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# Posted 4:34 PM by Patrick Belton

LONDON NEWSPAPER SAYS AL QA'EDA-AFFILIATED GROUP CLAIMED RESPONSIBILITY FOR SPAIN ATTACK - which of course, they might have an incentive to do even if they hadn't carried off the event, but if true could very likely make 3/11 Europe's 9/11.

The announcement ran in Al Quds al Arabi:

The newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi said it received a five-page e-mail from the Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri claiming its "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 unverified claim said.

WaPo has added:

The statement to the al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper said, "We have succeeded in infiltrating the heart of crusader Europe and struck one of the bases of the crusader alliance," and called the attacks "Operation Death Trains."

The statement, which was faxed to Reuters, was signed by the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades. That group also has claimed responsibility for the November bombing of two synagogues in Turkey and the August bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad.

Reuters, for its part, has:

We bring the good news to Muslims of the world that the expected 'Winds of Black Death' strike against America is now in its final stage...90 percent (ready) and God willing near," the letter said.... A copy of the letter was faxed to Reuters in Dubai.

Also, Spanish investigators have found detonators and a Qur'anic tape in Arabic in a stolen van near Madrid.

Several thoughts at the moment: the coordinated aspect of the attacks in different locations, as well as the scale of casualties, would both tend to be points in favor of an Al Qa'eda attribution; further, Al Qa'eda had threatened Spain as an ally of the United States's in the Iraq war; Eta as a matter of practice has always telephoned a warning prior to an attack in public; and finally, Eta has not produced a massive attack in years, with the number of its operatives pared after a series of high-profile arrests. On the other side of the balance sheet, a new generation of leaders will be coming into their own in Eta precisely on account of those arrests; and the timing, 72 hours before elections predicted to return a right-of-center party, would seem to suggest a domestic group. Of course, there always remains the analytic possibility that Eta and Al Qaeda may have joined forces - in the way that Hamas and the IRA share weapons and operatives (and in their case, post-colonial ideology), and may both be found in FARC-controlled areas of Colombia - they may simply have decided that both groups could agree on having Spain as an enemy. Like everyone, I'll be following the news very closely for the next few days, to see how the attribution dilemma unfolds.

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