MADRID, March 11 (UPI) -- A group claiming to be acting in the name of al-Qaida says it was behind Thursday's devastating Madrid train bombings, which killed at least 192 people.
An e-mail to the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper said the Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri was responsible for the worst terrorist attack on a European city since Wolrd War II. Bari Atwan, the newspaper's editor, told Sky News he was certain the e-mail was authentic. The claim comes after investigators found an Arabic language tape with Koranic versus in a van carrying bomb detonators near Madrid in Alcalá de Henares, where some of the trains originated.
The letter and the discovery of the van may throw into doubt the Spanish government's claim that the Basque separatist group ETA -- rather than al-Qaida -- was behind the multiple bombings, which also injured 1,200 people.
It was Spain's worst terrorist attacks in recent history. A series of bombs planted on Madrid rail lines exploded during morning rush hour, killing almost 200 people and injuring more than 1,427, many seriously.
The near-simultaneous bombings, which ripped through commuter trains in three Madrid stations, took place just three days before the country's general elections, in which the center-right party of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar seemed poised to win.
In a televised appearance Thursday, Aznar described the attacks as "mass murder," and quickly blamed them on the Basque separatist group ETA. The perpetrators, he vowed, would be hunted down and punished.
"No dialogue is possible with those assassins who have sown death across Spain so many times," said Aznar, himself a survivor of a terrorist attack.
Throughout the day, Spanish television ran horrifying pictures of mangled train cars, weeping survivors and bodies being carried out in stretchers from the wreckage. Others showed distraught relatives desperately seeking information about their loved ones.
A total of 10 bombs exploded within minutes of each other in the three parts of the city. Police dismantled at least three others. As of late Thursday, the Spanish Interior Ministry placed the number of dead at 190, although the number of casualties rose during the day.
Across the country, Spaniards marked a moment of silence against the violence which has stalked this sun-soaked Mediterranean country for years. International leaders sent messages of sympathy.
The European Parliament declared March 11 as the European Day for the Victims of Terrorism.
As Spain digested its tragedy, some political commentators wondered whether the bombings represented a last spectacular gesture by an al-but-vanquished ETA -- or whether other extremists played a part.
The Basque group is blamed for the deaths of more than 900 people in its three-decade-plus campaign to establish an independent state in northern Spain and southern France. But ETA has been severely weakened in recent years by a spate of arrests of its top leaders in France and Spain.
Now, some experts suggest the scope and sophistication of Thursday's explosions potentially carried the trademark of al-Qaida or another radical group, working separately or in tandem with ETA.
"What has happened today is our Sept. 11," said Xavier Batalla, a diplomatic correspondent for Catalonia's leading La Vanguardia newspaper, who is writing a book on terrorism in Europe. "There's a possibility that the atrocity could be carried out by a group other in ETA, but it's too early to say."
Not only, he notes, are the scopes of the bombings unparalleled in the history of ETA attacks -- the biggest, in Barcelona in 1987 killed 21 people -- but the group makes a point of killing politicians and security forces, not ordinary civilians.
Spanish political analyst Gabriel Colome also suggested the bombings lacked ETA trademarks. For example, he said, ETA makes a point of warning Spanish police, often by phone, before it attacks. And he noted the head of the outlawed Basque Batasuna Party -- considered ETA's political arm -- staunchly denied ETA's responsibility Thursday.
"It's possible whoever carried out the attack wanted to send a warning against the triple alliance -- that is Madrid, London, Washington -- on Iraq," speculated Colome, a political scientist at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, referring to the Spanish, British and U.S. coalition supporting the war on Iraq.
As of late Thursday, ETA had not claimed responsibility for the bombings. But such silence is characteristic of the terrorist group, which often waits months before acknowledging various attacks.
What's clear, several observers say, is the bombings will likely give Aznar's law-and-order Popular Party the majority it seeks during Sunday's election.
Aznar, who has made fighting terrorism a top priority during his eight years in office, is stepping from power. Even before the bombings, most analysts believed his handpicked successor, Mariano Rajoy, would likely become the country's next leader.
Indeed, one of the few burning questions in Spain's ho-hum election season was simply whether the Popular Party would win by an absolute or relative majority.
"If people want security, they're now likely to favor the PP," said Fransesco de Carreras, a professor of constitutional law at Barcelona's Autonomous University.
Vanguardia's Batalla, too, believes the Popular Party will "absolutely" sweep Sunday's vote.
"And that would be fine for ETA," he added. "What ETA wants is a standoff between themselves and the PP."
On Barcelona's bustling streets, Spaniards expressed grief and disgust at the tragedy that struck their country's capital.
"I have no words to express how I feel," said Juan Navarro, 36. "I can't say anything more than that. It's terrible."
"I don't understand how people can kill, just for notoriety," said Damasoh Rabanal, 59. "It's got to be ETA. For sure."
But Rabanal said the bombing would not sway him from voting for the opposition Socialist Party, which has been trailing the Popular Party by several points in every recent poll.
"This is not a question of politics," he said. "This is about assassins. Killers."
More than just distance separates Barcelona from the impact of Thursday's attacks on Madrid. In January, news reports revealed that the Barcelona-based Republican Left party had held secret talks with ETA leaders in France, in an effort to find a political solution to terrorism.
But the bid instead created furor, and political embarrassment for the local Socialist party which had created a ruling coalition party with the Republican Left. Last month, ETA declared a cease-fire limited to Catalonia.
"Holding any kind of dialogue with ETA is fatal," said nurse Alicia Garcia, 31, as she smoked a cigarette and caught some noonday sun in downtown Barcelona. "Our politicians must stand together in the fight against terror."
Still, Garcia has no intention of voting for any party Sunday. "The Socialists aren't unified, and I don't like the way the PP governs," she said. "These explosions in Madrid haven't changed my opinion."
(Elizabeth Bryant reported from Barcelona)
