AS INVESTIGATIONS into the Madrid attacks continued to point towards Islamic extremists today, Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi roundly accused the Basque separatist movement ETA of involvement, something his interior minister said boded ill for the rest of Europe. "I am convinced that Aznar called it right," said Berlusconi, a staunch ally of Spain's prime minister Jose Maria Aznar. Spanish public opinion turned against Aznar's government after it appeared to rush to judgement in blaming ETA for the attacks, when evidence pointed to the involvement of Islamic extremists intent on revenge for Spain's support for the US-led war in Iraq. "I am convinced that in some way ETA had a role in the March 11 attacks. Let's look at it, the technique is too refined, the timing, the attacks happening at the same time," Berlusconi told reporters, adding that he was expressing a personal feeling and that he had "no proof".
| Ummm... The timing is a hallmark of al-Qaeda operations... |
"This whole story doesn't convince me. Deep down inside, I cannot get rid of the doubt that ETA had some role," said Berlusconi, though he did not rule out the involvement of Islamic extremists. Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu also inclined to the belief that an Islamic group may have had help from a domestic terrorist group, saying it was "very likely" that the bombers had local help. "It is difficult to imagine an operation like the Madrid attacks being carried out without the contribution of vast local involvement," Pisanu said in an interview with the Corriere della Sera daily.
| Except that Spain has a vast local North African population... |
"This concerns me because it would demonstrate that Islamic terrorism can find accomplices in Europe, not only on the extremist fringe of 17 million Muslim immigrants, but also in national terrorism." Italian anti-terrorist police have so far been unable to demonstrate links between left-wing and Islamic extremists in Italy. A leader of an outlawed Red Brigades faction arrested last year, Desdemona Lioce, claimed in a statement made after her arrest that disenfranchised Arabs were the "natural allies" of the "proletariat". |