The Swiss government has strongly condemned Thursday's attacks on three railway stations in the Spanish capital, Madrid.

A statement said the cabinet was “deeply shocked” at the bombings, which left more than 190 people dead.

The president, Joseph Deiss, has passed on the government's condolences to King Juan Carlos and the Spanish prime minister, José Maria Aznar.

A series of blasts hit Madrid’s central Atocha station and two smaller stations during the morning rush hour. Reports said around 1,500 people were injured, many of them seriously.

The Spanish government said the Basque separatist group, Eta, was most likely to blame for the attacks. But it did not rule out the possibility that another group was responsible.

The authorities later found a van containing seven detonators and a tape in Arabic at a town near Madrid where the bombs may have been placed on the trains.

A letter apparently from a group aligned to al-Qaeda claimed responsibility.

In radio and television interviews Deiss expressed shock at the scale of the attacks, which came three days before parliamentary elections in Spain.

His cabinet colleague, Micheline Calmy-Rey, also expressed sympathy with the Spanish people in a letter to the Spanish foreign minister, Ana de Palacio.

At its sitting on Thursday, the House of Representatives remembered the victims of the bombings.

The Swiss embassy in Madrid said it was in constant contact with the Spanish authorities.

It is not yet known if there were any Swiss among the victims.

swissinfo with agencies

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