[laconic]

Obviously, I have no idea who committed this heinous mass murder. But it would appear to me to be a bit early to discount the Basque radicals, given: 1) they were caught at Christmas planning to detonate bombs at the Madrid rail station, and 2) Spanish police caught two of them in NE Spain with 1,200 pounds of dynamite on the morning of the attack. In addition, I'm amazed at the lazy press' mantra that ETA does not go after civilians -- their bombs killed 13 at a cafe and 25 at a supermarket in Barcelona in 1987.

[livius]

I suspect that they're working together. There are many connections between ETA and al Qaeda (and Islamic radical groups in general).

ETA does not hesitate to murder, but this is way out of their league, and was also done very efficiently. ETA, fortunately, always had a somewhat amateurish air and never managed to pull off any huge attacks, although it did carry out a number of vicious assassinations and smaller bombings.

This level of attack means that things have changed. I have read speculation that ETA was in charge of supplying the materials, while others (al Qaeda) were in charge of the planning and much of the actual execution of the attack.

[Wil H]

Yes, but ETA never did anything on this scale, they have always phoned in warnings in the past, and they claim responsibilty for their actions, which they deny in this instance.