Bombings in Madrid
I'm sure everyone has seen the horrible news out of Madrid today, with multiple bomb blasts in train stations killing almost 200. There is a lot of confusion about where responsibility might lie. ETA, the Basque separatist terrorist group, is the usual suspect any time a bomb goes off in Spain, and rightly so. Initial tests suggest the explosives involved "were a type of dynamite that the ETA normally uses."
Yet my hazy memory has ETA as employing more targeted attacks, car bombs and assassinations, rather than the mass murder of civilians seen here. There are some incidents that go against this trend (the FOX story cites a 1987 supermarket explosion in Barcelona). But if that is generally correct (and I'm not sure it is), then I think there are three likely explanations:
1) This was not an ETA attack. The most likely alternative would be al-Qaeda or a similar Islamist terrorist group. A spokesman connected to ETA denied responsibility for the attack and pointed the finger at Arabs:
"The modus operandi, the high number of victims and the way it was carried out make me think, and I have a hypothesis in mind, that yes it may have been an operative cell from the Arab resistance," Otegi said.
Not entirely clear how credible this guy is, but it is at least one indication that ETA might not have been involved.
2) ETA was involved, but coordinated with another group that encouraged and assisted in this attack. The possibility here is that ETA leaders and/or operatives have been networking with (most likely) al-Qaeda, either executing a plan designed by the Islamists or finally implementing their grandest designs with the newfound assistance of the well-funded and well-connected Arab group.
3) ETA planned and executed the attack alone. In this possibility, I think the change in tactics might easily be credited to the bar that has been set by al-Qaeda in its various Saudi bombings, and of course 9/11. ETA is no longer satisfied by the publicity and response to their traditionally smaller terrorist acts, and planned a larger, more deadly, and more random attack on civilians in the style of the Islamists.
It is hard to say which of these possibilities is the most worrisome. Scenario 1 raises the specter of a still active al-Qaeda, able to plan, organize, and execute a highly deadly attack in yet another Western nation. Scenario 2 involves synergistic cooperation between terrorist groups with little in common other than their violence and their enemies. Scenario 3 suggests that al-Qaeda is no longer the only group able and willing to engage in mass terrorism against civilians, and that the response to al-Qaeda has not discouraged those who would copy their tactics. None of these explanations are particularly reassuring.
