Word: eta
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...realization that the country was far more vulnerable than all but a few (mostly ignored) experts had recognized. But its longest-lasting repercussions were political: just three days after the attacks, while the governing Popular Party still insisted - despite growing evidence to the contrary - that the Basque terrorist group ETA, and not Islamist terrorists, were to blame, the country held national elections. In a surprise upset, the Socialist party, headed by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, beat the conservative PP, which had been in power since 1996. (See pictures of the Madrid bombing...
...from the beginning of his leadership, there were signs that Txeroki did not command the undissenting loyalty of his entire circle. Even the fellow hardliner, Francisco Javier Peña (alias Thierry) who represented ETA in its peace talks with the Spanish government, reportedly angered Txeroki by cutting funding to the military wing in an effort to prevent an attack prior to the start of negotiations. Arrested himself May, Thierry is also believed to have opposed the Barajas bombing on strategic grounds...
...This is not to suggest that there are pacifists lurking within ETA's midst. "The difference between Txeroki and Thierry could be that while the former believes in killing all the time, the latter only wants to do it on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays," an anonymous source within the national police told El País newspaper...
...Certainly there is political momentum among the leftist advocates of Basque independence known as the izquierda abertzale. Although Batasuna, the now illegal party affiliated with ETA, won't be running in March 2009 regional elections, its supporters have a new option. Earlier this month, the left-leaning nationalist political party Eusko Alkartasuna (EA) which had previously belonged to a coalition with the ruling Basque Nationalist Party, announced that it would run on its own. Having already received the support of a former secretary of the Batasuna-linked trade union LAB, ETA could well draw votes from radicals that might otherwise...
...meantime, the newly headless group will likely only grow weaker. "More and more, the structure of ETA is eroding," says Sánchez-Cuenca. "It's not clear anymore who is making the decisions." Thus there is cautious hope that Europe's last anachronistic terrorist grouping, which has more than 800 deaths to answer for over the last forty years, may finally be heading towards the obsolescence of Northern Ireland's IRA, Germany's Red Army Faction and Italy's Red Brigades. But such hopes have been cruelly dashed before...