Yahoo! News - Terror Blasts Kill at Least 192 in Spain: MADRID, Spain - A series of bombs hidden in backpacks exploded in quick succession Thursday, blowing apart four commuter trains and killing at least 192 people and wounding more than 1,400. Spain at first blamed Basque separatists but a shadowy group claimed responsibility in the name of al-Qaida for the worst terrorist attack in Spanish history.
My deepest sympathies for the people of Spain, and my heart goes out to the families and friends of the dead and injured. This attack is appalling and horrifying.
Glenn Reynolds posts some information on observations, demonstrations and addresses where cards and flowers can be sent.
The Embassy of Spain convenes a silent demonstration tomorrow, Friday, March 12th, to express its outrage for today’s terrorist attack perpetrated in Madrid, in which approximately 200 people have died and 900 have been injured.
The demonstration will take place at the Washington Circle (Pennsylvania Ave and 23rd St NW) at 12 am.
Please convey this information to others.
The BBC provides some information concerning responsibility for the attacks:
A statement attributed to al-Qaeda claiming responsibility emerged soon after it was revealed that an Arabic tape had been found in a suspect van.
But other indicators pointed to the Basque armed separatist group Eta.
One claim of responsibility for the rush-hour attacks on trains at three stations was e-mailed to the London-based Arabic newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi.
It said Spain had been targeted by the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades on behalf of al-Qaeda as “one of the pillars of the crusade alliance”.
“This is part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America’s ally in its war against Islam,” the e-mail said.
Evidently, the author of the e-mail quoted above fails to remember the 700+ year history of the Muslim invasion and occupation of nearly all of Spain. Given the history of Islam’s hundreds of years of militaristic expansionism, slave-holding, and various atrocities throughout Spain, the area of the former Byzantine Empire, and the Balkans, compared with the relatively brief period of European Middle Eastern colonialism and the rather limited success of the Crusades, I’d suggest it isn’t in the best interests of Moslems to start talking about “settling accounts” with Europeans. They might decide to take you up on it.
Of course, rational thinking and an understanding of history are obviously not strong suits of the religion and magic saturated minds of Islamic fundamentalists.
The BBC goes on:
But the BBC’s security correspondent, Frank Gardner, says US officials caution that al-Qaeda does not usually claim responsibility so early.
Spanish Interior Minister Angel Acebes said he had instructed security forces not to rule out any line of inquiry after the discovery of a tape in Arabic with detonators in a stolen van near Madrid.
The tape - containing verses of the Koran relating to education - was one of seven in the vehicle found in Alcala de Henares, where three of the four bombed trains originated. The fourth train passed through the town.
But Mr Acebes said the Basque separatist group, Eta, remained the focus of the investigation, echoing earlier statements from officials.
Security sources said earlier that the bombs set off on the commuter trains used dynamite - typically used by Eta.
I’m certainly no expert, but the pattern of the attacks, combined with the timing just before the Spanish elections, the timing of the announcement, and the fact that al-Masri has a history of claiming al-Qaeda responsibility for events they clearly had nothing to do with (al-Masri claimed responsibility for the U.S. and U.K. blackouts last year, for example) suggest that ETA is probably responsible, to me. The Arabic language tape may point to some form of Islamic fundamentalist involvement or assistance to ETA, or it may just be a red herring intended to help confuse the situation and investigation long enough to have some impact on the forthcoming elections.
None of which really matters. What matters is that yet another group of low-life, delusion scum bags with no hope of achieving their insane aims through civilized means elected to shred another few hundred people in a forlorn, and ultimately hopeless attempt to influence a world they aren’t intellectually or ethically equipped to deal with. Once again, a group of cretinous sub-humans elected to take the easy way out to try and gain some attention, rather than doing the hard work of convincing people of the rightness of their cause through reasoned debate.
Whoever these slime turn out to be, I sincerely hope they are caught and killed or imprisoned forever. Not out of a sense of revenge or even justice, but rather as a means of eliminating their defective genes from the human population.
Update: Looks like it may have been Islamic terrorists after all. In any case, that’s what the Spanish people believe and they’ve tossed out their government as a result.
