High-speed trains to southern Spain began running again yesterday after a bomb found on the line was defused but fears grew that Islamic extremists could strike again after the Madrid rail bombings.
The 12-kg bomb found on Friday on the high-speed line from Madrid to the southern city of Seville revived tension that was just beginning to subside after suspected Al-Qaeda-linked commuter train bombs killed 191 people on March 11.
Interior Minister Angel Acebes told a news conference the dynamite in Friday's bomb was of the same Goma 2 Eco make as that used on March 11 and said it was possible that the type of detonator could be common to both. However, officials cautioned that both the explosives and detonators are widely used in mining.
The bomb was spotted by railway workers and defused. Investigators believe extremists planned to derail a high-speed train in an attack that might have killed hundreds of people.
Acebes has said the radical Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group is the main suspect in the March 11 bombings, but he threw no light on who might be responsible for Friday's bomb.
"The investigation is beginning and so it would be very hasty to say any organisation was responsible for yesterday," he said when asked if it could be the shadowy Moroccan group, which is believed to be tied to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network. Spanish newspapers were less cautious, saying the evidence pointed to Islamic militants in both cases.
El Pais newspaper reported that Spain is the main Al-Qaeda base in Europe and said police believed al Qaeda could strike again here.
Spain could be a target for attack by Islamic militants because of its strong support for US policy on Iraq under outgoing Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.
But Socialist leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who takes office later this month after his upset victory in elections held three days after the Madrid bombs, has pledged to bring 1,300 Spanish troops home from Iraq if the United Nations does not take charge there by the end of June.
The prestigious AVE trains, which can reach 350 kmh, began running again yesterday after being suspended on Friday while police painstakingly checked the track.
But passengers were anxious and trains which had been almost fully booked a few days earlier were half-empty, said a Reuters correspondent travelling on one of the first high-speed trains out of Madrid.
"It always affects you. You can't be calm. Everything seems fairly under control but you don't know what will happen," said passenger Jose Antonio Perez, a 40-year-old chemist. Normally, the trains would have been packed with travellers leaving town for the Holy Week holiday.
The chairman of Spanish state railway company Renfe, Miguel Corsini, took the first high-speed service to Seville to show it was safe. The train arrived without incident.
Spain is holding 15 people, many of them Moroccan, over the March 11 attacks. Interpol said it had issued international wanted persons notices for six suspects in the Madrid train bombing investigation. It sent the notices to police in 181 countries after a Spanish judge signed arrest warrants for the five Moroccans and one Tunisian.
"With terrorism an ever-increasing threat, efficient co-operation between the world's police is essential," Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said in a statement.
Spanish authorities, anxious to reassure citizens, ordered the army to help protect the high-speed railway and other key installations, using helicopters and armoured vehicles.