Spain Announces Five Arrests in Bombings

Reuters, AP | 3/13/04

[thoughtomator]

Admin Moderator update:

Spain Announces Five Arrests in Bombings

MADRID, Spain (AP) - Spain's interior minister Saturday announced the arrest of five suspects in the Madrid bombings, including three Moroccans.

The other two suspects had Indian passports, a ministry spokesman said.

The five were arrested in connection with a cell phone inside an explosives-packed gym bag found on one of the bombed commuter trains.

The suspects ``could be related to Moroccan extremist groups,'' the minister said. ``But we should not rule out anything. Police are still investigating all avenues. This opens an important avenue.''

The 10 bombings on Thursday, which killed 200 people on Madrid commuter trains, amounted to the worst terror attack in Spanish history.

Families began burying their dead Saturday as a cold drizzle fell on Madrid on the eve of parliamentary elections.

In a show of national unity, massive crowds gathered in Barcelona, Seville, Valencia and even in Spain's Canary Islands off western Africa on Friday night to protest the attack. State TV said nationwide, more than 11 million marched - one-quarter of Spain's 42 million people.

In Madrid, black bows of mourning dotted the city, on shop windows, on flags draped from balconies, and on lapels.

Madrid's biggest funeral home, Tanatorio Sur, was so overcrowded that some coffins were placed in a room normally used for staff meetings. Outside, hearses carried coffins in and out all morning.

Investigators were focusing on a stolen white van found in the town of Alcala de Henares outside Madrid hours after the blasts. Police found detonators and an Arabic-language cassette tape with Quranic verses inside. Alcala de Henares is the town where three of the four bombed trains originated.

A doorman told police he saw three young men carrying knapsacks toward the station in Alcala de Henares, a senior police official said Saturday on condition of anonymity. Officials have said the bombs used in the train attacks were concealed in knapsacks.

The doorman saw the men get out of the van and ``walk toward the train carrying backpacks and he was struck by the fact that they were wearing ski masks when the weather was not suited for that kind of clothing,'' the official said.

``It is one of the main focuses of the investigation,'' the official said. ``It is very important.''

A London-based Arabic newspaper also received a claim of responsibility in al-Qaida's name that called the attack ``part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America's ally in its war against Islam.''

The attack's lethal coordination and timing - 10 explosions within 15 minutes - suggested al-Qaida. But the compressed dynamite used in the backpack bombs is an explosive favored by the Basque separatist group ETA.

ETA issued an apparently unprecedented denial Friday, saying it had nothing to do with the bombings. It has claimed responsibility for more than 800 deaths since 1968 in its fight for an independent state in the northern Basque region.

Debate on who is behind the attacks could sway voters in Sunday's election.

If ETA is deemed responsible, that could boost support for Mariano Rajoy, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's hand-picked candidate to succeed him as prime minister. Both have supported a crackdown on ETA, ruling out talks and backing a ban on ETA's political wing, Batasuna.

However, if Thursday's bombings are seen by voters as the work of al-Qaida, that could draw their attention to Aznar's vastly unpopular decision to endorse the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and deploy Spanish troops there.

Opinion polls have put Rajoy 3-5 percentage points ahead of Socialist candidate Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. No surveys have been released since the attacks.

Aznar, in power since 1996, is honoring a pledge not to seek a third term, saying he wants renewal in government and his party.

Spanish radio station Cadena Ser broadcast a 12-second recording of an unidentified woman who had called a colleague's voice mail after an initial blast on a train at the Atocha station.

The woman, who survived, was in the process of fleeing as she frantically says: ``I'm in Atocha. There's a bomb on the train! We had to -'' and then two more blasts are heard.

Spain arrests 3 Moroccans, 2 Indians in bomb probe

MADRID, March 13 (Reuters) - Spain's Interior Minister Angel Acebes said on Saturday that three Moroccans and two Indians had been arrested in Madrid as part of the investigation into train bombings that killed 200 people three days ago.

Also, two Spaniards of Indian origin were giving statements to police, Acebes said at a news conference.

Spain Announces Five Arrests in Bombings

[elhombrelibre]

And that's the Prime Minister's party or the oposition?

[DC native]

I think this is just a matter of semantics. Native Spanish speakers in Mexico refer to people from India as Hindus; I think they are specifying a nationality rather than a religion. I guess it is the same in Spain.

[ml/nj]

I prayed that Spain would have them all before Monday!

There are millions of them.
They have fewer than ten.

ML/NJ

[livius]

Being responsible for the attack.

[Wurlitzer]

"It's a big surprise that these cockroaches are muslim"

At best cockroaches and muslim is redundant. At worse, it is an insult to cockroaches.

[dennisw]

Right..... I figured the Spanish word for Indian might be something close to "Hindu".

[mewzilla]

What's the drill?

...young, Middle Easter males, mostly between the ages of 18 and 40...

[empirekin768]

This is interesting...Morocco is obviously part of Spain's old empire. Alot of old hatreds there. This could be related (obviously) to the island dispute and military intervention last year.

[Alberta's Child]

The notion that Iraq is "gone" is a terribly naive way to look at this. War is not like a chess game, in which everything ends when the king capitulates. There are Iraqis all over the world in Western countries, including many right here in the U.S. who were former members of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard. Add to them the other Muslims who may be supporters of the Ba'athist regime in Iraq (even aside from any religious considerations), and you've got a formidable foe to deal with that doesn't need any kind of state sponsorship.

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[mewzilla]

You have got to be kidding me. Good grief.

[MEG33]

Having blood on his hands for being our ally in Iraq....therefore Spain was targeted.There is an election so we will soon know if the socialists win because of this.

[TomGuy]

MSNBC reporter on phone is saying 3 men wearing ski masks were seen walking away from the train before the bombs went off.

2 suspects in custody do carry Indian passports.



CNN reporting they are of Hindu origin. Also reporting link to pre-paid phone cards. Cards were found in backpack.

[ASA Vet]

Nuke Medina now, Mecca in three days

Yep, that'd sure show which is the true religion of peace.

[livius]

Actually, it's not, but they often use Hindu to refer to East Indians. Of course, it also refers to Hindus. (Just as they use Moros, "moors," meaning dark-skinned, to refer to Muslims.)

[johnb838]

This is infuriating. The spanish version of the party of appeasement, the socialists, are trying to blame the Aznar govt for cooperating with US and getting put in the spotlight. They're playing politics with the bombing before the bodies are even cold.

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

I thought the deal a few decades ago was that the Muslim Indians should leave for Pakistan. 13% stuck around in India? Didn't know it's that many (13% of about one billion).

[thoughtomator]

Well, Hussein, who was Iraq while he ruled it, is captured and out of play. What are the remnants fighting for? Do they have a goal, or are they simply doing as much damage as they can out of anger and spite?

[elhombrelibre]

The Democrats do the same thing. Didn't Kennedy say Bush cooked up whole war on terror to push his poll numbers up?