Madrid toll nears 200

Millions of Spaniards took to the streets, chanting “Cowards” and “Assassins” in a protest against the Madrid bombings that killed 199 people.

The Basque separatist group ETA has denied government claims that it staged the attacks.

Many of the estimated 2.3 million marchers in Madrid last night huddled against a steady rain in a bobbing mass of umbrellas that clogged the capital’s squares and the area around the Atocha station, where two of the four trains blew up during Thursday morning’s rush hour.

“It is not raining. Madrid is crying,” said Jorge Mendez, a 20-year-old student.

In a show of national unity, massive crowds also gathered in Barcelona, Seville, Valencia and even in Spain’s Canary Islands off western Africa. More than 11 million marched nationwide, state TV said – one-quarter of Spain’s 42 million people.

Prime minister Jose Maria Aznar, who was joined by other European leaders as he led one march, pledged to hunt down the terrorists whose bombs sparked new fears about Europe’s vulnerability to attack.

The debate over who was responsible for the attacks could affect the outcome of national elections tomorrow.

Aznar and his government ministers blamed the Basque group ETA, which has fought for decades for an independent Basque homeland. But there was concern that Islamic militants and perhaps even the al Qaida terror network had been involved.

“So far, none of the intelligence services or security forces we have contacted have provided reliable information to the effect that it could have been an Islamic terrorist organisation,” interior minister Angel Acebes said yesterday.

If ETA is found responsible, that could boost support for Mariano Rajoy, Aznar’s hand-picked candidate to succeed him as prime minister. Both have supported a crackdown on ETA’s campaign for an independent state in northern Spain, ruling out talks and backing a ban on ETA’s political wing, Batasuna.

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

A Batasuna leader, Arnaldo Otegi, accused the government of seeking political gain by blaming ETA. “The Spanish government is lying,” he said.

The attack’s lethal co-ordination and timing – 10 explosions within 15 minutes - suggested al Qaida. But the compressed dynamite used in the backpack bombs is an explosive favoured by ETA.

ETA denied responsibility, according to Gara, a Basque newspaper that the armed group uses to issue statements. The daily paper said a caller claiming to represent ETA phoned its newsroom yesterday to deny government allegations that the group was to blame.

It was the first time ETA was known to have issued such a denial. The group normally claims its attacks in statements to pro-Basque independence media several weeks later.

Suspicions of al Qaida involvement increased after police found a stolen van with seven detonators and an Arabic-language audio tape of Koranic verses parked in a suburb near where the bombed trains originated. A London-based Arabic newspaper also received a claim of responsibility in al-Qaida’s name that called the attack ”part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America’s ally in its war against Islam”.

The death toll climbed to 199 yesterday with the death of a seven-month-old girl. Of the more than 1,400 wounded, 367 people remained in hospital, about 50 in a serious condition. Of the dead, 84 bodies remained unidentified.

Since the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, only the Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people in 2002 have been more deadly.

Workers in surgical masks and cutting torches began dismantling huge sections of the bombed-out trains, taking samples for study.

Last night’s massive rallies in Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Valencia and other cities and towns were a remarkable show of unity in a nation divided by regional loyalties and languages.

“We all need to be here to repudiate these killings. All of us. It is our duty,” said Manuel Velasco, a university professor.

Marchers held banners reading “No to Terror” and ”Today Our Tears Reach Heaven.” Another read simply ”Who and Why?”

Before the rallies began, offices, shops and cafes across Spain emptied at noon as people stood in silence on the streets to honour the dead. Authorities had requested a minute’s silence but many people in Madrid stood in drizzly, chilly weather for about 10 minutes.

The silence ended when the people broke into spontaneous applause in a traditional sign of respect and solidarity.

Aznar stood outside the presidential palace with senior officials. The silence there was broken when someone shouted: “Send the terrorists to the firing squad.”

In Barcelona, subways and buses halted and construction work stopped. In northern Spain’s Basque region, hundreds of students and professors at the University of the Basque Country in Leioa also stood in silence.

“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, police hastily evacuated the Atocha train station amid a bomb scare that turned out to be a false alarm.

Mostly though, Madrid was engulfed in grief. Black bows of mourning dotted the city, on shop windows, on flags draped from balconies, and on lapels. Relatives converged on a makeshift morgue, searching for missing loved ones.

Commuters fell silent as their trains rumbled past the bombed-out hulks at Atocha station.

At Atocha, mourners sobbed, lit candles and left flowers as the normally bustling hub turned quiet.

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.