Posted Sunday, March 14, 2004; 16.37GMT
This was, in fact, the second claim of responsibility from a group related to al-Qaeda. On Thursday night, the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi received an e-mail from the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, named for an al-Qaeda leader killed in a U.S. missile attack in Afghanistan. The message said one of its "death squads" had planted the bombs to settle "old accounts with Spain ... America's ally in its war against Islam." The statement went on: "The death squad succeeded in penetrating the crusader European depths and striking one of the pillars of the crusader alliance" and warned that another attack against the U.S. is "90% ready — and coming soon." The New York City Police Department sent — and Morocco planned to send — teams of investigators to Madrid, and the fbi also offered assistance; all hoped to gather intelligence they might need at home.
The Brigades had made bogus claims before, including authorship of last summer's power outage in the northeastern U.S. But the Brigades also claimed to have carried out November's bombings of synagogues and British targets in Istanbul, in which 61 died, and the
If we’re not next, we’re after the ones who are next. That’s what everyone in Europe is thinking
— French security official
August bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, in which 22 died. Some intelligence experts take the Brigades seriously — they could be "the new military wing of al-Qaeda in charge of external jihad," says Mustafa Alani, Middle East security expert at the London-based Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies — but no one has yet verified its role in these attacks. Even so, there is no question that the November bombings of the British consulate and a British-based bank in Istanbul had shown that bin Laden's disciples were able to target Western interests at Europe's doorstep. If Madrid turns out to be the Islamic extremist's handiwork, it means al-Qaeda has blasted open the door and stormed inside.
The arrests seemed finally to clear the confusion that had descended on Madrid in the aftermath of the attacks. Before anyone knew what was in the sports bag, most Spaniards instinctively fingered the Basque terror group ETA, which has killed more than 800 people in a campaign of terror against the Spanish state spanning four decades. Just hours after the attacks, Acebes was adamant that there was "no cause for doubt" that ETA was to blame. Government officials and members of the ruling Popular Party (PP) pointed to what they said were hallmarks of ETA involvement: the bombings took place just three days before Sunday's general election, which ETA had vowed to disrupt; ETA had targeted the railway system before; and only last month Spanish police had foiled ETA attempts to transport large quantities of explosives into Madrid.
But the train blasts also differed from the Basque group's traditional modus operandi in important ways: the absence of a warning, which ETA usually gives, the deliberate targeting of civilians and the sheer scale of the operation. Despite the government's professed certainty of ETA's guilt, doubts began to creep in. Then, on Thursday evening, Acebes announced that in Alcalá de Henares, a town 30 km northeast of Madrid where three of the ill-fated trains originated and the fourth passed through, police had found an abandoned white Renault Kangoo van containing seven copper detonators and a tape of Koranic verses recited in Arabic. The discovery harked back to the hours after the attacks in New York City and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, when a rental car was found in the parking lot of Boston's Logan airport, containing flight manuals in Arabic. That vehicle was the start of the trail that led American investigators to al-Qaeda. The van in Alcalá de Henares was another piece of evidence that pointed to Islamic radicals rather than Basque terrorists.
If there had been no warning from ETA, there had certainly been a declaration of intent from al-Qaeda. A tape aired in October — the voice purported to be bin Laden's — had singled out Spain for retribution because of its government's staunch support for the war in Iraq. And documents on an Arabic website studied by Norwegian defense researchers in recent months indicated that al-Qaeda was considering attacks on Madrid ahead of the election. The 42-page document, titled "Jihad's Iraq," had been submitted to the discussion forum of a politically oriented website that no longer exists, according to Brynjar Lia of the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment. The section of the report devoted to Spain read in part: "We must exploit to the maximum the proximity of the election in Spain ... We believe that the Spanish government cannot tolerate more than two or three attacks before it will be forced to pull out" of Iraq. According to Lia, the document seems authentic, though he emphasizes that it contains no specific attack orders: "It's an overall guideline for strategies that the jihadis should pursue in the future." If that was all speculation, the van and the sports bag now provided Spanish investigators with real, physical evidence.
Divide And Conquer [Mar 8, 2004]
Basque terrorist group ETA throws a "message bomb" into the Spanish general-election campaign
Blaming The Messenger [March 11, 2003]
Spain's heavy-handed attempt to fight Basque terrorism by closing a Basque newspaper is only spreading rage and fear
The Next Terror Nexus? [Feb. 16, 2003]
Colombia fears that the I.R.A. and ETA may be using the country as a base for weapons testing and training
Uncle Osama Wants You [Mar. 16, 2003]
A journalist infiltrates a radical network in Paris, and gets a rare glimpse of a terror recruiter in action
Living With Fear [Dec. 08, 2002]
Bali, Mombasa — and where next? Terror is the new reality. Here's what the allies will do to prevent even more devastating strikes
Mogadishu at 60 Miles an Hour Arms merchants are once again doing brisk business after a rapid change of power in this tough town, but so far the peace has held
The Year of The Nuke A rundown of the world's nuclear powerhouses, and what to expect in the coming months
FROM THE MARCH 22, 2004 ISSUE OF TIME MAGAZINE; POSTED
SUNDAY, MARCH 14, 2004.
VANTAGE POINT: Elena, 12, adjusts the Spanish flag with a black ribbon from her family's apartment window overlooking Madrid's Atocha train station
ANJA NIEDRINGHAUS/AP
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