Posted on 03/12/2004 5:03:40 PM PST by Zrob
"ETA has no experience in carrying out simultaneous attacks on such a scale, and it has limited resources, while al-Qaeda has deep pockets and has already demonstrated its capacity to mount co-ordinated spectaculars. It is a big job for ETA so there are reasons to think they could be doing it with somebody else.
"They have a history of collaborating with others, the IRA for example, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t have established a relationship with an al-Qaeda group."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.scotsman.com ...
Letter claims terror brigade responsible
GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN
DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENT
Key points
• Al-Qaeda now claim to be responsible for bomb attack
• Letter from terror group recieved by London-based newspaper
• Threats to US also mentioned
Key quote "This is part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America’s ally in its war against Islam." – Letter claiming to be from al-Qaeda claiming bomb responsibility
Story in full
IN THE immediate aftermath of yesterday morning’s bombings, the Spanish government wasted no time in pointing the finger of blame at the Basque terrorist group ETA. The revival of what was apparently a spent force would have been bad enough; 14 hours after the bombs started exploding, it got much, much worse.
A letter purporting to be from al-Qaeda was sent to a London-based newspaper claiming responsibility for the attacks. The Arabic newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi said it had received a claim of responsibility for the Madrid train bombings issued by the Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri, in the name of al-Qaeda.
The claim, received by e-mail at the paper’s London offices, said the brigade’s "death squad" had penetrated "one of the pillars of the crusade alliance, Spain".
The claim said: "This is part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America’s ally in its war against Islam."
Referring to Spain’s prime minister, José Maria Aznar, the statement asked: "Aznar, where is America? Who will protect you, Britain, Japan, Italy and others from us?"
The message referred to last year’s attack on Italian paramilitary police serving in the US-led coalition in Iraq. "When we attacked the Italian troops in Nassiriyah and sent you and America’s agents an ultimatum to withdraw from the anti-Islam alliance, you did not understand the message. Now we have made it clear and hope that this time you will understand," the statement said.
"We, at the Abu Hafs brigades, have not felt sad for the so-called civilians," the statement in an apparent reference to the hundreds of casualties. "Is it OK for you to kill our children, women, old people and youth in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Kashmir? And is it forbidden to us to kill yours?"
Less than an hour earlier, the Spanish interior minister, Angel Acebes, had announced that a suspect van had been found near Madrid containing seven detonators and a tape containing recordings of verses from the Koran spoken in Arabic.
That discovery, said Mr Acebes, changed everything. "The conclusion of this morning that pointed to the terrorist organisation [ETA] right now is still the main line of investigation. [But] I have given the security forces instructions not to rule out anything," he said.
For the Spanish government, ETA had been the obvious culprit. The group, which takes its name from the Basque-language acronym for Basque Homeland and Freedom, has been fighting since the late 1960s to achieve independence for the Basque-speaking regions of northern Spain and south-west France.
Tests on the explosives used in yesterday’s bombings initially seemed to support the Spanish position, confirming that the explosives were of a type commonly used by ETA.
Mr Acebes had initially been adamant that ETA was the only suspect, and everyone seemed to agree that the group had made a spectacular comeback just ahead of the weekend elections.
"ETA had been looking for a massacre in Spain," Mr Acebes said, citing recent thwarted attacks. "Unfortunately, today it achieved its goal."
He said the group had attempted a similar attack on Christmas Eve, placing bombs on two trains bound for a Madrid station and noted that on 29 February, police intercepted a Madrid-bound van packed with more than 1,100lb of explosives and blamed ETA. "Therefore, it is absolutely clear and evident that the terrorist organisation ETA was looking to commit a major attack. The only thing that varies is the train station that was targeted."
But with no coded warning and no immediate claim of responsibility, there remained an element of doubt. If it was the work of ETA, it represented the most dramatic change in the organisation’s tactics in its long and bloody history.
Until yesterday, ETA’s campaign had claimed more than 800 lives, but the organisation has tended to pick them off in ones and twos, and to be very specific about its targets, concentrating mainly on government officials and state representatives. The only previous example of an indiscriminate attack on ordinary Spaniards was back in June 1987, when 21 shoppers were killed in an attack on a Barcelona supermarket. But ETA was insistent that the bomb had gone off before there was time for a warning to be issued, and it apologised for the mistake.
Within hours of yesterday’s explosions, Basque nationalist leaders were distancing themselves and ETA from the attack. Arnaldo Otegi, the leader of the banned radical political party Herri Batasuna, said he could not accept the organisation was responsible for the blasts.
He said he did not believe "even as a hypothesis" ETA was responsible, suggesting instead that they could have been "an operation by sectors of the Arab resistance".
Others also had their doubts. In the US and in Britain, experts suspected the involvement of others in the attacks. The name of al-Qaeda, never far from the lips of the intelligence community whenever terrorists strike, was being spoken openly.
David Capitanchik, a terrorism expert based at Robert Gordon University, in Aberdeen, said there were good reasons to suspect that if ETA was behind the attack, it had received assistance from another organisation, and quite possibly from al-Qaeda.
His case was simple: "ETA has no experience in carrying out simultaneous attacks on such a scale, and it has limited resources, while al-Qaeda has deep pockets and has already demonstrated its capacity to mount co-ordinated spectaculars. It is a big job for ETA so there are reasons to think they could be doing it with somebody else.
"They have a history of collaborating with others, the IRA for example, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t have established a relationship with an al-Qaeda group."
Dr Capitanchik said al-Qaeda had good reason to want to attack Spain, a staunch supporter of the war in Iraq, and suggested the loss of a van loaded with explosives only days earlier would have severely dented ETA’s ability to launch such a large attack so soon afterwards. "I don’t believe they have that much resources," he said. "I think ETA carried it out but I would be very interest in where they got the material from."
He also pointed to the absence of a warning, which is typical of al-Qaeda. ETA has carried out attacks without warning before, but it always claims responsibility. US intelligence agencies appeared to be thinking along the same lines.
"It’s going to be muddy for a while until the Spanish authorities get in there and start doing some forensics," one US official said.
The official suggested the attack bore characteristics of ETA and al-Qaeda, suggesting they may have been working together: "You have multiple attacks, multiple explosions in different locations in a short period of time which is very al-Qaeda-ish.
"But ETA has long threatened tourists and commuters and they have attacked trains in the past, they have attacked rail stations in the past. They usually warn people in advance and that may not be the case here."
The head of the European Union’s police agency European Union’s police agency also appeared to cast doubt on the idea that ETA could have carried out the attack on its own. Juergen Storbeck, the Europol director, said the simultaneous bomb blasts did not bear the hallmarks of the Basque separatists.
"It could have been ETA. But we’re dealing with an attack that doesn’t correspond to the ‘modus operandi’ they have adopted up to now," he said. "In the past, ETA has always attacked individuals, and if they saw any danger for the public they gave a warning. It’s not yet clear they were the authors."
Despite Spain’s recent successes against ETA, "there could still be other cells that have not been brought under control and could have become more extremist", he continued.
Al-Qaeda has certainly made no secret of its interest in attacking Spain. In an audio tape broadcast in September, Osama bin Laden warned that all countries backing Washington were targets.
"We reserve the right to respond at the appropriate time and place against all the countries particularly in the unjust war, particularly Britain, Spain, Australia, Holland, Japan and Italy," he said.
By last night, it was looking increasingly likely that if ETA had participated in the bombings, those involved were a splinter group of radicals within the organisation who had decided to join forces with Islamic terrorists.
Yesterday’s attack is so far removed from its normal practice that if ETA does eventually claim responsibility - and it has waited up to two days after an attack to do so in the past - it suggests that there have been radical changes inside the organisation.
Richard Evans, a terrorism expert who edits the internet-based Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre, said the success of the Spanish security services in recent years may have meant a new generation of younger, more ruthless operatives coming to the fore.
He said: "Experts have suggested they have become a more decentralised organisation."
However he cautioned: "Historically, they have had some very professional bomb-makers, who have learned their trade in the Middle East and Africa."
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