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Thursday, March 11, 2004


The Madrid bombing
Scenes of cruelty and suffering:



Ten terrorist bombs exploded aboard and alongside Spanish commuter trains today, killing 200 and injuring more than 1,200. The Spanish government pretty quickly blamed Basque separatists, whose terror wing, the ETA, has conducted terror bombings and attacks in the past, though none of this scale.

The UN Security Council unanimously voted today to condemn the attacks, and named ETA as the perpetrator, based on Spain's doing so. But ETA and the Basques quickly denied responsibility. Joe Gandelman, who covered Spain as a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor, has some history and insights.

Now, however, al Qaeda is taking credit and promising that an equally deadly attack will soon take place inside the United States. Trains are an especially lucrative target in Europe because Europeans use trains for travel far more than Americans do. The entire continent is crisscrossed with tracks. Train systems are much more difficult to secure than airliners because there are so many train stations and easy ways to attack a train even while it is traveling. News reports said that one million people commute in and out of Madrid per day.

Spain was an early and consistent ally of the United States in the war on terror, including sending troops to Iraq.

by Donald Sensing, 3/11/2004 04:58:44 PM. Permalink |  






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