Spain wounded, furious

MADRID, Spain — Grief and fury blanketed Spain on Friday evening as the country mourned the victims of its terrorist attack and struggled to discover who was responsible.

From Barcelona to the Canary Islands, millions streamed into streets and city squares in a nationwide cry against the violence that left nearly 200 people dead and more than 1,400 wounded in synchronized explosions on four commuter trains in Madrid on Thursday.

They banged drums, carried candles, donned black crosses and wrapped themselves in flags. "No to terrorism!" they chanted in the main Colon square in Madrid, which was enveloped in rain and cold. "Assassins! Assassins!"

One banner said, "We were all on that train."

Spain's conservative daily newspaper El Mundo estimated that more than 11 million of Spain's 42.7 million people participated in marches across the country.

The center-right government continued to assert that the Basque separatist group ETA and not the al-Qaida terrorist organization was most likely responsible for the attack, although the evidence is confusing and nothing has been ruled out.

The political stakes in identifying the terrorists are high. Spain goes to the polls Sunday to choose a new government. Mariano Rajoy, the hand-picked successor of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and the Popular Party candidate, is in the lead. He has pledged to continue the policies of Aznar, including Spain's full participation in the Bush administration's anti-terror and Iraq policies.

"So far, none of the intelligence services or security forces we have contacted have provided reliable information to the effect that it could have been an Islamic terrorist organization," Interior Minister Angel Acebes said at a news conference Friday, referring to foreign intelligence agencies.

He revealed that Spanish investigators discovered a back- pack with an unexploded bomb containing explosives similar to those sometimes used by ETA, a Spanish-made detonator and a cell phone apparently intended to trigger the device. And he said that British intelligence doubted the authenticity of a letter published in a London-based Arabic newspaper claiming the attacks were carried out on behalf of al-Qaida. That could not be independently confirmed.

A Basque newspaper and television station said on Friday that they had received telephone calls from ETA denying responsibility.

"An ETA message has arrived saying that it bore no responsibility for the attack," a newscaster for ETB Basque public television said.