Five people were arrested last night by Spanish police hunting the train
bombers who killed 200 people in Madrid as the government announced it had
received a videotape purportedly from Al-Qaeda claiming responsibility for
the attack.
The five — three Moroccan Muslims and two Indians — were detained in
connection with a mobile phone that was found in a sports bag containing an
unexploded bomb on one of four rush-hour trains attacked on Thursday
morning. A phonecard was also discovered in the bag.
Two Spaniards of Indian origin were also being questioned about the mobile
phone but were not arrested. The phone was one of several that were strapped
to explosives in devices that allowed the terrorists to trigger blasts.
Angel Acebes, the interior minister, said the arrested men “could be related
to extremist Moroccan groups”. He nevertheless urged caution in assigning
blame for the carnage to Islamic radicals rather than the Basque separatist
group Eta. Acebes had earlier repeatedly insisted that Eta was probably
responsible for the attacks.
But under pressure to make any scrap of information instantly available to the
public, Acebes later announced the purported Al-Qaeda claim. “It’s a claim
made by a man in Arabic with a Moroccan accent. He makes the declaration in
the name of someone who says he is the military spokesman of Al-Qaeda in
Europe,” he said early today.
According to a government translation, the man on the tape says: “We accept
responsibility for what happened in Madrid exactly 2Å years after the
attacks on New York and Washington. It is a response to your collaboration
with the criminals Bush and his allies.”
Acebes said the tape had been discovered after an Arabic-speaking man tipped
off a Madrid television station. The government warned, however, that the
tape might be a forgery.
Whether it is authentic or not, suspicion for the Madrid attack has already
fallen on a Moroccan group, the Salafist Jihad. The group, linked to
Al-Qaeda, was behind the Casablanca bombings of May last year in which 44
people died in five synchronised explosions. The dead included 12
terrorists.
Morocco said last night it was sending a high-level team of intelligence
experts to Spain to help with the investigation. The Morocco government
named its three nationals detained in Madrid as Jamal Zougam, 30, Mohamed
Bekkali, 31, and Mohamed Chaoui, 34.
Earlier, Acebes said police were investigating “possible connections” between
Eta and outside groups. As he spoke, thousands of demonstrators gathered
outside the headquarters of the ruling Popular party on the eve of today’s
general election. They accused the government of misleading voters about the
perpetrators of Thursday’s attack. “Before we vote, we want the truth,” the
protesters shouted.
As scuffles broke out, the Popular party’s leader, Mariano Rajoy, made a
dramatic television appearance, urging the “illegal” demonstrators to
disperse. But his appeal went unheeded, and late last night thousands of
anti-governnent protesters were gathering in the cities of Barcelona, Bilbao
and Santiago de Compostela.
Ministers had been swift to blame Eta, playing down the possibility that
militants connected with Al-Qaeda might have punished Spain for its
unpopular role in supporting the war in Iraq.
Osama Bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda leader, warned last October that Spain would be
targeted for backing the war.
A senior Al-Qaeda official later wrote on a website: “We must make maximum use
of the proximity to the elections in Spain . . . Spain can stand a maximum
of two or three attacks before they will withdraw from Iraq.”
Other evidence, however, pointed to Eta, which had tried to bomb a train last
Christmas Eve and had been caught moving half a ton of explosives towards
Madrid by lorry 10 days before Thursday’s atrocity. Eta, which has killed
800 people in four decades of attacks, has a history of attempting to
disrupt elections in Spain.
“We should not rule out anything,” Acebes said as he confirmed the arrests.
“Police are still investigating all avenues.”
He said police were continuing to search for three men seen getting out of a
white Renault van parked near a suburban station where most of the bombed
trains started their journey.
Seven detonators, a half-empty pack of explosives and an Arabic audio tape of
verses from the Koran were found in the van. Witnesses said the men’s faces
were concealed by scarves even though it was a mild day. At least one was
carrying a bag slung over his shoulder as he hurried to the station at
Alcala de Henares.
Some security officials suggested Eta might have set up the van with the
intention that the group’s actions would be attributed to Al-Qaeda, damaging
the election prospects of the Popular party.
Rajoy, who is favourite to take over from Jose Maria Aznar, the retiring
Popular party prime minister, in the lection, was accused of trying to
capitalise on the tragedy by saying the need for a government with an
absolute majority was greater than ever.
As the country prepared to go to the polls at the end of three days of
mourning, up to 40 funerals were held. Staff drafted in to cope at one of
Madrid’s busiest cemeteries in the south of the capital stood weeping in
corners yesterday. Never had they witnessed such emotional scenes, they
said.
In just a few hours, hundreds of mourners had filed through the cemetery gate
for 17 funerals, one after the other. They included the family of a couple
who had dropped off their sons, aged three and 10, at school on Thursday
morning. The boys were collected later by relatives and the news was broken
to the elder boy the next morning. His first words were: “Will I be sent to
an orphanage?” The possibility that Al-Qaeda might have attacked a western
European capital prompted officials from Portugal to Poland to tighten their
security this weekend at railway stations and border posts.
Tony Blair said nations must be prepared for terrorists to attack “whenever
and however they can”. He told Labour’s spring conference in Manchester:
“This is the new menace of our time. We will not defeat it by hoping it will
leave us alone or by hiding away.”
Police and security officials met in London on Friday to review the threat to
Britain. The country has been on the second highest level of alert since
last November, just before the suicide bombings against British targets in
Istanbul.
Intelligence officials said MI6 had received no prior indications that any big
terrorist attack was being planned in Europe. “There was none of the usual
chatter from Islamist groups,” said a senior Foreign Office source.
Tomorrow British police will launch a campaign to alert the public to the
threat of a Madrid-style terrorist outrage on the rail network. Posters
asking the question: “Who owns this bag?” will be displayed at Tube stations
across London.
