Madrid train bombing

11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings

The 2004 Madrid train bombings consisted of a series of coordinated bombings against the commuter train system of Madrid, Spain on the morning of 11 March 2004 (three days before Spain's general elections), killing 191 people and wounding 1,755 .The official investigation by the Spanish Judiciary determined the attacks were directed by an al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist cell although no direct al-Qaeda participation has been established. Spanish nationals who sold the explosives to the terrorists were also arrested.

Controversy regarding the handling and representation of the bombings by the government arose with Spain's two main political parties (PSOE and Partido Popular (PP), accused each other of concealing or distorting evidence for electoral reasons. The authorship of the bombings remains controversial as it occurred three days before general elections and appears to have led to the defeat of the incumbent José María Aznar's Partido Popular (PP), which had been leading in opinion polls. Immediately after the bombing leaders of the PP claimed evidence indicated the Basque ETA was responsible for the bombings, an outcome generally thought favorable to the PP's chances of being re-elected, while Islamist responsibility would have had the opposite effect, as it would been perceived a consequence of the PP government's involvement in the Iraq War, a policy already extremely unpopular with Spaniards.

After 21 months of investigation, judge Juan del Olmo ruled Moroccan national Jamal Zougam guilty of physically carrying out the attack, ruling out any ETA intervention The September 2007 sentence established no known mastermind nor direct al-Qaida link

Description of the bombings

During the peak of Madrid rush hour on the morning of Thursday, 11 March 2004, ten explosions occurred aboard four commuter trains All the affected trains were traveling on the same line and in the same direction between Alcalá de Henares and the Atocha station in Madrid. It was later reported that thirteen improvised explosive devices (IEDs) had been placed on the trains. Bomb-disposal teams arriving at the scenes of the explosions detonated two of the remaining three IEDs in controlled explosions, but the third was not found until later in the evening, having been stored inadvertently with luggage taken from one of the trains. The following time-line of events comes from the judicial investigation.
All four trains had departed the Alcalá de Henares station between 07:01 and 07:14. The explosions took place between 07:37 and 07:40 in the morning

At 08:00, emergency relief workers began arriving at the scenes of the bombings. The police reported numerous victims and spoke of 50 wounded and several dead. By 08:30 the emergency ambulance service, had set up a field hospital at the Daoiz y Velarde sports facility. Bystanders and local residents helped relief workers, as hospitals were told to expect the arrival of many casualties. At 08:43, fire fighters reported 15 dead at El Pozo. By 09:00, the police had confirmed the death of at least 30 people —20 at El Pozo and about 10 in Santa Eugenia and Atocha.

The total number of victims are 191. The total number of victims was higher than in any other terrorist attack in Spain, far surpassing the 21 killed and 40 wounded from a 1987 bombing at a Hipercor chain supermarket in Barcelona. On that occasion, responsibility was claimed by the Basque armed militant group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna or ETA. It was also the worst incident of this kind in Europe since the Lockerbie bombing in 1988.

Aftermath

In France, the Vigipirate plan was upgraded to orange level. In Italy, the Government declared a state of high alert.
In December 2004 José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero claimed that the PP government wiped off the entire computer files related with the Madrid bombings, leaving only the documents on paper.
On 4 January 2007 El País reported that Algerian Daoud Ouhnane, who is considered to be the mastermind of the 11-M bombings, has been searching for ways to return to Spain to prepare further attacks, though this has not been confirmed.

Responsibility

According to the Spanish judiciary, a loose group of Moroccan, Syrian, and Algerian Muslims inspired by al-Qaeda, and two Guardia Civil and Spanish police informants, are suspected of having carried out the attacks. As of 11 April 2006, Judge Juan del Olmo charged 29 suspects for their involvement in the train bombings.
No evidence has been found of al-Qaeda involvement, although an al-Qaeda claim was made the day of the attacks by the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades. On August 2007, al-Qaida claimed to be "proud" about the Madrid 2004 bombings.
According to the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center, this is the only Islamist terrorist act in the history of Europe where international Islamists collaborated with non-Muslims.

Allegations against the ETA

Immediate reactions to the attacks in Spanish media assumed ETA involvement, and government officials were ready to confirm such suspicions. Because the bombs were 3 days before the general elections in Spain, the situation had many political interpretations. The massacre took place exactly two and a half years after the September 11 terrorist attack on America in 2001.
Official statements issued shortly after the Madrid attacks identified ETA as the prime suspect, but the group, which usually claims responsibility for its actions, denied any wrongdoing. Later evidence strongly pointed to the involvement of extremist Islamist groups, with the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group named as a focus of investigations.
Although ETA has a history of mounting bomb attacks in Madrid, the 11 March attacks were on a scale far exceeding anything previously attempted by any European terrorist organisation. This led some experts to point out that the tactics used were more typical of Islamist militant extremist groups, perhaps with a certain link to al-Qaeda, or maybe to a new generation of ETA activists using al-Qaeda as a role model. Observers also noted that ETA customarily issues warnings before its mass bombings and that there had been no warning for this attack.

Reactions

In the aftermath of the bombings there were massive street demonstrations across Spain to protest the train bombings. The international reaction was also notable, as the scale of the attack became clearer.