A bomb defused on a high-speed Spanish rail track was so like those used to blow up four Madrid trains that the same militant Islamist group is believed to be responsible in both cases, Spanish newspapers said today.
A bomb containing 12 kg of explosives was spotted by railway workers on the track near the city of Toledo yesterday and made safe.
Investigators believe attackers planned to derail a high-speed train on the line connecting Madrid and the southern city of Seville.
Hundreds of people could have been killed if a train travelling at 250 kph had left the tracks, Madrid newspapers said.
The discovery caused disruption for thousands of travellers beginning their Easter week holiday and set nerves on edge three weeks after the suspected al Qaeda-linked bombings of four Madrid commuter trains killed 191 people.
Spanish newspapers pointed the finger at Islamist militants over yesterday's incident and said, if this theory was confirmed, it posed a grave security problem for Spain.
El Paissaid the fact the same kind of explosives and a similar detonator was found in Friday's bomb and the March 11th Madrid bombs "suggests that in both cases it is the same terrorist organisation, supposedly the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group."
Spain has identified the militant Islamist group as the prime suspect in the March 11th bombings.