Millions rally in Spain in solidarity after attacks

MADRID, Spain -- Millions of Spaniards poured into the streets Friday, chanting "Cowards!" and "Assassins!" in a protest of the bombings that killed 199 people. The Basque separatist group ETA denied government allegations that it staged the attacks.

Many of the estimated 2.3 million marchers in Madrid huddled against a steady rain in a bobbing mass of umbrellas that clogged the capital's squares and the area around the Atocha station, where two of the four trains blew up during Thursday morning's rush hour.

"It is not raining. Madrid is crying," said Jorge Mendez, a 20-year-old telecommunications student.

At least three Americans were among more than 1,400 people wounded in the bombings, the State Department said as it advised U.S. citizens in Spain to be alert and avoid crowds.

In a show of national unity, massive crowds gathered in Barcelona, Seville, Valencia and even in Spain's Canary Islands off Western Africa. State TV said nationwide, more than 11 million marched -- one-quarter of Spain's 42 million people.

Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who was joined by other European leaders as he led one march, pledged to hunt down the terrorists whose bombs sparked new fears about Europe's vulnerability to attack.

Aznar and his government ministers blamed the armed group ETA, which has fought for decades for an independent Basque homeland. But there was concern that Islamic militants and perhaps even the al-Qaida terror network had been involved.

"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 Friday.

The attack's lethal coordination and timing -- 10 explosions within 15 minutes -- suggested al-Qaida. But the compressed dynamite used in the backpack bombs is an explosive favored by ETA.

ETA denied responsibility, according to Gara, a Basque newspaper that the armed group uses to issue statements. Gara said a caller claiming to represent ETA phoned its newsroom Friday to deny government allegations that the group was to blame.

It was the first time ETA was known to have issued such a denial. The group normally claims its attacks in statements to pro-Basque independence media several weeks later.

Suspicions of al-Qaida involvement gained weight after police found a stolen van with seven detonators and an Arabic-language tape of Quranic verses parked in a suburb near where the stricken trains originated. A London-based Arabic newspaper also received a claim of responsibility in al-Qaida's name that called the attack "part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America's ally in its war against Islam."

In a chilling account of the bombings, Spanish radio station Cadena Ser broadcast a 12-second recording of an unidentified woman who had called a colleague's voice mail after an initial blast on a train at the Atocha station.

The woman, who survived, was in the process of fleeing as she frantically says: "I'm in Atocha. There's a bomb on the train! We had to --" and then two more blasts are heard amid her screams.

The death toll climbed to 199 on Friday with the death of a 7-month-old girl. Of the more than 1,400 wounded, 367 people remained hospitalized, about 50 in serious condition. Of the dead, 84 bodies remained unidentified. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, only the Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people in 2002 have been more deadly.

Workers in surgical masks and cutting torches began dismantling sections of the bombed-out trains, taking samples for study.

The New York City police department sent two people from the intelligence division to Madrid -- a bomb expert and a lieutenant who was assigned to Interpol.

Friday night's massive rallies in Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Valencia and other cities and towns were a remarkable show of unity in a nation divided by regional loyalties and languages.

"We all need to be here to repudiate these killings. All of us. It is our duty," said Manuel Velasco, a university professor who was drenched from the rain.

Marchers held banners reading, "No to Terror" and "Today Our Tears Reach Heaven." Another read simply, "Who and Why?"