It's just too early to tell Sarge. There were apparently 13 devices. It appears that some were remote detonated, if not all. 2-3 were found unexploded, in back packs. Those were detonated safely by Spanish Bomb Squads. The targeting, the simultaneousness of the bombs - it has all the earmarks of classic al crudda. Yet tension with the basques has been rising during the run-up period to the general elections. So - al crudda hates the Spanish historically because of El Cid and the Reconquista. Fine. al crudda has new reason to hate the Spanish, due to their involvement as an ally of the U.S. in Iraq. Yeah, I can see them working together. There are a lot of muslims still living in Spain. Strange, I was just reading an article yesterday about how the Spanish locals in the area of a brand new mosque were pleased with their muslim neighbors. I wonder if, as the islamofacsist involvement becomes clear, how that will affect their 'huggy-kissy' relationship there. I fell so very sorry for the Spanish people. They've fought their own WoT for years - but this is new to them, this massive attack. E.

For the record, I am Spanish, and Basque and live in Madrid. The ETA terrorists cannot be defined as being representative of the Basques anymore that Timothy McVeigh author of the Oklahoma city bombing can be defined as representative of Americans. There's not a "conflict" in the Basque country, there's no "Basque guerrilla fighting against Spain", there's just a bunch of Marxist Leninist fanatics with a good dose of Nazi racial supremacy madness against everybody. They had been attempting a massacre like this for the past four years. They tried it with huge truck bombs, but they always were caught, last Xmas they tried this very same thing, but were stopped, and they finally have succeeded. The explosive in the backpack bombs used in this atrocity was Titadyne, from the dynamite ETA stole from France years ago. I expect more massacres like these in the future until all the terrorists are hunted down.

Question Romani - did you glean your info about the explosive substance (Titadyne) from Open source? if so, can you provide a link? Thanks! E.

I hope all these leftist Amnesty types and communist idiots who have been supporting ETA are happy now. I don't know if it's got the pawprints of Al-Queera or not, no doubt that these bastards drew some of their "inspiration" from them as well as Aum Shinrikyo (the multiple subway Sarin attacks in Tokyo) in any case. Safe to say these guys days are numbered though, the Spanish government's not going to screw around with them anymore.

The signature of an Al-Queda attack is simulataneous attacks on two widely separated targets. If this was Al-Queda I would have expected attacks on two separate train platforms, possibly in two different cities. I'd also have expected a statement by now, if not claiming responcibility, then at least giving praise to the event and making vague threats. Also it appears that the operation was conducted in a Western paramilitary fashion. Unless they've recently gotten smart, Al Queda is much more likely to have used suicide bombers than to have left backpacks on the train. Also since some of the the explosive was captured intact, it appears to have been of the same sort of device that ETA's 'usual' engineers produce. My guess is that ETA has dissolved to the point it lacks good command and control. This was probably the work of a rouge cell done without the permission of the ETA leadership - if any such thing still exists. Of course, the fact that everyone in the organization didn't have foreknowledge of the attack doesn't excuse anyone in ETA. This sort of extremism is just the logical conclusion to intense and repeated hate speach. Obviously, ETA is eager to distance itself from this attack, because it knows that it probably means the end of ETA as an organization if it is definitively tracked back to them.

While I now concur that it was most likely eta, I must say that there were, according to information I have, multiple simultaneous explosions at various locations. one explosion was at a road junction, rather than on the train car itself. the one that really did the damage was inside (apparenlty) a car and it detonated as the car pulled into the station. That ensured that people trying to get on were killed/injured as well as those onboard already. Who's to say they didn't cooperate? perhaps a little inter-terrorist organization cooperation took place? hopefully we will get enough TTP out of this to help prevent the same sort of thing from happening in the future. Oh yeah - the explosive used apparently does match exactly what Romani said - stolen stuff from the french factory. E.

Cooperation between different terrorist groups is not unheard of and might go several decades back. I have this book printed in 1981 that mentioned that the IRA and the ETA had developed links with other international terrorists. Also this article indicates that such links exist: http://www.guardian.co.uk/colombia/story/0,11502,630731,00.html http://www.ciponline.org/colombia/02042401.htm Seems that a state sposor of these guys is Cuba: http://cuban-exile.com/doc_226-250/doc0230.htm Another example is the Baader Meinhoff group working with Palestinian terrorists in 1976 (PFLP): http://www.ict.org.il/articles/articledet.cfm?articleid=505

Well, it looks like I could be wrong on this one. It seems someone claiming to be Al Queda is in facting claiming to be behind the attacks. Or more specifically, the same affiliate claiming responsibility for the Turkey bombing is proportedly claiming responcibility for this one. That would explain the operational differences to some exent. But I'm still not entirely convinced. I wouldn't put it beyond a group like Al Queda to claim responcibility for an attack simply to prop up its image, and I wouldn't put it beyond ETA to fax faked letters to try to steer the blame elsewhere. Two things are clear though. ETA is breathing a sigh of relief, and anyone that would claim responcibility for mass murder needs to be taken down whether they are responcible or not. If there is in fact an Al Queda element to this attack, ETA is still likely to be the source of the explosives anyway, so they aren't cleared in this matter.

And it appears that some people were right about the spacing of the attacks. Apparantly there were separate attacks at El Pozo and Atcha stations. If someone could explain the significance of these stations and their relative posistions to each other I'd appreciate it.