Arab fears: Arabs say they fear the Madrid bombings will lead to discrimination against Muslims in Europe, and could push European governments closer to the Middle East policies of President Bush.
"The consequences for Arabs and Muslims will be as bad as what happened to them in the United States (after 9/11). The millions of Spaniards who took to the streets are a latent force of rage which we would do well to take heed of," Abdel-Rahman al-Rashed wrote in Asharq al-Awsat newspaper yesterday.
The Spanish authorities are taking seriously a claim that al-Qaeda was responsible for Thursday's bloodshed, but some Arabs said yesterday they hoped that would turn out to be a mistake, for the sake of their kinsfolk in Europe and elsewhere.
"It's the worst scenario. It was horrible enough, but now this. I think it will have a bad effect for Arabs and Muslims in Europe," said an official in the United Arab Emirates, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Millions of Arabs live in western Europe, notably north Africans in France, Italy and Spain. Other big Muslim communities report suffering some anti-Islamic backlash since September 11th.
"This will certainly increase hatred for Islam and for Islamists. It is a major mistake because public opinion in Europe is already very much in favour of sacrificing some degree of personal freedom in order to fight terrorism," said Mr Hussein Amin, a former Egyptian ambassador to Algeria.
He said he did not believe al-Qaeda carried out the bombings, and speculated that the organisation had staked a claim just to show that it was still in action. "Arabs are just disgusted with the whole thing."
Mr Mohammed al-Sayed Said, an analyst at the al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, said he remained sceptical about the claims of responsibility, and thought it more likely that the claims were opportunistic.
"They need to say that they still have an offensive capability, and can still do damage two years after the invasion of Afghanistan."
Some Arabs linked the violence to the stalled Middle East peace process, and US action in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr Al Sayed Abdul Latif, a civil servant in Cairo, said: "As long as people feel oppressed, the world will always be confronted with terrorism. Even if it were Arabs who planned the explosions in Spain, it is a reaction to the killing of thousands of Palestinians by Israelis."
Business consultant Mr Hassan al-Husseini in Riyadh said: "What's happened in Spain is terrible. What happened in New York is terrible. But so is what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"American and European people are sophisticated enough to know that their governments are not pursuing politics that eliminate the causes of these fanatical outbreaks." - (Reuters)