Madrid attacks different from London: Anti-terror chief

Spain’s intelligence chief today said that July’s terrorist attacks in London differed from last year’s Madrid train bombings in their apparent co-ordination.

Alberto Saiz, the director of the National Intelligence Centre, told the newspaper El Pais that similarities between the attacks were limited to “their outward appearance” and targeting of transport networks.

“At that point, the differences start,” Saiz was quoted as saying. The July 7 group of London bombers was “small, just four people – less visible than the Madrid one.”

“Two weeks later, they try a second episode of the same attack – obviously, the perpetrators are not the same,” Saiz said.

“In contrast to Madrid, this gives us the sensation that they are co-ordinated with other groups or have direction from above – and that there is a plan,” he added.

“This is not an isolated group that decides to act on its own account – the decision comes from above.”

The March 2004 bombings of commuter trains in Madrid killed 191 people and injured more than 1,500.

The July 7 suicide bombings in London killed 52 victims on three subway trains and a bus; botched bombing attempts on similar targets July 21 rattled Londoners’ nerves but took no lives.

The Madrid attacks “surprised us all in terms of their form,” Saiz told El Pais. The people behind them “formed a local group, with no apparent connection to the leadership of al-Qaida, at least no direct connection.”

“There was, as far as we know, no chief of operations who said to a terrorist: ‘come to Madrid and carry out an attack.”

Saiz said Spanish authorities have had a “constant exchange of information” with their British counterparts over recent weeks.

“A number of lines of investigation have been opened and closed in Spain, always at British request,” he said.