The theory I view as most plausible and at the same time most chilling currently is a cooperation between ETA and AQ. My hypothesis is that ETA provided the intellegence and the explosives while AQ brought in the bombers themselves who were highly trained and helped with the planning. The coordination between the two allowed such an effective and quick (relatively compared to 9/11) attack. I believe ETA will never take responsibility for this now, I doubt they believed there would be such incredible backlash. Why I believe this ETA was involved: The explosives used were the same kind and very well might be the same stolen group as the ones that several members of ETA were arrested with IN MADRID a couple of months ago. It seems too quick for AQ alone, 9/11 was planned over a number of years, while this attack seems to be completley a retaliation (in AQ's mind) for Spain being one of the United States' biggest allies on the war on terror. ETA has changed, the stakes have been raised. People say this is too big for them, but they have been severly hit by arrests and were largely ineffective (relatively to years before) in their terror efforts last year. They wanted to make an impact before the election. This certainly accomplished that, but in a way that will most likely eventually see their extinction. Why I think AQ was involved: I don't know much of this stories, but the van with arabic tapes and detenators seems to point to suicide bombers trained by AQ. I'm sure some of the claiming of responsibility is false, but I believe that one of them is true. The way the attacks were carried out had AQ finger prints all over them. The intent was to kill as many as possible, which is more AQ's calling card then ETA's. The way they were coordinated also tends to point towards AQ.
Exactly where in my paragraph does it say "Kill all Muslims"? And as for ETA not being involved we don't know that. It could have been a branch of ETA that got more extreme. It could have been a joint operation of ETA or a branch of it with Al Qaeda maybe not. And with 9/11 and now 3/11 obviously what we're doing right now isn't really enough. So yes, a drastic overhaul will be required somewhere I think. So what makes you think suddenly we have to kill all Muslims? Crazy talk. You're probably one of those psychos who think the US was behind 9/11 and who knows if u think the US did 3/11 to try to get Europe more on board in this "War on Terror."
As for the point on the guys who left the backpacks not being very suspicious because they didn't "look Arab," some Arabs look very European, especially Southern European. In many cases, it is actually incredibly hard to tell the difference when the Arab guy has his hair done western style and wears western clothes.
No, absolutely not. ETA has been killing for35 years. You can argue either way that ETA had a killing level grievance with Franco, but that was then. Spain is a democracy now with the 18 regions having a great deal of autonomy. The previous government tried to work with ETA. ETA called a unilateral cease fire which the socialist tried to use to develop a dialogue with the group. Instead ETA used the time to rearm so they could attack some more. The current government didn´t fall for that trick when they tried it again and put some serious hurts on ETA that they have never recovered from. Partido Popular will win this election and all the political parties know they have a clear mandate from the people of Spain to go after ETA with everything they have. Regardless of who is responsible for this travesty, the future is not bright for ETA and their criminal ways.
The Spanish government is granting residence papaers to all victims and their families. They want to make sure the families come together in this time of need. Class act.
In a post Sept. 11th world, events like this hit harder than ever. From news.google.com, the best analysis of the "al Qaeda" letter I've seen: http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/carmon200403121251.asp (note that the article is from the MEMRI) My impression is that the Spanish government is saying that the ETA or an ETA-type group is the number one suspect, while al Qaeda or an al Qaeda-type group is very possible. My instinct says an al Qaeda-type group is more likely, but I recognize that Europe has a history of one political extremist group or another setting off bombs in public places. Oh, and something I haven't seen to much about: how does this affect Spain's elections? Apparent answer: Partido Popular gets more votes.
Here's some eerie stuff you may consider before some of you rule out Al Qaeda from being a perpetrator of 3/11. 3/11 is 6 months either way from 9/11 of any year (other than leap years I think). Also I calculated the days since 9/11/01 and it's 912 or 913 depending on how u round it due to the leap year. So that's pretty close to 911 days. Coincidence? Believe what you want but a part of me says this matches up too well to be a coincidence. Remember 9/11 wasn't an arbitrary date either. They spell out 911 which is the American hotline for Emergency Response units (police, fire, ambulance). Even the way they picked the day was very Al Qaeda-ish if this was not a pure coincidence.
The 7 month old I talked about earlier died today. They found her mother, a Polish lady who is in critical condition and might not make it. The father hasn´t been located.
My thoughts are still that AQ had a bigger hand in this than ETA... However, if it does turn out to be AQ free, it just has to be a splinter group in my mind. A similar thing happened (I mentioned it in passing earlier) with the IRA. The 'Real IRA' splintered off from them, then blew up a car and 29 people.
The death toll hit 200 today. There are about 40 people in grave condition plus some missing. The number will most likely end up around 225 to 250. The TV is full of stories of families searching every hospital and the make-shift morgue looking for their loved ones but finding nothing.
i have predicted that this would happen in the usa since 9-11. every time i ride the train to new york i think of this. how easy would it be to pull this off? there is almost no security on the rail system. a suicide bomber could just blow himself up in the middle of penn station at 5 PM and probably kil;l 100 people but the true lasting damage would of course be psychological
Have you ever been to southern europe? Do you know how southern euros or arabs look like? I don´t think so. The reason why the guy who left the backpacks was not suspicious was: 1- He was a guy with a backpack. If it was a dog, that would be suspicius. 2- There are thousends of arab immigrants in Spain.
Is anybody else pissed off that the news is not making a bigger deal of this here in the US? People are barely even aware there was a bombing in Spain. I've heard almost no political discussion of the attacks at my work, and it's making me sick. The american media made such a huge deal for Sept 11th, but now that something almost as drastic occurs to one of our allies all we get is news story followed up by how Howard Stern is being screwed by the government. Give me a break, the media needs to pay more attention.
I noticed that. The day that the bombing took place, media here was more concerned with the fate of Todd Betruzzi than anything else.
I agree 100%. The morning of the bombing (around 7 am Eastern time) I turned on CNN and Fox (don't get MSNBC here) and neither one of htem was saying a damn thing about it. Fox was talking about the Pres campaign, and CNN was talking about Kobe fucking Bryant.
Actually I am very well travelled and I've had my share of Italian and Spanish friends. And yes, sometimes you come across a guy from Algeria who looks VERY much like a Southern European. And dude, if a guy LEAVES a friggin' backpack in this day and age, yeah u tend to get pretty suspicious, especially if he looks Arab. I know that statement is politically incorrect but I'm afraid that's the way things are. When some steriotypical white American guy who apparently has a decent income walks into a restaurant, then leaves his briefcase under the table and goes out of ur line of vision, your psychological response to that and that of a typical Arab guy (even just in plain regular western clothes) leaving a briefcase and walking out of your line of sight is VERY different. If you don't agree with me here, there's a part of the natural "survival" instinct part of you that has died and you should be glad you're in civilized society because anywhere else you'd perish at the snap of a finger. I know there are thousands of Arab immigrants in Spain, hence Al Qaeda has a good foothold in there (along with other groups I'm pretty sure). Just because there's a lot of them doesn't mean they don't appear as "suspicious." I mean, if that wasn't the case, then what's all the Arabs screaming about "racial profiling over here then? Because they are victims of racial profiling from government and personal levels. To say you can DEFAINTELY tell the difference between Southern European and North African/Arab is a false statement. I know in most cases you can give it a very good guess (maybe 70-80% when the clothes and hair are the same at best) but you cannot deny that some of them look practically alike. This is inevitable due to the proximity of the two places.
That was my reaction exactly. The crowds protesting this terrorist act was TINY if non existent, largely in DC due to Spring Break and that a lot of the students sympathies in universities lie actually with the extremists. By in large they just believe they are doing what any person would do in response to the west's "aggression." Does the West put pressure and make mistakes? Sure. But don't forget these people are trying to kill you and your people and that OUR side, especially SPAIN right now is grieving from an attack from the enemies of the West (includes ETA). If we discount the actions, our cause is often about as just and sometimes as flawed as theirs. They're not "poor victims." They're just the enemy who just happens to be poorer and the human tendancy to have sympathy for the weak kicks in for they are the weaker side (at least on paper). Anyways I digress. I am appalled at the lack of reaction here. Also with the bombing just a few weeks ago in Iraq which took place on a holy event that lead to nearly 200 dead as well. No one noticed it. Although it's not much, I blackened the reverse side of my captain's armband and will wear it every time I go out for the next week.
The guy didn't say that, but it's what he meant. Or do you believe there is an action we can take that will prevent any of this in the future. Maybe it was ETA. Pretty stupid move IMO. But so far the best (and worst) argument I seem to hear is about Spanish materials being used. Which proves just about nothing.
So, what should we do genius boy? There's not a phucking thing you can do. Anyone, anywhere, anytime can kill 10's to 100s of people in a 1000 different ways. No drastic change in plans will ever, ever change that. That's why this 'war on terror' is cute, but nothing more than a few blind swings here and there. As long as there is a cause, there will be people willing to do stuff like this. BTW, I don't think the US was behing 9/11. But it sure as hell helped a certain group of people with a certain agenda. 3000 dead people is a very small price on a mondial scale. But let's save that for another topic.
In the United States after the 11/9 an arab is immediatly suspect, and that´s perfectly normal, but in Europe (except England) most people were not so paranoid (until now at least). As for southern euros being similar to arabs, i can only recomend you to buy a good pair of glasses, go to the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa and see the differences for yourself. But then again, you probably couldn´t see the difference between a Japananse and Thai.
For our friends in spain: Somos unidos como hermanos! It matters little to me whether this was ETA, al Quada or ETA working with al Quada as Franco did with Hitler in Guenica. Terror only can win when people give up. It is this sort of stupidity which I have gotten tired of. A few months ago I said, "Europe would contentedly sit back and lose a few hundred people to terrorism each year and continue to negotiate with the governments of their former colonies. That's not how the US does things. Europe is shocked that we felt no respect to honor the government of Saddam. Well we don't. He was no more the legitimate ruler of Iraq than the British or French colonial empire would have been. Unlike Old Europe, we will leave Iraq with a stable democracy left behind. We will leave Iraq with a legitimate government of their own making. . . . . . . . Rumsfled is right about what he was thinking and was right again to throw it in the face of a Europe who would rather gaze at it's belly button and wring it's hands, muttering, "I was betrayed. There was nothing I could have done." And these are the sort of responses I got: All the belly button gaizing by denizens of the BS Politics board isn't going to change a thing. Thank goodness for the likes of Bush and Aznar.
Arrests made CNN BREAKING NEWS: The Spanish Interior Minister has said the police have arrested three Moroccans and two Indian nationals in connection with the Madrid bombings
Just read it on CNN and El Universal. Just by the method in bombing a few sites made me question any involvement by ETA.
So let´s just give up, the terrorist won. You would be surprised what good police work and intelligence gathering can do. ETA over the last couple years is a good example. According to the Spainish TV a total of seven was arrested for questioning, 3 Morrocans, 2 Indians, and 2 Spaniards of Indian descent. They tracked them through a telephone card in one of the unexploded bombs.