THE first evidence of collaboration between Islamic terrorists and Eta, the Basque separatist group, was published in Spain yesterday, helping to explain why José María Aznar, the former Prime Minister, was so quick to blame Eta for the March 11 Madrid train bombings, despite clues emerging within hours of the atrocity that indicated the involvement of extremist Muslims.

Letters between senior members of the two groups were published by the leading Spanish newspaper El Mundo, which said the previous Government’s awareness of the contacts was one reason that it insisted in the immediate aftermath of the bombings of commuter trains in the Spanish capital that Eta was the prime suspect.

The Government’s apparent determination to blame Eta, despite the mounting evidence of Islamic extremist involvement, contributed to its surprise defeat in the general election three days later.

El Mundo said that it had been given access to some of the information upon which the Government had based its response to the attacks, including records of letters and telephone conversations “which would support the possible collaboration between Eta and Islamist groups”.

The newspaper said that the most significant document was a letter from a known Islamic fundamentalist held in a French prison to an Eta prisoner in Madrid sent one day after the al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington of September 11, 2001.

El Mundo said that the fundamentalist, who was identified simply as “Ismael”, had met José Luís Urrusolo Sistiaga, a veteran Eta leader, while being held in Fresnes prison on the outskirts of Paris. Urrusolo was extradited to Spain from France after serving 4½ years there for terrorist-related offences. He was in Soto del Real prison in Madrid when he received a letter from Ismael, according to El Mundo.

Extracts from the letter read: “Did you see what happened in New York? Ha ha ha! In a word, magnificent! The theory of terror applied in its purest form. It was a magnificent present for me. I have seen the crowning of my theories.

“I’ve still a year and a half to go in France, during this time I can help you. After two months and six days of work preparing Operation Samurai Sword. We are going to carry out that operation and I will show you . . .

“We hope that a hypothetical collaboration of Eta and Islamist groups won’t include the loan of a suicide terrorist.”

El Mundo did not say to what Operation Samurai Sword alluded. Nor did it say whether the letter had been intercepted before reaching Urrusolo.

The paper cited a second document, which detailed a conversation between another Eta member, José Ignácio de Juana Chaos, and a girlfriend, that took place while he was being held in prison in Melilla, the Spanish enclave in North Africa. De Juana Chaos is quoted as saying: “If the fundamentalists wanted, the Spaniards would run away from here in a week.”

El Mundo said that the Eta member was known inside the organisation for his “double pressure”, theory, in which the Spanish Government would not be able to cope with an Eta campaign in northern Spain at the same time as an Islamist terrorist campaign in the south of the country.

“The documents, provided by the information services, corroborated the Government’s thesis that Eta was at least co-author of the attacks,” El Mundo said.

It recalled that Eta had tried to attack Madrid shortly before the March bombings, had attempted to explode bombs on trains and had also wanted to wreak havoc on a ski resort by detonating a dozen bombs in rucksacks, as well as having previously planned to use mobile telephones as detonators for explosive devices.

A parliamentary investigation into the bombings that left 190 people dead and 1,900 injured — the most devastating terrorist attack in mainland Europe — is due to begin within weeks.

DEATH TOLL

1959: Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Eta) is founded
1968: Eta’s first killing, of a policeman, begins a campaign that has caused the deaths of about 850 people
1973: Eta kills Luis Carrero Blanco, Franco’s Prime Minister, in Madrid
1980: Eta’s bloodiest year. The group kills nearly 100 people
1987: Eta kills 21 shoppers in a Barcelona shop
1995: José María Aznar narrowly escapes death from an Eta car bomb
2004: Eta is blamed by the Spanish Government for the Madrid attacks, which later emerge as the work of Islamic extremists

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