The major turn in the Madrid investigation came at 2:40 a.m. on Friday, with the discovery of an unexploded bomb. The bomb squad defused the bomb by 5:15 a.m., in the process learning how the bomb was made.

A group representing reporters and editors at Spain's state-run news agency, EFE, says the agency knew about evidence pointing to involvement by Islamic terrorists in the Mar. 11 train bombings in Madrid that very morning, but kept it under wraps due to pressure from the government of Prime Minister José María Aznar.
But "Reporting or broadcasting information pointing to involvement by extremist Islamic terrorists that was obtained from primary sources by our national news service writers was expressly prohibited," the committee said Monday.

Even the United Nations Security Council issued a resolution on the day of the attacks blaming ETA, on the insistence of Madrid, which said it had irrefutable evidence of involvement by the Basque separatist group.
The embarrassed Security Council is now preparing to annul the resolution.

The initial conviction that ETA was responsible might be compared to what occurred after a car-bomb destroyed a U.S. federal building in Oklahoma City on Apr. 19, 1995.

A total of 169 people were killed in that terrorist attack, for which no one claimed responsibility. Immediately after the blast, the media reported that it was the work of "Arab terrorists" – a version that continued to be echoed for two days.