[extropy-chat] Re: Arabic newspaper says al-Qaeda claims responsibility

[Christian Weisgerber]

Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:

> Arabic newspaper says al-Qaeda claims responsibility

We simply don't know yet.  Any idiot can claim responsibility.

Since it hit Spain, ETA is a natural suspect and in fact everybody
there seems to naturally have assumed that in fact it was ETA.

Arguments pro ETA responsibility:
* We're in the final days of campaining before the parliamentary
  elections.  ETA likes to remind everybody of their existence at
  those times.
* Supposedly--this may be a rumor--the explosive used was just the
  same ETA uses.
* Supposedly the intelligence services had given warnings that an
  attack was to be expected.

Contra ETA responsibility:
* ETA prefers targeted assassination of representatives of the Spanish
  state (members of government, police, Guardia Civil, etc.) and
  political opponents.  This mass killing of civilians is very unlike
  ETA.
* When they occasionally target the public, ETA tends to give
  half an hour advance notice that they have planted a bomb.  Their
  goal is terror, not deaths.
* The number of individual attacks that had to be coordinated for
  this, the sheer scale of things is way beyond anything ETA has
  ever demonstrated.

The attack appears to have been carried out with time-triggered
bombs.  It was not a suicide attack.

I would imagine that there are some ETA-associated voices on the
net, but I'm only aware of Basque Red <URL:http://www.basque-red.net/>
and they are silent, "last update: March 10".

-- 
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy at mips.inka.de