Millions of Spanish Hearts Beat as One

The Spanish Prime Minister, Jose Maria Aznar, called for his people to show solidarity against terror and nearly seven million people heeded his call as they challenged the perpetrators in protests yesterday. In Puerto del Sol of Madrid, 2,300,000 protestors gathered and cursed both the terror and ETA, even though there are suspicions that the bombings might have been the work of Al Qaeda.

In the giant demonstration of Madrid, the Spanish flag was carried by Aznar and other political leaders. French Prime Minister Jean Pierre Raffarin, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Dural Barozu, European Union (EU) President Romano Prodi, E.U. High Commissioner Javier Solana as well as German, Belgium and Morocco Foreign Ministers participated in the protest.

It was observed that many Spanish people preferred to protest the terror with silent walks and holding placards cursing the terror. The slogans were not as ‘extreme’.

The Spanish government took out full page ads in the papers rallying the people for protests. Schools, public banks as well as museums were closed for a day. The scenes of the attacks were showered with candles, flowers and messages of condolences.

Despite the fact that Abu Hafs Al Masri Brigade, which is affiliated with the Al Qaeda network, claimed responsibility for the attacks through a letter sent to a London newspaper, and despite the fact that the ETA has denied accusations that it is responsible for the bombings, Government Spokesman Eduarda Zaplana disclosed that two ETA militants captured on February 29 with 506 kilograms of explosives had a map of the scene of the attacks. The Spokesman also added that the explosives confiscated from the ETA militants were the same type of the explosives used in the attacks. In addition, a U.S. official noted that the style of claim is not characteristic of Al Qaeda.

ETA Made an announcement for the first time last night, claiming that they were not responsible for the attacks. They refuted the claims in a statement released on Basque television. Meanwhile, some sources explained that the detonators used in the attacks were copper, whereas ETA generally uses aluminum detonators.

People of 12 nations were among 199 dead. 50 remain unidentified, 370 are injured 44 of them are in critical condition.

Reportedly, all the foreigners who were subjected to the terror will be granted Spanish citizenship.