Spaniards voted yesterday in a general election thrown wide open by a reported al-Qaeda claim that it staged the Madrid rail bombings to punish the government for supporting the Iraq war.
Ruling Popular Party candidate Mariano Rajoy led most polls until last Thursday's bombing which killed 200 and injured 1,500 others. His conservative party had been projected to win the most seats in the 350-member Congress of Deputies, and maybe retain its outright majority.
Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's government initially blamed the Basque separatist group ETA for the rail attack, even as evidence mounted of an Islamic link and the opposition accused the government of withholding information.
Then on Saturday night Interior Minister Angel Acebes announced the arrests of three Moroccans and two Indians and later disclosed the existence of a videotape in which a man speaking Arabic said Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror group claims responsibility for the rail blasts.
The videotape was recovered from a trash basket near a Madrid mosque, after an Arabic-speaking man called a Madrid TV station to say it was there, Acebes said.
"We declare our responsibility for what happened in Madrid," said the man on the video, according to a government translation of the statement delivered in Arabic. "It is a response to your collaboration with the criminals Bush and his allies."
The man noted that the bombings came exactly 2 1/2 years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the US.
The news was broadcast on national TV and could sway the election.
Twenty people in the Basque city of Bilbao said early yesterday that recent events would not influence their vote. None would say which party they planned to vote for.
"I had already decided," said Maria Sonjuaisti, 42, "The attacks confirmed what I already had in mind."
Another voter in Madrid said he was upset by the attacks.
"It was the worst attack since the (1936-39) Civil War," said Angel Bueno, 51. "We want to know who is responsible for this massacre. It looks as if it was al-Qaeda. This shouldn't happen in Spain or the United States."
Spaniards including the main opposition candidate, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero of the Socialist party, opposed last year's US-led invasion of Iraq, which Aznar endorsed. He later sent 1,300 peacekeeping troops.
Thousands of demonstrators gathered outside Popular Party headquarters in Madrid and other cities Saturday night demanding the truth about who carried out the bombing, and also shouting criticism of the government.
"No more cover-ups," read a banner carried by the protesters, who were being watched by riot police.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
TRAGEDY STRIKES TAIPEI: The suspect died after falling off a building after he threw smoke grenades into Taipei Main Station and went on a killing spree in Zhongshan A 27-year-old suspect allegedly threw smoke grenades in Taipei Main Station and then proceeded to Zhongshan MRT Station in a random killing spree that resulted in the death of the suspect and two other civilians, and seven injured, including one in critical condition, as of press time last night. The suspect, identified as a man surnamed Chang Wen (張文), allegedly began the attack at Taipei Main Station, the Taipei Fire Department said, adding that it received a report at 5:24pm that smoke grenades had been thrown in the station. One man in his 50s was rushed to hospital after a cardiac arrest
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
ON ALERT: Taiwan’s partners would issue warnings if China attempted to use Interpol to target Taiwanese, and the global body has mechanisms to prevent it, an official said China has stationed two to four people specializing in Taiwan affairs at its embassies in several democratic countries to monitor and harass Taiwanese, actions that the host nations would not tolerate, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, which asked him and Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) to report on potential conflicts in the Taiwan Strait and military preparedness. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) expressed concern that Beijing has posted personnel from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office to its
RSS