A deadly attack like the brutal terrorist killings in Madrid on Thursday can easily give rise to all sorts of speculation. The Spanish government, according to the news reports at this writing, believe the Basque separatist group ETA is responsible. But they are not ruling out al-Qaeda.
El País currently has the death toll at 198, with 1,400 wounded. This was by any measure a major terrorist attack. There are a number of reasons that ETA would be a major suspect. Not least of which is the incident discussed right here at Old Hickory's Weblog several days ago in which two suspected ETA members were arrested with a large quantity of explosives that apparently intended to use in an attack in Madrid.
Spain felt initially confident enough that ETA was behind the attack to get the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution condemning the attacks and naming ETA as the perpetrating group. This Washington Post article (Madrid Train Blasts Kill at Least 190 03/12/04) mentions the recent arrest. It also adds:
[O]fficials had lately warned that ETA was attempting to carry out a large-scale attack in advance of the elections Sunday. ... Last year on Christmas Eve, police arrested two ETA suspects who they said were plotting a series of bombings on trains. Police in that case found a 44-pound bomb planted on a train heading from San Sebastian, in the Basque region, to Madrid.
The Spanish government had also been putting notably increased pressure on ETA in recent months by banning a Basque party called Batasuna, which effectively functioned as the legal arm of ETA. The European court in Strasbourg had recently rejected an appeal by the provincial government of the "Basque country" to rule the Spanish law banning Batasuna unconstitutional.
No comments:
Post a Comment