Spain calls in army after bomb found on tracks

1.00pm

MOCEJON - Spain has sent in the army to guard its railways after last night finding a bomb under a high-speed track that contained explosives similar to those used in last month's Madrid bombings.

Travel was disrupted as millions of Spaniards tried to set out for Holy Week Easter holidays. It reopened emotional wounds still raw from the suspected Islamist al Qaeda bombings on March 11 that killed 191 people three days before a general election.

The 12 kilograms of dynamite, packed in a bag, was found in open country near the town of Mocejon, near the central city of Toledo. It was defused safely. Investigators believe the bomb was planted Friday and intended to derail a speeding train.

With the threat of new carnage averted, Interior Minister Angel Acebes said police would painstakingly check the Madrid-Seville line on which the bomb was found.

The high-speed train takes just 2-1/2 hours to cover the 385 kilometres from the Spanish capital to Seville.

The operation to patrol the rail line would involve 45 helicopters, police dog units and army all-terrain vehicles, including armoured vehicles, Acebes said.

"A whole operation to reinforce security has been put in place, involving the armed forces, police, Civil Guard and security guards of (state railway firm) Renfe," Acebes said.

The possibility that the explosives, though not uncommon, may be the same as the type used to blow up four commuter trains last month raised fears that the al Qaeda-linked group believed to be behind the Madrid attacks could still be operating.

"The specialists say it could be the same as was used on March 11," Acebes said.

Spain is holding 15 people, many of them Moroccan, in connection with the Madrid attacks, which one Islamist group said were reprisals for Madrid's backing of the US invasion of Iraq. The Socialist party, upset winners of the election held in the wake of the bombings, plans to bring its 1,300 troops home from Iraq.

VULNERABLE TARGET

An attack on one of Europe's new-generation, high-speed trains travelling at full tilt could have had disastrous consequences. More than 100 people died in 1998 when a German ICE train similar to Spain's AVE express jumped the rails.
Bomb scares have disrupted French trains, included the prestigious Channel Tunnel line to London, since the Madrid train attacks.

High-speed trains on the Seville line were halted after the discovery, leaving thousands of travellers stranded and angry at the start of one of the busiest travel periods of the year.

"We are stuck in the middle of Madrid, and have no idea what to do," said despairing Venezuelan John Callet at the Atocha station, terminus of the prestigious AVE service and one of the stations hit by the March 11 bombings.

Millions of Spaniards will flood out of cities in the next few days for Easter holidays next Sunday. Seville, capital of Andalucia and a jewel of the Arab princes who ruled southern Spain until the 15th century, is especially famed for its Holy Week celebrations.

Acebes said security forces believed the bomb was planted on Friday morning as the bag was dry and the cables new.

"The initiator had not yet been placed and therefore they were probably interrupted by something, perhaps the presence of a guard or a police patrol," Acebes said.

The bomb had been in a hole near where a road crosses the track, said a Reuters reporter at the scene.

It was found as members of parliament elected on March 14 took their seats in Madrid. The Socialists surprisingly ousted the Popular Party, helped by some voters' anger at the outgoing conservative government's handling of the attack.

- REUTERS