 Last year's train bombings in Madrid left Spain in a state of shock. But the country is now waking up to an unintended consequence of al-Qaeda's first strike in Europe: the apparent demise of Eta, the violent Basque separatist group. According to police, politicians and security analysts, the events of last year have effectively ended Eta's 37-year insurgency. The March 11 2004 train bombings, initially blamed on Eta, left 192 people dead and injured thousands. In the Basque country in northern Spain, police say the tragedy marked a turning point in their fight against Eta, which had been viewed until then as Spain's biggest security threat. "The massacre provoked such revulsion that Eta has not dared stage a big attack since then," says Roberto Seijo, a leader of the Basque police trade union Erne. "Eta cannot match al-Qaeda's scale of terror. Even among Eta's own supporters, there is no stomach for the continued use of terror as a political instrument."
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