Spain remembers her dead

Daily life ground to a halt across Spain today as the grieving nation observed a period of solemn silence to honour the 198 people killed in the Madrid train massacre

Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar pledged to hunt down those responsible for the horrific, co-ordinated attacks – 10 bombs that blew up four trains in a 15 minute span – but said the massive investigation has not yet pinpointed who was responsible.

Suspicion has fallen on Basque separatists and al-Qaida.

But a militant Basque politician denied the armed Basque separatist group Eta was involved and accused the government of lying to seek political advantage in Sunday’s general election.

“The Spanish government is lying deliberately,” said Arnaldo Otegi, leader of the banned Batasuna party, in the Basque city of Bilbao.

If Eta is deemed responsible for the attacks, that could boost support for Mariano Rajoy, Aznar’s hand-picked candidate to become Spain’s next leader.

Both have supported a hard-line crackdown on the violent separatist group, ruling out talks.

However, if the bombing is seen by voters as the work of al-Qaida, that could draw voters’ attention to Aznar’s vastly unpopular decision to endorse the US-led invasion of Iraq and the deployment of Spanish troops.

Campaigning was suspended in honour of the dead, but authorities said the elections would proceed as planned. Rajoy is three to 5% ahead of Socialist candidate Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

Looking for clues that might help pinpoint who was behind the attacks, bomb squad investigators combed through the mangled trains, taking samples for study, police said.

Offices, shops and cafes across Spain emptied at noon as people gathered to stand in the street in remember those killed in Spain’s worst terrorist attack.

Authorities had requested a minute’s silence but many people in Madrid stood in drizzly, chilly weather for about 10 minutes.

Aznar stood outside the presidential palace with senior officials. The silence there was broken when someone – apparently a government worker – angrily shouted: “Send the terrorists to the firing squad!”

In Barcelona, underground trains and buses ground to a halt and construction work stopped.

In north-east Spain’s Basque region, hundred of students and professors at the University of the Basque Country in Leioa stood in silence and clapped at the end – a Spanish gesture of solidarity.

“This is to show our rejection of violence and our solidarity with the families of the dead,” said Mikel Luzuriaga, a Basque medical student.

Underscoring jittery nerves in the capital, police hastily evacuated the Atocha rail station, one of those bombed yesterday, amid a bomb scare that turned out to be a false alarm.

Massive protests were planned for tonight to repudiate the attacks.

At one of his last news conferences as Spain’s leader, Aznar vowed to find those responsible for the attacks.

“We will bring the guilty to justice,” Aznar said. “No line of investigation is going to be ruled out.”

Chemists, doctors and other experts are working at the attack sites. A special area has been set aside at a police laboratory to study remains of trains, a government official said.

“They are analysing absolutely everything,” another official said. “All sectors of the police force are involved.”

The death toll rose overnight from 192 to 198, with 84 bodies still unidentified. More than 1,400 people were injured as the bombs turned train cars into twisted wrecks. Aznar said 59 people were in critical or serious condition.

Carmen Santas, a nurse at Madrid’s October 12 Hospital, described a hellish scene as the injured were brought in from the bombed trains and stations.

“You cannot imagine the horror: there were tracheas exposed, brains spilling out, broken bones exposed, people with no skin. Unimaginable,” she said.

Aznar said 14 foreigners were among the dead: three Peruvians, two Hondurans, two Poles, and a person each from France, Chile, Cuba Ecuador, Colombia, Morocco and Guinea-Bissau.

Police, meanwhile, found a stolen van with seven detonators and an Arabic-language tape of Koranic verses parked in a suburb near where the stricken trains originated.

An e-mailed claim of responsibility, signed by the shadowy Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri and received by the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi, called the attack “part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America’s ally in its war against Islam.”

Aznar insisted on joining the US led war in Iraq, even though polls showed most Spaniards opposed sending Spanish troops and police.

As at morning rush hour in Madrid today, rail passengers sobbed, lit candles and left flowers at the Atocha station, and trains rolled past wreckage left on the track.

“I saw the trains and I burst into tears. I felt so helpless, felt such anger,” said a tearful Isabel Galan, 32.

All the television stations placed a small red and yellow Spanish flag with a black sash in the corner of the screen. Commuter trains also travelled with black cloth on the engine cars.

The attack was Europe’s worst since the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people.

“March 11, 2004, now holds its place in the history of infamy,” Aznar said.

US Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said he could not confirm whether al-Qaida had a hand in the bombings, adding: “There is a lot of speculation.”

The UN’s counter-terrorism chief, a Spaniard, said Eta was likely behind the Madrid bombings because the attacks bore “all the fingerprints” of the Basque terror group.

“I would say it’s Eta, but I cannot be sure. It has all the fingerprints of Eta,” said Inocencio Arias who chairs the UN Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee.

The US believes Al-Masri sometimes falsely claims to be acting on behalf of al-Qaida. The group took credit for blackouts in the United States and London last year.

But the government said Eta had tried a similar attack on Christmas Eve, placing bombs on two trains bound for a Madrid station that was not hit yesterday.

The Interior Ministry said tests showed the explosives used in the attacks are favoured by Eta.

The bombers used titadine, a kind of compressed dynamite also found in a bomb-laden van intercepted last month as it headed for Madrid, a source at Aznar’s office said. Officials blamed Eta then, too.

Eta has claimed responsibility for more than 800 deaths since it began fighting for independence for the Basque region in 1968.