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Spain Announces Five Arrests in Bombings
Reuters, AP | 3/13/04

Posted on 03/13/2004 11:06:46 AM PST by thoughtomator

Edited on 03/13/2004 12:17:47 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]

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


TOPICS: Breaking News; Foreign Affairs; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: aliens; captured; madridbombing; spain; vkpac; zotinside
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To: livius
Now who do you suppose they were intended for?

New Yorkers?

ML/NJ

361 posted on 03/13/2004 12:41:44 PM PST by ml/nj
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To: VOA
The 1990s will be remembered as the decade in which the United States was run by a group of Baby Boomers with stunted adolescent minds. Unfortunately for the U.S., it turns out that most adults in this country also have stunted adolescent minds.
362 posted on 03/13/2004 12:42:18 PM PST by Alberta's Child (Coming soon to a decadent civilization near you -- Tower of Babel version 2.0)
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To: ml/nj
Yes, and for probably Kerry followers everywhere.
363 posted on 03/13/2004 12:42:46 PM PST by livius
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To: ml/nj
The New Yorkers who told her to go to hell?
364 posted on 03/13/2004 12:43:10 PM PST by thoughtomator (All I ever wanted to know about Islam I learned on 9/11)
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To: Lexington Green
"I think they fight."

I hope you are right. And I hope WE make the same choice in November.

365 posted on 03/13/2004 12:43:15 PM PST by jocon307 (The dems don't get it, the American people do.)
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To: arasina

Citizens hold a banner reading, 'The bombs dropped in Iraq (news - web sites) explode in Madrid' during a protest march through central Barcelona, March 12, 2004. Millions of Spaniards packed the major thoroughfares of Madrid and other cities nationwide on Friday, chanting 'killers' and 'cowards' in a mass condemnation of train bombs that killed at least 199 people in Spain. REUTERS/Gustau Nacarino


366 posted on 03/13/2004 12:43:33 PM PST by arasina (So there.)
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To: Dog
Unfortunately, according to FNC, many of the demonstrators are peaceniks who are saying Spain's support for the US in Iraq are what caused the attacks.

367 posted on 03/13/2004 12:44:49 PM PST by Peach (The Clintons have pardoned more terrorists than they ever captured or killed.)
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To: Joe Boucher
I took it that the muslims say the Israelis and Americans are the boogie man. Yet they failed to target either in this attack. Sounds liike an unreasonable leap for the terrorists, lets target innocents and thus turn the world and its opinon against themselves.

But the leftists fail to mention that the muslims say that ANYONE who isn't muslim is the boogie man.

Aznar didn't make Spain a target, Spain was a target all along. They aren't muslim.

368 posted on 03/13/2004 12:45:37 PM PST by ovrtaxt ( http://www.fairtax.org ** G-d may not be a Republican, but Satan is definitely a Democrat!)
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To: dogbyte12
I wonder if they aren't giving a trial run to using terror attacks to impact elections. Spain now, America in perhaps October??

Prairie
369 posted on 03/13/2004 12:46:01 PM PST by prairiebreeze (God bring comfort to the victims of terrorism in Spain and their families.)
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To: arasina
Why are those signs IN ENGLISH???!!!??? If anyone thinks that the leftists all over the world aren't working in cahoots, here is the proof! Why would they print their signs in English? Answer: to affect the American election!!!!
370 posted on 03/13/2004 12:46:19 PM PST by Miss Marple
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To: Peach
Yep. Seems they are for achieving PAZ without retaliation for the evil that was done to them. Aznar's "Popular Party" candidate is suffering as a result as well.
371 posted on 03/13/2004 12:46:57 PM PST by arasina (So there.)
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To: Peach
There are no peaceniks - there are enemies of freedom.
372 posted on 03/13/2004 12:47:37 PM PST by ValerieUSA
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To: livius
Even if it were retribution for Spain's support on the war in Iraq, Islamic facism is a ticking time bomb in all those European countries. Appeasing them is not going to work and one would hope they can read the writing on the wall.
373 posted on 03/13/2004 12:47:49 PM PST by Aliska
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To: July 4th
Islam, that is not my concept of Islam, it is fundamentalism, a different issue!
374 posted on 03/13/2004 12:47:54 PM PST by icydanger
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To: Miss Marple
They're in English because the true target of the socialist-Islamist axis is the front page of the New York Times.
375 posted on 03/13/2004 12:48:16 PM PST by thoughtomator (All I ever wanted to know about Islam I learned on 9/11)
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity
sense of humor? about 9/11? come on!
376 posted on 03/13/2004 12:49:02 PM PST by icydanger
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To: thoughtomator
Interesting stuff here from 'Spiegel", I thought:


Witness saw ski-masked men at the station

An eyewitness claims to have watched how three men dragged several backpacks to the station in the Madrid suburb Alcala de Henares shortly before the bomb attacks. He noticed the men because they wore ski masks.

Madrid - Spanish investigators are concentrating on the stolen delivery truck in which a Arabic language tape and several detonators were found on the evening of the attacks. Indications that the explosive devices were actually transported in this vehicle to the stations are increasing now, a highly ranked police official said today.

An eyewitness observed how three young men got out of a delivery truck at the station in the suburb Alcala de Henares, the last stop of line C7. According to the testimony the men had carried several backpacks into the building, the official told to the news agency AP. The witness noticed the men because they had worn ski masks. He was wondered why they wore the caps since it wasn't excessively cold on that morning.

Three of the four trains, in which the total of ??? (Spiegel left out the number here, was it 10?) bombs had exploded two days ago, had departed from the Alcala de Henares station. The fourth train passed by the station. The twelve bombs were hidden, according to police information, in backpacks. Ten of them exploded, two where blown up by the police in controlled explosions.

A thirteenth bomb, whose detonation mechanism had apparently failed, was discovered yesterday morning. It was in a travel bag that was salvaged from one of the trains at the El Pozo Del Tío Raimundo station, and then stored with other abandoned pieces of baggage in a police station. The officials discovered the bomb after a mobile telephone had rung inside the bag. At present the mobile telephone and the detonator are being regarded as the most important pieces of evidence along with the delivery truck. The mobile telephone is a card phone, this card is being investigated thoroughly now.

According to information from the Spanish radio station "Cardena Ser" the rucksack contained 10.2 kilograms of explosive which had been pasted with nails and screws.

"Spiegel-Online"....Zeuge sah mit Skimasken Vermummte am Bahnhof

13 March, 2004 Translated by longjack

377 posted on 03/13/2004 12:49:37 PM PST by longjack
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To: arasina
She looks like one of these anti war idiots:
378 posted on 03/13/2004 12:50:06 PM PST by e_castillo
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To: thoughtomator
They're in English because the true target of the socialist-Islamist axis is the front page of the New York Times.

Who will be more than glad to assist them in every possible way! Prairie

379 posted on 03/13/2004 12:50:31 PM PST by prairiebreeze (God bring comfort to the victims of terrorism in Spain and their families.)
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To: dennisw
you are a duck
380 posted on 03/13/2004 12:50:36 PM PST by icydanger
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