Investigators yesterday hunted for the bombers who blew up four trains, killing at least 198 people, while Spaniards lit candles and left flowers outside a station and the nation mourned the victims of its worst terrorist attack ever.
Authorities blamed militant Basque separatists for Thursday's stunningly well-coordinated string of 10 explosions on packed commuter trains, but they were also studying a claim of responsibility by a shadowy group in the name of al-Qaeda.
Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar said after a Cabinet meeting yesterday that all lines of investigation remain open in the terror probe.
The death toll rose overnight from 192 to 198, deputy Justice Minister Rafael Alcala said, adding that 84 bodies remain to be identified.
More than 1,400 people were wounded on Thursday as panicked commuters trampled on each other, abandoning their bags and shoes. Train cars were turned into twisted wrecks and platforms were strewn with corpses. Cell phones rang unanswered on the bodies of the dead as frantic relatives tried to call them.
Three days of mourning were declared and campaigning was called off for Spain's general election, but Foreign Minister Ana Palacio pledged that the vote would be held on Sunday as planned.
As day broke yesterday, television and radio re-ran horrific witness accounts of flaming bodies and other carnage on four morning rush hour trains full of workers and students. Commuters yesterday sobbed, lit candles and left flowers at Madrid's Atocha station, which was the first one hit in the attacks, and trains had to roll past wreckage left on the track.
The 10 backpack bombs exploded in a 15-minute span, starting about 7:39am on trains along 14.5km of commuter line from Santa Eugenia to the Atocha terminal, a bustling hub for subway, commuter and long-distance trains just south of the famed Prado Museum. Police also found and detonated three other bombs.
The e-mail claim of responsibility, signed by the shadowy Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri and received by the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi, said the brigade's "death squad" had penetrated "one of the pillars of the crusade alliance, Spain."
"This is part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America's ally in its war against Islam," the claim said.
Spain had backed the US-led war on Iraq despite domestic opposition, and many al-Qaeda-linked terrorists have been captured in Spain.
Spain's government is studying the claim but still believes ETA is more likely responsible, a senior official in Aznar's office said.
But after police found a stolen van with seven detonators and an Arabic-language tape parked in a suburb near where the stricken trains originated, Interior Minister Angel Acebes said: "I have just given instructions to the security forces not to rule out any line of investigation."
A top Basque politician, Arnold Otegi, denied ETA was behind the blasts and blamed "Arab resistance," noting Spain's support for the Iraq war.
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