[pepsionice]

While I immedately thought ETA...I really don't see their marks either. ETA usually wants front page coverage, and a simple car bomb does that, with 2 or 3 deaths. To kill 182 people...this would increase a tremendous amount of pressure to kill off the ETA and Basque leadership. I can't see these Basque dudes being that stupid. I do see an awful lot of similiar traits with middle east terrorists. I think we ought to be careful about who to blame for this episode.

[tortoise]

While I immedately thought ETA...I really don't see their marks either.

I hope for Al Qaeda's sake it was them and not the ETA. How embarrassing it would be for the ETA to make the "premier" terrorist group to look like a bunch of amateurs when it comes to doing terrorist bombings.

Seriously though, this was a much slicker operation than the usual radical islamic idiot bombings. The only thing that makes me doubt that it is ETA is that the ETA, like the IRA, normally "plays nice" with their bombings, with the whole ritual of warning phone calls and official statements and such -- more symbolic and political than intended to actually kill scads of people.

[AmishDude]

Yeah, I was wondering about the timing, too. Spanish elections are going to result in the anti-terrorists getting a huge boost if it's an al Qaeda hit. There will be a Basque crackdown if it's the ETA.

If it's al Qaeda, why Spain? I know they're a big supporter of the WOT, but so is Italy and Britain.