Spain blames attack on Basques; U.S. wonders about al-Qaida link
MADRID, Spain -- Ten powerful explosions tore through trains and train stations in Madrid on Thursday just days before Spain’s general elections, leaving at least 182 people dead and 900 injured.
Spain blamed the Basque separatist group ETA for the worst terror attack in its history, but a senior U.S. intelligence source told NBC News that that conclusion might be wrong and that the CIA was looking for any connection to the al-Qaida terrorist network.
Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar called the attacks “mass murder” and vowed to hunt down the attackers.
A total of 10 bombs exploded, Interior Minister Angel Acebes said. Police found and detonated three more.
“ETA had been looking for a massacre in Spain,” Acebes said, citing recent thwarted attacks. “Unfortunately, today it achieved its goal.”
Worst hit was a double-decker train at the El Pozo station, where two bombs killed 70 people, fire department inspector Juan Redondo said.
Rescue workers carried away bodies covered in sheets of shiny gold fabric. People with bloodied faces sat on curbs, using cell phones to tell others they were alive. Hospitals appealed for people to come in and donate blood. Buses had to be pressed into service as ambulances.
People in tears streamed away from the Atocha station in droves.
“I saw many things explode in the air, I don’t know, it was horrible,” said Juani Fernandez, a civil servant who was on the platform waiting to go to work.
“People started to scream and run, some bumping into each other and as we ran there was another explosion. I saw people with blood pouring from them, people on the ground.”
The Interior Ministry said following tests that the explosives used in the blasts were a kind of dynamite that ETA normally uses.
However, the leader of an outlawed Basque party linked to the separatist group denied the deadly explosions were the work of ETA and he suggested “Arab resistance” elements were responsible, the Spanish news agency EFE reported.
Arnold Otegi told Radio Popular that ETA always phones in warnings before it attacks, EFE said. Acebes said earlier there was no warning before Thursday’s attack.
“The modus operandi, the high number of victims and the way it was carried out make me think, and I have a hypothesis in mind, that yes it may have been an operative cell from the Arab resistance,” Otegi said.
Al-Qaida?
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw declined to speculate when asked if the militant group al-Qaida, blamed for similar simultaneous bombing attacks against British interests in Turkey in November, was responsible.
Britain and Spain were leading allies in last year’s U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
A senior U.S. intelligence official told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell that the CIA still does not know who is responsible and that it is “still subject to great debate and confusion” in the counter-terrorism community.
Factors pointing toward some kind of al-Qaida link include: the scale of the attack; the lack of anyone taking credit; the simultaneity of the multiple attacks; and the fact that on his last tape, Ayman al-Zawahiri, a senior al-Qaida figure, said Spain and other Iraq coalition members would be targeted.
The U.S. official said Spain has been contacted about any forensics they may have and to see if there are any post-attack communications, such as congratulatory calls or people backing away from the attacks.
ETA has killed around 850 people since 1968 in its fight for Basque independence and has been a looming presence in the run-up to the Spanish elections as well as a focus for politicians vowing to take a tough line with the guerrilla group.
If ETA is found responsible, it would be the worst attack ever by the group, exceeding the 21 killed in a supermarket blast in Barcelona in 1987.
The government convened anti-ETA rallies nationwide for Friday evening.
“What a horror,” said the Basque regional president, Juan Jose Ibarretxe, who insisted ETA does not represent the Basque people.
“When ETA attacks, the Basque heart breaks into a thousand pieces,” he said in the Basque capital Vitoria.
“This is one of those days that you don’t want to live through,” said opposition Socialist party spokesman Jesus Caldera. “ETA must be defeated,” referring to the group as “those terrorists, those animals.”
High alert ahead of elections
Police had been on high alert for Basque separatist violence ahead of general elections Sunday, in which regional tensions and how to fight ETA have been key themes. Mariano Rajoy, the candidate for prime minister of the ruling conservative Popular Party, said he was calling off the rest of his campaign. Madrid blasts
On Feb. 29, police intercepted a Madrid-bound van packed with more than 1,100 pounds of explosives, and blamed ETA. On Christmas Eve, police thwarted an attempted bombing at Chamartin, another Madrid rail station, and arrested two suspected ETA members.
A woman who lives near the El Pozo station on the line leading to Atocha said “the scene I am seeing is hellish. People running toward Atocha however they can.”
The woman said she saw a boy or young man on the ground who appeared to have died. “I can see people inside the remains of the train,” the unidentified woman told Spanish National Radio.
About the ETA
Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA) is fighting for an independent Basque state in northern Spain and southwestern France.
The group has killed nearly 850 people since 1968, typically using car bombs or shootings. The number of ETA killings had been falling, from 23 in 2000 to three in 2003.
Spain, the United States and the European Union have listed ETA as a terrorist organization. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who survived an ETA attack while he was opposition leader in 1995, made eliminating the group a top priority.
In 2002 the Spanish government banned the Basque political party Batasuna, which it described as ETA’s political wing. The party denied the charge. Batasuna won 10 percent of the vote in Basque parliamentary elections in May 2001. ETA has been under pressure in recent years with 179 suspected members detained during 2003 and a total of 650 suspects arrested since 2000, mostly in Spain and France.