Aznar's crusade against ETA given new impetus

IT WAS more than instinct which led José Maria Aznar to blame yesterday’s terrorist attack on ETA. For years, Spain’s prime minister has been warning of such an atrocity - and yesterday seemed to deliver the worst possible vindication.

But he did not warn about al-Qaeda. When it claimed responsibility last night, few would have accused Mr Aznar of raising false fears in the run-up to the Spanish general election on Sunday.

Opinion polls showed terrorism to be the No1 concern of Spain’s voters, way ahead of education, health or tax. Mr Aznar’s Party Populare (PP) was seen as the toughest against terrorists.

The socialists who accused Mr Aznar of exaggerating would not dare repeat the charge after yesterday morning - even if it emerges that al-Qaeda, not ETA, is to blame.

When campaigning was cancelled yesterday, it was clear that the grief in Spain will soon translate into anger - and a clear victory for the PP.

Mr Aznar has long warned about evil lurking behind demands for greater self-government in 17 "autonomous regions" created in Spain’s own version of devolution. Demand for more autonomy, he was fond of saying, was the same as terrorism. "Their aims are the same."

The socialist opposition had accused Mr Aznar of being brutally abrupt with well-meaning regionalists - telling the Basques that they could not have independence even if they voted for it.

Mr Aznar replied that his policy was not to give in to terrorists. Little matter if pressure for more autonomy were being made by moderate nationalists - Mr Aznar conflated the two, and treated them as the same threat to national unity.

At the time, his suggestions seemed exaggerated to the point of manipulative. Last year was ETA’s least disruptive since the death of Franco, barring its 14-month ceasefire, with only three people killed.

With many of its leaders arrested, and Spanish police scoring several successes, it seemed that ETA had never been weaker. So why was Mr Aznar saying that Spain was in mortal danger now?

Perhaps he was using ETA as a proxy for Islamic terrorism. Tony Blair has repeatedly warned that Britain may well come under attack for its role in the war on terrorism.

But in Spain, polls showed that 90 per cent of the people opposed the war which Mr Aznar supported. He could not very well say that, as a result of his unpopular policy to back the Iraq war, Spain is now the next terrorist target.

But ETA helped Mr Aznar keep the idea of a threat alive when, 11 days ago, one of its poorly-trained agents tried to drive a half-tonne bomb into Madrid. It was a hopelessly amateur attack, which contrasted with the macabre professionalism of yesterday’s detonations.

The Basque terrorists are on their knees, argued the socialist opposition - their leaders arrested and their cause of Basque independence favoured by fewer than one in three Basques. Was Mr Aznar seriously hoping to tell Spain the threat has never been greater?

Mr Aznar flatly refused to talk even with the non-violent Basque nationalist party, Spain’s equivalent of the SDLP. Terrorists and nationalists, he said, are part of the same struggle. Thus the hopes of greater autonomy for Catalonia and Andalucia were also dashed.

His message dismayed regionalists, pushing some into the hands of radical groups. But the electoral maths seemed to be working: Mr Aznar’s hardline stance was welcomed in Castilian Spain, which has for the last four decades learned to fear ETA’s depredations.

Yesterday’s attacks have changed Spain’s landscape and, with it, the political landscape of Europe. Several other governments were wondering whether the hand of al-Qaeda was seen in those simultaneous railway explosions.

An ETA-only attack would only be relevant to Spain. But there remains the risk - larger than anyone in Mr Aznar’s government will admit - that the Madrid bombs marked the start of a wave of al-Qaeda attacks on European shores.

This would suggest that other European cities may be next - specifically, London. If Britain starts to feel as vulnerable as Spain did before the blast, it would not be at all unhelpful for Mr Blair. Like Mr Aznar, his chances of pushing through more powers to arrest terrorist suspects are linked to how real the terrorist threat seems.

The Arabic cassette found beside the detonators in the van by the Spanish railway will cast a shadow over the entire continent. Europe has had its own 11 September.