Basque separatists still key suspects over blasts.

SPAIN still thinks Basque separatists are behind the Madrid terrorist attacks but does not rule out other possibilities, foreign minister Ana Palacio said today.

She told French radio station RTL there were ``no new elements''.

Interior minister Angel Acebes said yesterday that officials view the Basque separatist group Eta as their main suspect but other lines of investigation remain open after police found a van with an Arabic-language tape and detonators in the town where three of the four bombed trains originated.

``All the objective elements that we have point to Eta,''Palacio said.

``The explosives used, the way in which they (the attackers) worked point to Eta,'' she said,noting that Eta had tried a similar attack on Christmas Eve that targeted a Madrid train station ``with the same system of putting explosives in backpacks''.

However, she said authorities had not ruled out other possibilities.

``Obviously, when we conduct an investigation we cannot exclude other possibilities.''

The discovery of the stolen van with Arabic-language tapes, she said, was ``an element that we have to study.''

Asked about reports that a suicide bomber's body was found among the dead, she said the Interior Ministry ``has no information of that kind''.

``It is not information that came from the police side and the Interior Ministry is giving all the information we have in real time.''

The Arabic newspaper AlQuds al-Arabi has said it received a claim of responsibility issued in the name of al Qaida.

The five-page e-mail claim, signed by a group known as the Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri, was received at the paper's London offices. It said the brigade's ``death squad'' had penetrated Spain.

``This is part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader,and America's ally in its war against Islam,'' the claim said.

The United States believes the group, which takes its name in memory of al Qaida's fallen number three operative, lacks credibility and its ties to al Qaida are tenuous. In the past, the group has made claims to various events which they were not connected to such as blackouts last year in the United States and Canada and in London.

In Washington, a US counterterrorism official said it was too early to determine who was responsible. ``We're not ruling out the possibility there was outside responsibility (beyond Eta),'' the official said.