide ceremonies to mourn the victims of the worst terrorist attack on a European city.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar stuck to his initial accusation that the Basque separatist terror group Euskadi ta Askatasuna, or ETA, was responsible for the attacks, which wounded nearly 1,500. But he said after a Cabinet meeting that "no line of investigation is going to be ruled out," referring to clues suggesting that Islamic terrorists linked to al-Qaida might have plotted the coordinated bombing blitz.
Among the tantalizing hints that Osama bin Laden's terrorist group might be involved were the discovery of detonators and an Arabic-language cassette with Quranic verses in a stolen van outside Madrid and the fact that the attack occurred exactly 2 1/2 years -- and 911 days -- after al-Qaida carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States. The infamous attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon using four hijacked airliners are known around the world by the shorthand reference "9-11."
A shadowy group also claimed responsibility for the bombings in the name of al-Qaida, but U.S. intelligence officials said they gave the claim little credence.
Death toll rises
The death toll rose overnight from 192 to 198, deputy Justice Minister Rafael Alcala said, adding that 84 bodies remain to be identified.
The attack -- Europe's worst since the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people — occurred when 10 backpack bombs exploded in a 15-minute span early Thursday.
Targeted were trains along nine miles of commuter line from Santa Eugenia to the Atocha terminal, a bustling hub for subway, commuter and long-distance trains just south of the famed Prado Museum. Police also found and detonated three other bombs.
Train cars were turned into twisted wrecks and platforms were strewn with corpses. Cell phones rang unanswered on the bodies of the dead as frantic relatives tried to call them.
Many of the injured were hurt as panicked commuters trampled one another as they fled the carnage.
Aznar said at a news conference on Friday that in addition to the Spanish victims, 14 nationals from 11 countries were among the dead: Three Peruvians, two Hondurans, two Poles, one Chilean, one Cuban, one Ecuadorean, one from Guinea Bissau, one French, one Moroccan and one Colombian, Aznar said.
Three days of mourning were declared and campaigning was called off for Spain’s general election, but Foreign Minister Ana Palacio pledged that the vote would be held on Sunday as planned.
“This would be the first way to tell terrorists about our determination to go forward and that they will not succeed in their wicked cause,” Palacio told Australia’s Channel Nine television from Spain.
A major issue throughout the campaign has been how to deal with ETA, the Basque terror group.
Scenes of horror
As day broke Friday, television and radio re-ran horrific witness accounts of flaming bodies and other carnage on four morning rush hour trains full of workers and students.
Passengers sobbed, lit candles and left flowers at Madrid’s Atocha station, which was the first one hit in the attacks, and trains had to roll past wreckage left on the track.
“I saw the trains and I burst into tears. I felt so helpless, felt such anger,” said a tearful Isabel Galan, 32.
All the television stations placed a small red and yellow Spanish flag with a black sash in the corner of the screen. Commuter trains also traveled with black cloth on the engine cars.
At midday, virtually all activity across the country halted for a 10-minute silent vigil for the victims. Broadcasters fell silent, offices, shops and cafes emptied as people went to stand in the street, and drivers stood by their cars on main highways.
Afterward, many broke into spontaneous applause -- a Spanish way to show respect and say goodbye.
Aznar stood outside the presidential palace with senior officials during the tribute. The silence there was broken when someone in the crowd angrily shouted: "Send the terrorists to the firing squad!"
Millions expected to attend evening protests
Millions of Spaniards were expected to join evening protests called by Aznar under the slogan “With the Victims, With the Constitution, For the Defeat of Terrorism.”
European stock markets slipped to five-week lows on Friday amid continuing nervousness over the latest eruption of terrorism.
Earlier, Aznar strongly defended his government’s initial comments blaming the Basque guerrilla group ETA.
“Why does the government think there may be evidence that leads us to the terrorist organization we know so well here?” he asked, before citing recent foiled ETA plots and intelligence indicating the group was aiming at public transport targets.
“What did this terrorist organization want when they tried to enter Madrid last week with 500 kilos of explosives? ... It’s a line of investigation any Spanish government that hasn’t lost its head has to follow. It’s the one (theory) we are following, and if there are other hypotheses, we’ll follow them too.”
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge spoke on the bombings, saying he could not confirm whether al-Qaida had a hand in the attacks.
“There is no specific information” available that would point to the identities of the perpetrators, he told reporters during a visit to Thailand. “There is a lot of speculation.”
Senior U.S. officials, speaking with NBC News on condition of anonymity, said Friday that they give little credence to an e-mail claim of responsibility, signed by the shadowy Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri and sent to the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi shortly after the attack.
Claim of responsibility questioned
The officials noted that al-Qaida has not claimed responsibility immediately after previous terrorist attacks and that the Abu Hafs group has erroneously claimed responsibility for acts it had nothing to do with, including blackouts in the United States and London last year.
The message, received by Al-Quds al-Arabi hours after the attack, said the brigade’s “death squad” had penetrated “one of the pillars of the crusade alliance, Spain.”
“This is part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America’s ally in its war against Islam,” the claim said.
It also claimed that plans for a terrorist attack in the United States were "90 percent" complete.
The discovery of a stolen van with seven detonators and the Arabic-language tape, parked in a suburb near where the stricken trains originated, was considered a more-promising lead.
Investigators were poring over the van and studying the bombs that were disarmed for clues about who made them.
Interior Minister Angel Acebes said: “I have just given instructions to the security forces not to rule out any line of investigation.”
Spain had backed the U.S.-led war on Iraq despite domestic opposition, and many al-Qaida-linked terrorists have been captured in Spain or were believed to have operated from here.
If the attack was carried out by ETA, it could signal a radical and lethal change of strategy for the group that has largely targeted police and politicians in its decades-long fight for a separate Basque homeland.
Same explosives used by ETA
The government said ETA had tried a similar attack on Christmas Eve, placing bombs on two trains bound for a Madrid station that was not hit Thursday.
The Interior Ministry said tests showed the explosives used in the attacks were a kind of dynamite normally used by ETA.
The bombers used titadine, a kind of compressed dynamite also found in a bomb-laden van intercepted last month as it headed for Madrid, a source at Aznar’s office said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Officials blamed ETA then, too.
But the Cadena Ser radio station on Friday quoted unidentified security sources as saying that the attack also diverged from previous ETA assaults.
The bombs were set off by mobile phone and contained copper detonators, which are not generally used by armed Basque separatist group ETA, it said. The Interior Ministry had no immediate comment on the report.
The simultaneous attacks also would be a break with past ETA tactics. ETA has usually gone after one target at a time and the largest casualty toll was 21 killed in 1987.
ETA has claimed responsibility for more than 800 deaths since 1968.
A top Basque politician, Arnold Otegi, denied ETA was behind the blasts and blamed “Arab resistance,” noting Spain’s support for the Iraq war.
No matter who is behind the attacks, the United States, Britain and Russia said they demonstrated the need for toughened resolve against terrorists.
President Bush called Aznar and King Juan Carlos, saying he expressed “our country’s deepest sympathies toward those who lost their life.”
Prime minister survived assassination attempt
Aznar, who himself survived an ETA car bombing in 1995, will step down when a new government is formed after the elections.
Revulsion over the attack could benefit Aznar’s ruling conservative Popular Party because of its hard-line stance against ETA.
Both the Popular Party and the opposition Socialists ruled out talks with ETA during the campaign.
The group — Euskadi ta Askatasuna, or Basque Homeland and Freedom — is believed by police to number perhaps only several dozen hard-core militants who are supported by a wider group of Basque nationalists.
The government had recently expressed cautious optimism that ETA was near defeat after mass arrests, seizures of weapons and explosives, increased cooperation from France and the banning of ETA’s purported political front. The number of people killed in ETA attacks dropped to three last year.
03-12-2004, 11:56 AM
