Spain vows to hunt Madrid bombers

MADRID - Spain has vowed to follow every lead to hunt down the Madrid train bombers as all Europe waits on edge for word of whether Basque or Muslim militants were behind the bloodiest guerrilla attack on a European city.

Two days before a general election that he insisted would go ahead as planned, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar stuck to his initial accusation that Spain's local Basque separatists killed 198 commuters and wounded nearly 1500.

But fears that Islamists linked to al Qaeda might have had a hand in the coordinated blitz put security forces on alert across the continent and beyond.

"No line of investigation will be ruled out," Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar said on Friday minutes before mourning Spaniards fell silent across the nation to honour the nearly 200 dead.

Aznar defended strongly, however, his government's initial pointing of blame at Basque guerrilla group ETA.

"Why does the government think there may be evidence that leads us to the terrorist organisation we know so well here?" he asked, before citing recent foiled ETA plots and intelligence indicating the group was aiming at public transport targets.

"What did this terrorist organisation want when they tried to enter Madrid last week with 500 kilos of explosives? ... It's a line of investigation any Spanish government that hasn't lost its head has to follow. It's the one we are following, and if there are other hypotheses, we'll follow them too."

Responsibility for Thursday's attacks on packed commuter trains -- which killed at least 198 people and also wounded 1,463 -- could be crucial to the outcome of Sunday's general election which is going ahead despite three days of mourning.

Victims from the Madrid bombs included 14 nationals of 10 other countries: three Peruvians, two Hondurans, two Poles, one Chilean, one Cuban, one Ecuadorean, one from Guinea Bissau, one French, one Moroccan and one Colombian, Aznar said.

Aznar said the government had set aside 140 million euros for compensation and aid to victims and their families.

SPANIARDS HONOUR DEAD

As condemnation came from Pope John Paul to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, jittery European nations tightened security and bomb scares in Spain kept nerves strained.

Washington said a letter claiming responsibility for al Qaeda and threatening another September 11-style strike could be the "precursor" of another plot against America.

"We have succeeded in infiltrating the heart of crusader Europe and struck one of the bases of the crusader alliance," said the letter, a copy of which was faxed by London-based al-Quds newspaper to Reuters in Dubai.

No authentication was available of the letter attributed to the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, a group aligned to al Qaeda.

Practically all of Spain came to a halt at midday for silent vigils. Spaniards stopped in their homes and workplaces, broadcasters fell silent and drivers stood by their cars on main highways. Spanish flags and black ribbons fluttered from houses.

Joined by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and a host of other senior European officials, millions of Spaniards joined evening protests called by Aznar under the slogan "With the Victims, With the Constitution, For the Defeat of Terrorism".

Spanish papers united in their condemnation of "Our September 11" and said establishing blame would now be a critical factor in Sunday's general election.

The ruling centre-right Popular Party (PP) had campaigned on its hardline stance against ETA. But if the attacks were the work of Islamic militants, it could be viewed as the price for Spain's backing of the US-led war in Iraq.

"HELL UNLEASHED"

"If the hell unleashed which burned the whole of Madrid on Thursday is the result of Islamic fanaticism, we must look at Spain's role in the Iraq war: an involvement which our citizens rejected, a personal decision by the prime minister beyond the wishes of the majority," commentator Antonio Gala said.

Fuelling the al Qaeda suspicions, Interior Minister Angel Acebes said late on Thursday police had found a van containing seven detonators and a tape in Arabic at a town near Madrid where the bombs may have been placed on the trains.

Aznar said "no fanatical minority" would be allowed to derail Sunday's general election, while investigations into the perpetrators should "bear fruit" soon.

"Nothing would please me more than to say 'these are the murderers' and to bring them to justice," he added.

If ETA is responsible for the 10 blasts it would be by far the bloodiest attack carried out by the group, which has killed about 850 people since 1968 in its fight for a separate Basque homeland in northwest Spain and southwest France.

ETA has been branded a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union.

Thursday's death toll was the biggest in a guerrilla attack in Europe since December 1988 when a bomb exploded on board a Pan American Boeing 747, bringing it down on the Scottish town of Lockerbie. In all, 270 people were killed.

European shares slipped to fresh five-week lows on Friday while the dollar trimmed previous day's losses on fallout from the Madrid blasts.

- REUTERS

Sequence of events in Madrid bombings:

7:39am - Three backpacks loaded with explosives detonate on a commuter train in Madrid's Atocha station.

7:44am - Four backpack bombs explode on commuter train entering Atocha station.

7:49am - Backpack bomb explodes as commuter train enters Santa Eugenia train station, 14km from Atocha.

7.54am - Two bombs explode on double-decker commuter train in El Pozo station, 10km from Atocha.

10am - Police carry out controlled explosions of three booby-trap backpack bombs - two in Atocha, one in El Pozo - they believe attackers planned to set off after first wave.