RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Nearly 200 Killed in Madrid Explosions

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Tape Claims al-Qaida Was Behind Attacks

Three Moroccans and Two Indians Are Arrested

By JOHN LEICESTER, AP

MADRID, Spain (March 13) - In a videotaped message, a man purporting to represent al-Qaida claims the terrorist network was behind bombings that killed 200 and wounded 1,500 in Madrid, the Spanish interior minister said Saturday.

The tape - along with the arrest of three Moroccan and two Indian suspects - provide the strongest indication yet of a possible Islamic link to the attack on one of Washington's staunchest allies in Iraq. The Spanish government, however, said it could not confirm the tape's authenticity.

The announcement by Interior Minister Angel Acebes came just hours before polls were to open Sunday in general elections weighed down by debate over who carried out the attack.

''We declare our responsibility for what happened in Madrid exactly 2 1/2 years after the attacks on New York and Washington,'' said the man, according to a government translation of the tape, which was recorded in Arabic. ''It is a response to your collaboration with the criminals Bush and his allies.''

Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar has been a staunch supporter of the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

A London-based Arabic newspaper had earlier received a claim of responsibility in al-Qaida's name; but the government has been reluctant to blame the Islamic group, saying the Basque separatist group ETA was also a suspect. ETA denied responsibility.

Speaking at a hastily called post-midnight news conference at the interior ministry, Acebes said authorities could not confirm the claim was genuine. He said the videotape was discovered after an Arabic-speaking man called a Madrid TV station and said where it could be found.

A statement from the ministry said the speaker was identified as Abu Dujan al Afghani. Acebes said he claimed to be the military spokesman of Al-Qaida in Europe, but said he was not known to law enforcement authorities in Spain, and that they were checking the tape's authenticity.

The man threatened further attacks in the video.

''This is a response to the crimes that you caused in the world, and specifically in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there will be more if God wills it,'' the man said, according to the Spanish government's translation.

Thursday's attacks in Madrid came just days before Sunday's general elections in Spain. At demonstrations Saturday, some protesters said they believed the ruling party was playing down the possible link between the bombings and Spain's role in Iraq, fearing it would hurt the party's chances in the election.

About 5,000 people protested Saturday outside the ruling party headquarters in Madrid, holding up signs saying ''no more cover-up.''

One banner read: ''Aznar, because of you we all pay.''

''Maybe now the truth will come out,'' Fernando Hernandez, a college student, said after hearing about the arrests. ''All we want is the truth.''

Earlier Saturday, Acebes said the five suspects were arrested around Madrid. A spokesman for the Moroccan government identified the three Moroccans as as Jamal Zougam, 30; Mohamed Bekkali, 31, a mechanic; and Mohamed Chaoui, 34. All three are from northern Morocco, but the government gave no further details about them.

''One might have connections with Moroccan extremist groups. But it is still very early to establish to what degree,'' Acebes said. He did not name any group.

The five suspects were arrested after a gym bag packed with explosives and a cell phone was discovered on one of the four bombed rush-hour trains, the minister said. The attacks killed 200 people and injured 1,500.

Two Spaniards of Indian origin also were called for questioning but are not expected to be arrested, Acebes said.

Spanish citizens were among 33 people killed by suicide bombings that targeted Jewish targets and a Spanish restaurant close to the Spanish consulate in Casablanca, Morocco in May 2003.

Those attacks were blamed on Salafia Jihadia, a secretive, radical Islamic group thought by Moroccan authorities to have links to al-Qaida. Twelve suicide bombers also died.

Just months ago, a taped threat thought to be from al-Qaida terror chief Osama bin Laden had included Spain among countries that could be attacked ''at the appropriate time and place.''

A confirmed Islamic extremist involvement in the Madrid bombings could play into the hands of Aznar critics who opposed sending 1,300 peacekeepers to Iraq.

''If it was al-Qaida, this was a reprisal for sending troops to Iraq, where we have no business being,'' said Damian Garcia, whose 86-year-old father died in the bombings.

The government had sought to dampen such speculation. Acebes said earlier Saturday that autopsies conducted on victims showed no signs of suicide bombings - a hallmark of Islamic militants.

Pressure mounted for answers. The crowd outside the Popular Party headquarters chanted, ''We want the truth before voting.''

Aznar's hand-picked candidate to succeed him, Mariano Rajoy, charged that the rally violated a law banning political demonstrations on the day before an election.

''I hereby demand that the organizers of this illegal demonstration end this antidemocratic act of pressure against tomorrow's elections,'' he said.

Hours earlier, the opposition Socialists charged that Rajoy himself violated the law by urging voters in a newspaper interview Saturday to give an absolute majority in Parliament.

Rajoy was only 3-5 percentage points ahead of Socialist candidate Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero before opinion polls were stopped before the blasts in the last week of campaigning.

The massive police hunt for the bombers focused in part on a stolen van found with seven detonators and an audiotape of verses from the Quran. A witness told Associated Press Television News he saw three suspicious men go from the vehicle to a station where three of the four bombed trains originated.

The men wore coverings on their faces but ''it wasn't cold ... I thought it was very strange,'' said the man, who did not want to be named. ''They went into the train station ... I tried to follow one of them but I couldn't because he was very fast.''

The attack's lethal coordination - 10 explosions within 15 minutes - pointed to al-Qaida.

The compressed dynamite used in the attacks, however, is favored by ETA, which has killed more than 800 people in four decades of bombings and assassinations to carve out an independent Basque homeland in northern Spain.

ETA attacks have never been as deadly as the Madrid bombings and mostly targeted police and politicians. On Friday, a caller claiming to represent ETA told a Basque newspaper it was not responsible - the first time ETA is known to have denied an attack.

The death of a man in a hospital overnight pushed the toll up to 200 Saturday. Of the 1,511 injured, 266 remained hospitalized - with 17 in critical condition.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, only the Bali bombing in Indonesia in October 2002 was deadlier, with 202 people dead. The Madrid attack was Europe's deadliest since the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, killed 270 people.

A steady stream of hearses carried coffins in and out of Madrid's biggest funeral home, Tanatorio Sur. The sprawling red-brick building normally has plenty of room, but was still overwhelmed Saturday. For lack of space, the coffins of a couple killed in the attacks were placed in a room normally used for staff meetings.

''My son. Why?'' repeatedly sobbed one elderly woman, leaning on relatives.


03-13-04 1948EST

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Updated: 11:05 AM EST

Documents May Link al-Qaida to Attacks

MOLDE, Norway (March 13) - Norwegian researchers have found documents that could link the al-Qaida network to terror bombings that killed 200 people in Madrid, Spain.

Experts from the government's Norwegian Defense Research Establishment said the documents found on an Arabic-language Web site last year suggest Spain as a possible terror target because the country had been part of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.

"We must make maximum use of the proximity to the elections in Spain in March next year. Spain can stand a maximum of two or three attacks before they will withdraw from Iraq," the documents said, according to daily newspaper VG.

A series of bombs hidden in backpacks exploded in quick succession Thursday, blowing apart four commuter trains and killing at least 200 people and wounding more than 1,400 in the Spanish capital. The attacks occurred ahead of Sunday's national elections.

Researcher Thomas Hegghammer told the paper the researchers first thought the 42-page document referred to attacks against coalition forces in Iraq.

"But the fact that they specifically mention the election in Spain, makes us have to see this in the light of the action in Madrid, three days before the election," Hegghammer said.

Norwegian Defense Research Establishment spokeswoman Anne-Lisa Hammer told The Associated Press the researchers would not speak to journalists Saturday, but added that the Norwegian reports were accurate.

State broadcaster NRK said the documents do not refer to Thursday's attacks in Madrid but outline a strategy to pressure Spain, described as the weakest link in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, to stop cooperating with the United States.

"The author, who is anonymous, is very well-oriented in Spanish politics. We cannot say for sure that this document stems from al-Qaida. We don't have any reason, either, to believe that it isn't real," researcher Brynjar Lia told VG.

The document suggests attacks on Spain would lead to the collapse of the fragile Iraq coalition set up by the United States if they forced Spain to withdraw.

Spanish officials blame the attacks on Basque separatists from the group ETA, which denied responsibility. An Islamic group linked with suspected al-Qaida links has claimed blame in a statement telefaxed to an Arabic newspaper in London.


03/13/04 07:02 EST

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Updated: 07:53 AM EST

Report Says Spain Told Envoys to Point Finger at ETA

MADRID (March 13) - The Spanish government told its ambassadors to spread the word that armed Basque separatist group ETA was to blame for the Madrid bombings within hours of the attacks, a leading newspaper reported on Saturday.

"You should use any opportunity to confirm ETA's responsibility for these brutal attacks, thus helping to dissipate any type of doubt that certain interested parties may want to promote," El Pais quoted Foreign Minister Ana Palacio as writing in a memo.

Officials could not be immediately reached for comment on the report in a paper linked to the opposition Socialists.

Simultaneous explosions on Thursday morning ripped through commuter trains, killing 199 people and wounding nearly 1,500.

Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's government was quick to point to ETA as its prime suspect, but suspicions have also emerged that Muslim militants may have been behind the attack.

As well as the huge security implications, pinning down responsibility is crucial to Sunday's general election.

If ETA is to blame, that could benefit the ruling party because of its tough stance against the Basque separatists. But if there was al-Qaida or other radical Islamic involvement, it may be viewed as the price of Aznar's support for war in Iraq.

El Pais said Palacio's internal memo, sent at around 5:30 p.m. (11:30 a.m. EST) on Thursday, quoted earlier statements by Interior Minister Angel Acebes.

"The Interior Minister has confirmed ETA's responsibility. This is confirmed by the explosive and style used, as well as other information that has not yet been made public for obvious reasons," the text said, according to the newspaper.

Since then, the Spanish government has seemed less certain, affirming ETA remains its main line of investigation but saying it is also pursuing other theories.

The discovery of a van with detonators and a tape in Arabic, plus a purported letter claiming responsibility for a group aligned to al-Qaida, have fed suspicions of Arab involvement.

ETA denied responsibility late on Friday.

El Pais said Foreign Ministry officials would not comment on Palacio's memo or whether modified instructions had been sent out to ambassadors at any point afterwards.

The newspaper said "an immediate consequence" of Palacio's memo was a "clash" in the U.N. Security Council between Spain's second most senior diplomat there and the Russian ambassador.

"The latter was reluctant to approve a resolution about the attack in Madrid which condemned ETA, arguing nothing like that had ever been done before, because it is normally impossible to show responsibility for a terrorist act the same day it has been committed," it said.

The U.N. Security Council voted, however, 15-0 to accept the word of the Spanish government and condemn ETA on Thursday despite hesitations from Russia, Germany and others.


03/13/04 07:34 ET

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Updated: 11:02 AM EST

Spain Was a Center for al-Qaida Activity

Purported bin Laden Tape Said Country Could Be Target

By JOHN LEICESTER, AP

MADRID, Spain (March 12) - Just months ago, a taped threat thought to be from Osama bin Laden included Spain among countries that could be attacked "at the appropriate time and place."

After Thursday's train bombings in Madrid, the government quickly blamed the Basque separatist group ETA. But later the interior minister said Islamic terrorism was not ruled out.

Bin Laden's warning was contained in an audiotape in October that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency determined was probably authentic.

Spanish and other anti-terrorism officials say Spain was an important European center for al-Qaida activity before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States.

Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon believes that Spain, along with Germany, was an important staging ground for the hijackings. Lead suicide pilot Mohamed Atta visited Spain twice in 2001, including a trip that July which Garzon says was called to discuss last-minute details with other senior plotters.

Last September, Garzon indicted bin Laden and nine other terror suspects over the Sept. 11 attacks. Three were alleged to be members of a Spain-based terror cell. Garzon charged 25 other men with belonging to Al-Qaida.

More than 40 al-Qaida suspects have been arrested in Spain since the attacks, although many have been released for lack of evidence. Tayssir Alouni, a reporter for pan-Arab television channel Al-Jazeera who was arrested last September on charges of belonging to al-Qaida, also has been released on bail.

In Spain, there are fears that Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's staunch support of the U.S.-led war in Iraq has made the country a target for Islamic terrorists. Aznar has sent 1,300 troops to Iraq, even though most Spaniards opposed the war.

The first official mention of a possible Islamic angle to Thursday's attacks came when Interior Minister Angel Acebes said that police had found detonators and an Arabic-language audiotape with Quranic verses in a van in a town outside Madrid.

ETA, the separatist group that has claimed responsibility for more than 800 deaths in its decades-long campaign of assassinations and bombings for an independent Basque homeland, remains the "main line of investigation," Acebes said.

But with the van find "all kinds of lines investigation open up," he said. "Because of this, I have just given instructions to the security forces not to rule out any line."

Then, the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi said it had received a claim of responsibility for the Madrid bombings issued by The Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri in al-Qaida's name.

The claim received by e-mail said the brigade's "death squad" had penetrated "one of the pillars of the crusade alliance, Spain," and carried out what it called Operation Death Trains.

"This is part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America's ally in its war against Islam," the claim said.

There was no way to verify that the claim did come from al-Qaida, and Spain's government said ETA remained its No.1 suspect. The 10 bombs on four morning rush-hour trains killed more than 190 people, making it the worst terrorist attack in Spain's history.

Some 500,000 of Spain's 42 million people are Muslims, according to government figures. Neighboring France, in contrast, has an estimated 5 million Muslims.


03/12/04 06:23 EST

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