Massive attacks against trains in Spain/Madrid

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2004-03-11 04:39am

CNN.Com They say ~30 dead but a Swedish newspaper says 65+.

Really bad anyway!

Post by **Colonel Olrik** » 2004-03-11 05:24am

You've just beat me to posting it.

Newest count, 65 dead and rising. Hundreds wounded, city in chaos (according to elmundo).

More info:

bbc news:

elmundo (spanish)

They blame ETA, but fuck, this is the most violent ETA action I've ever seen. It looks like Iraq.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2004-03-11 06:22am

Holy shit! This is heavy. I suppose I'll be getting called to fly to Spain in the next few hours. See everyone when I see you.

Ubiquitous · Post by **Ubiquitous** » 2004-03-11 06:38am

Live BBC News 24 coverage:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/live/now1.ram

Ubiquitous · Post by **Ubiquitous** » 2004-03-11 06:40am

Breaking News from said news-feed: 120 now feared dead.

RIP.

Ubiquitous · Post by **Ubiquitous** » 2004-03-11 06:47am

It gets worse I'm afraid: 131 dead, 400 wounded.

Murazor · Post by **Murazor** » 2004-03-11 07:49am

I'm Spanish and some of my relatives live in Madrid, they are well, but some of they have seen it and its a carnage. This is by far the most violent terrorist attack in Spain ever. This isn't the usual attack by ETA and may very well have to be with Spanish involvement in Irak.

Post by **Colonel Olrik** » 2004-03-11 07:55am

Murazor wrote:I'm Spanish and some of my relatives live in Madrid, they are well, but some of they have seen it and its a carnage. This is by far the most violent terrorist attack in Spain ever. This isn't the usual attack by ETA and may very well have to be with Spanish involvement in Irak.

Now elmundo says 173 dead, 592 wounded. I expect these numbers to get a lot higher. Sharpnel wounds..

Man, you have my sincerest sympathies.

The portuguese newspaper Publico ( http://ultimahora.publico.pt ) is now quoting the Batazuna spokesman, and he denies any involvement of ETA in the attack..

EDIT: elmundo has just put up that news.

Murazor · Post by **Murazor** » 2004-03-11 08:01am

Colonel Olrik wrote:Now elmundo says 173 dead, 592 wounded. I expect these numbers to get a lot higher. Sharpnel wounds..

Man, you have my sincerest sympathies. The portuguese newspaper Publico ( http://ultimahora.publico.pt ) is now quoting the Batazuna spokesman, and he denies any involvement of ETA in the attack..

Thank your for the condolences. I too fear that this will evolve for the worse. And whoever is guilty, I hope will pay for this. No idea, no religion is good enough to justify this kind of things.

Post by **Vympel** » 2004-03-11 08:09am

For some reason the Basque seperatists don't strike me as the ones responsible; it just doesn't seem like something they'd do.

Post by **Colonel Olrik** » 2004-03-11 08:13am

Vympel wrote:For some reason the Basque seperatists don't strike me as the ones responsible; it just doesn't seem like something they'd do.

That's a feeling shared by many. Either it wasn't them, or ETA has been through some dramatic internal changes, for the worse.

Post by **Colonel Olrik** » 2004-03-11 08:48am

This is most probably a paranoid nutcase throught, but it has just ocurred to me that today is the eleventh of the month, and that the attack was at 9 am spanish time.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2004-03-11 08:49am

Colonel Olrik wrote:
Vympel wrote:For some reason the Basque seperatists don't strike me as the ones responsible; it just doesn't seem like something they'd do.
That's a feeling shared by many. Either it wasn't them, or ETA has been through some dramatic internal changes, for the worse.

Indeed ... I can't recall an ETA attack anywhere close to this visciousness. I mean they targetted a train in peak hour to explode just when it pulls up on a Madrid station.

If this is ETA's work, they aren't going to win many sympathisers in Barcelona for this.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-03-11 09:02am

Christ...

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2004-03-11 09:11am

Colonel Olrik wrote:This is most probably a paranoid nutcase throught, but it has just ocurred to me that today is the eleventh of the month, and that the attack was at 9 am spanish time.

Didn't they catch ETA trying to smuggle 500kg of explosives into Madrid last month and they did find explosive on trains before that they have traced back to ETA.
So I would bet on ETA, although along your line of thinking it is exactly 2.5 years since Sept 11th today.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2004-03-11 09:14am

I'm watching BBC live right now, and the question is going back and forth. The Spanish government is convinced that it is Eta, but a Professor on Spanish politics is saying that the organisation is just too good for Eta ... which either implies someone else, or they're stepping it up.

Both conclusions are frightening.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2004-03-11 09:16am

Also there is a denial from an Eta politcal contact, and the fact that this isn't the usual modus operandi; they usually go after government and or police figures.

Also Eta usualy rings up with a warning.

This is fucked up.

CJvR · Post by **CJvR** » 2004-03-11 09:22am

Could be the more rabid elements of ETA getting some assistance from A-Q. IIRC, Spain was behind Bush in the Iraq operation.

Still, I suspect that it very well could be ETA, they have been losing their war against Spain for the last decades with steadily decreasing support from the Basqe population. Unless they want to admit defeat they have to do something radical and the hard core of ETA is probably quite likely to choose that path rather than admitting that they have degenerated into little more than criminal gang. Fanatics are never more dangerous than when they are staring into the abyss of their own defeat.

Sebastin · Post by **Sebastin** » 2004-03-11 09:28am

OH Fuck, this looks bad.

I hope as many as possible of the injured can be saved, the death toll is horrible as it is. And bomb injuries tend to be gruesome.

Also, every other country in europe better already has help heading for madrid. Regardless wether or not they arrive in time to make any real difference in the immedeate help. Might just be if they were set in motion quick enough; It´s not that far. Time (again) to put some substance behind the retoric about being one community.

It looks like it has been a quite sophisticated operation. There were 4 bombs exploding at seperate locations and "many" more that didn´t explode (according to german newsmag spiegel).

I don´t know much about ETA but I take it they are capable of such a coordinated operation and there aren´t any other known groups in spain who are. Planting that many bombs coordinated is no small feat. It is however totally out of stile for ETA. It´s also to big to be the work of a splinter group, this got to be an attack with the consentus of the majority of the organization and such a drastic shift in MO is rather hard to believe for a relativly well established and entrenched organization. So it seems unlikely it was them. Bit of a mystery right know.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2004-03-11 09:33am

Sebastin wrote:It looks like it has been a quite sophisticated operation. There were 4 bombs exploding at seperate locations and "many" more that didn´t explode (according to german newsmag spiegel).

Yeah I heard that on the BBC too. It seems that the Madrid police found other packages and had to do controlled explosions on them.

Shit, how many were there?

Post by **Colonel Olrik** » 2004-03-11 09:43am

Crown wrote:
Sebastin wrote:It looks like it has been a quite sophisticated operation. There were 4 bombs exploding at seperate locations and "many" more that didn´t explode (according to german newsmag spiegel).
Yeah I heard that on the BBC too. It seems that the Madrid police found other packages and had to do controlled explosions on them.

Shit, how many were there?

according to elmundo, 13 exploded (in four trains) and another 3 were made to explode.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2004-03-11 10:07am

Sebastin wrote:substance behind the retoric about being one community.

It looks like it has been a quite sophisticated operation. There were 4 bombs exploding at seperate locations and "many" more that didn´t explode (according to german newsmag spiegel).

you must have misread something or read an old article. der spiegel claims that 13 bombs went off and 3 more were found by officials and exploded under controlled circumstances:

spiegel article

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2004-03-11 10:12am

This just doesn't seem like ETA's style. Murdering civilians has never been their thing.

Sebastin · Post by **Sebastin** » 2004-03-11 10:15am

Older article. At the time I posted they said 4 bombs and "etliche mehr" not exploding. Spiegel is updating every 5 minutes or so.

16 bombs total is frightening. The existence of an group organized enough to plant that many coordinated is. Fuck.

Spiegel now also says: more than 170 dead, more than 890 injured.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2004-03-11 10:21am

It seems to be ETA and they didn't give warning this time. It's the largest single terrorist attack in Spain or any EU nation from what I can see.

This is just horrific, my Dad was in Basque separatist country only a few months ago and they seemed to be okay, though they do highlight their differences with the rest of Spain.