TA-ATTACKS: Terrorist Rail Bombings in Madrid, Al Qaeda Claims Responsibility, Threatens US Attacks

And just when everyone thought the coverage was graphic enough, BBC comes out with even more pictures.

i have been flicking between sky/fox/cnn/bbc and the general concensus is 60+ fatalities 100's more wounded, that atleast 3 simultanious explosions were on the same train, they are saying bombs wrapped in plastic bags etc.

they are also saying there is 3 train stations that have been bombed (BBC), Cnn don't know if the bombs were all at the one station.

as far as ive heard there hasnt been anymore explosions.

there was no warning either which ties in with previous attacks.

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not related, a watermain just burst across the road from my house, action a plenty.

I just dropped my wife off at work and I heard it on the radio.

It was an unconfirmed report of a sixth explosion.

But I can't find it either so perhaps it was a mistake in the confusion.

they just said on cnn that there actually was annother explosion (they did say it was only the 5th), and they also said that large scale demonstrations have been scheduled for 7pm tomorrow (spanish time) (a silly option IMHO more attacks could result).

62 dead, 29 dead in 1 train 30 dead at other stations (according to the spanish interior minister) others dead (don't know how they worked out 62, 29+30 = 59)

news.com.au are also reporting 62 dead.

so we know that The ETA want their own territory (ala palestine), we also know that this could postpone the spanish elections.

A sad day for Spain.

CNN just reported 131 dead, 400 wounded, death toll still rising

I feel that this is more of a statement than a true explosion with intent to harm...
Several thousand ball bearings in the explosive package would make casualties hundreds of times worse, (making, in essence, a claymore).
Or explosions delayed to 10-30 minutes after the initial ones, as all the media and emergency services arrive...
Either that, or it was somewhat an amateur job..
Think about it, if you wanted to kill there are a thousand ways to improve the bombs used just slightly and cost-effectively to make them thousands of times more lethal

The BBC are now reporting over 100 confirmed dead

Reuters reporting 173 dead and rising.


www.reuters.com...�ion=news


[Edited on 11-3-2004 by John bull 1]

Yep also hearing 173 died,

shocked the life out of me when i heard the news as my brother lives there..
but luckly hes ok.

My thoughts are with the famiys here..

This is disgusting. I hope they find the people who did this and beat them in public for all to see.

latest reports.

173+ dead, 600+ injured, up to 13 bombs (3 were deifused, they were set to timers so they would explode when rescue workers turned up) over 3 stations.

up to 5 explosions simultanious, others afterwards, many are Blaming ETA, but not ruling out alqaeda although it isnt the typical attack for either group.

spanish authorities are looking for two men who boarded the train then got off before the train left.

the believed delivery method is bombs in back packs.

this attack is being likend to bloody friday (the ira set off 22 bombs in london/ireland all within an hour of each other 22 dead).

ETA ususally have specific targets to attack/assasinate, usually political figures although they have attacked shopping malls.

no-one is ruling out the possability of this attack being carried out by an ETA splinter group.

alqaeda could be annother possible group resposable, because of the fact spain was with the US & Britian in the war on terror and Iraq.

Originally posted by John bull 1
Reuters reporting 173 dead and rising.

Jesus Christ. News seems to be getting worse and worse as the hours progress. I hope they catch the bastards who did this.

Minister: 3 more devices were found.
they were expected to blow as the emergancy services
arrived.

This is just out right sick!

It's a proven tactic asala, you cause way more terror if you kill the emergency services by delaying.

Am i the only one thinking that this is not the full "event", i can see something else happening rather soon, call it journalistic intuition.

dont see how ETA can gain anything from this? hmm

Originally posted by Teflon
dont see how ETA can gain anything from this? hmm

I think they're denying this because:

(A) It is the work of a rogue ETA faction and not the party proper.
(B) They didnt expect so many people to die from this.

I think this is what we be remembered as the defacto start of World War 3, i even heard the term several times on Sky AND the BBC.

Nerdling just curious, why would this be the start of WW3? I am not familiar with ETA (guess that is another case of being american and not realizing a world exsist outside our shores).

Are they very powerful? Would they attack others?

I have a gut feeling we may find al queda was involved, after all they did say they would retaliate against our coalition partners.

Just wondering how this could escalate, I know WW1 started with a single assasination but the world seems to have changed. I always felt if 9/11 did not start it no terror attack would (outside of nukes).


[Edited on 3/11/2004 by nativeokie]

Well World War 3 is the war on terror.

This is the largest terrorist attack in europe since Lockerbie back in 1983 (?)

That makes sense. Now that I consider the War on Terror as WW3 I could see how if this attack was by another terror organization it could escalate the situation. We do seem to be singularly focused on one group but there are many others (didn't Tenet say that the other day).

It will be interesting to see how the EU responds to this. Will they simply consider it a problem of Spain or see it as an attack on their Union?

Can the Spanish government retaliate? Can they bomb training camps (are there training camps?).

If the ETA is "homegrown" it seems to me retaliation is difficult. Could we have bombed Nevada if we found terrorist there? Okay that is a stretch but, would this be a military or police action. Very interesting to consider how the world will react to this. Also I am very interested in how the EU responds. They are wanting to be considered a world power (possibly the next super power) but do we see them as anything more then a partnership or as an actual merging of countries into a singular world power. This could be their test.