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

[dogbyte12]

MSNBC reporting that the suspects are possibly linked to a "Morroccan extremist group".

[ValerieUSA]

The arrest of the Iraq sympathizer in America, Susan Lindhauer, who had been employed as an aide to Democrat congresscritters, and as an editorial writer with the Everett Herald daily newspaper, leads me to suspect that Iraq sympathizers are also active in Spain - through their socialist party and the press. They are inciting this massive crowd, and they were prepared in advance to do this.

[Catspaw]

If you read what I wrote, I said 18 to 36 months between major attacks.

[LS]

Very few of OBL's first bombers were from Saudi Arabia. He uses whom he uses.

[woofie]

Cant we all just get along?



KumBaya my Lord,KumBaya

[AntiGuv]

The Al Qaeda message claiming responsibility for the attacks said that Italy is next followed by the United States (something about a "black wind of death").

[Dog]

Remember Kashmir..

[livius]

It means Indians - the first press releases said "hindues," which means Hindus, but it sometimes colloquially used to refer to East Indians. That's been corrected, I think.

Now they'r talking about citizens of Indian origin.

[e_castillo]

Here's something slightly unrelated:
Según testigos, mantuvo una acalorada discusión con la esposa del agente, al requerirle ésta que colocara un crespón en su local. La mujer regresó a su domicilio y, poco después, hacia las 13.25 horas, su marido irrumpió en el establecimiento y la emprendió a tiros con el propietario.

Un testigo que trabaja en un comercio cercano explicó que el hombre tenía heridas de bala en el pecho, "un agujero enorme", y se encontraba tirado en el suelo detrás del mostrador. Recibió también la asistencia de un agente de Policía que pasaba por el lugar. Fue trasladado en una ambulancia al Hospital de Navarra, donde falleció.

Looks like a cop's wife had an argument with a member of the ETA who didn't want to post a black ribbon on his shop door so she went and got her husband who then proceded to leave "a large hole" the the guys chest.

[Catspaw]

The AQ group that sent the letter to Al Quds also took credit for the East Coast blackout last year. I'd like to see what ties the people who were arrested by Spain actually are linked to.

[livius]

They are inciting this massive crowd, and they were prepared in advance to do this.

That's an interesting thought.

[Bismarck]

Skip the ethnicity! Call them what they really are: MUSLIMS!

[mathluv]

You can fight it, or you can give in.

Old Europe will give in. If Aznar's party loses the election, watch out for the dims here.

Spain may withdraw from Iraq. That will not be good for the white hats.

[LS]

I guess my point is that Peter Lance and others show that these operations are ongoing, constantly. We see the tip of the iceberg when the attacks happen; and we hear about some of the iceberg when books come out about the attacks that were stopped. But we certainly don't hear about all the attacks that are stopped. I don't think anyone knew about the 1996 multiple airline hijackings in the Pacific until 2002.

[Eurotwit]

And a couple of the 911 bunch.

[mewzilla]

So, is anyone asking if these are real folks or a rent-a-mob?

[Dog]

Keep us updated..

[livius]

Tempers are running a little high, I guess...