Bollettino



Our friend B. writes from Spain (B. asked us to clean up the grammar of this letter. No need to. It is perfectly clear as is):



"Aznar wishes it is ETA, but it does seem to be Al

Qaeda now. It is the Spanish Gov. the one that is

actually bombing us with lame propaganda. The reason

everyone believed immediately that it was ETA is

because of the escalating tension that we have been

living in during the electoral campaign (Elections

this sunday!). My reading is that this terrorist

attack is Ben Laden getting back at Aznar for his

support to Bush. This afternoon Aznar gave a pathetic

press conference: he had to read a paper, because he

was not even capable of memorizing a few sentences. He

sounded like it was his goodbye speech, thanking the

police for their great job (!) against ETA during

these past eight years... This is the image that he

will leave behind. Today he was reaping the fruits of

his policy. The National TV is still intoxicating us

with interviews about ETA, people complaining about it

and so forth while INTERNET is already carrying the

news that Al Qaeda has lready called an Arabian paper

in London to acknowledge this attack.



The ETA subplot here began in January 4th. A Catalan

leftist politician (the equivalent of a PRIME MINISTER

of the Catalan Gov.) had a secret meeting with ETA in

Southern France. This rendezvous was later denounced

by a Spanish newspaper ABC, and the Catalan prime

minister had to resign. The funny thing is that he

left the government to run for the current elections

for the Spanish Congress. This infuriated Aznar. A

week later, ETA announced a special truce only for

Catalonia. This is new in ETA history. They had never

singled out a territory before. They claimed that we

were cool because our government was leftist and

independentist. This, as you can imagine, infuriated

Aznar even more. Last week, this is the third turn of

the screw, the Spanish police arrested two ETA

terrorist who were heading towards Madrid, driving a

van full of dinamite. They had plans to bomb Madrid.



This is why everyone assumed it was ETA right away.

The question is if ETA has emulated Al Qaeda by

bombing without warning (they usually warned before if

they attacked civilians) and by planning a massacre.

More people died in Madrid today than were killed by

ETA in the last 20 years, I think.



This is the story so far. Spain has not finished

fighting an inside demon and is already facing a new

screen, a larger scale terror. Aznar will pay a big

price for it."



Note: the Economist mentions a similar set of facts (although B. is the first to put them in English, that I am aware of).