Madrid Commuter Train Bombing

Summary: On March 11, 2004, bombs hidden on four commuter trains entering Madrid exploded almost simultaneously, killing 191 people. Terrorists from Morocco--sympathetic to, but not affiliated with, Al Qaeda--were blamed. It was the deadliest Islamist terrorist attack in Europe. The bombings came days before national elections. The government of the conservative National People's Party initially tried to blame Basque separatists; it later lost the elections, with the subsequent result that Spain withdrew its contingent fighting in Iraq. In October 2007, 21 of the 28 people accused of involvement in the attacks were convicted in a Spanish court; four of those were subsequently acquitted on appeal in 2008. Some of those alleged by the government to have been key organizers of the attacks were acquitted.

Date: March 11, 2004.

Place: Madrid, Spain.

Incident: Ten bombs hidden in backpacks or gym bags left on commuter trains exploded on four commuter trains in different stations over a period three minutes, from 7:39 A.M. to 7:42 A.M., killing 191 people and injuring 1,800. Three unexploded bombs were found later.

Context: The explosions came just days before national elections in which Spanish troop contributions to the war in Iraq were a key issue. The conservative government initially blamed the bombings on the Basque separatist group ETA; the government was defeated in the election by Spanish socialists, who subsequently withdrew the Spanish contingent from Iraq.

Known or presumed perpetrators: On April 3, 2004, Spanish police surrounded seven suspects--six Moroccans and one Tunisian, all said to belong to the Moroccan Islamic Combat Group. All seven committed suicide at the end of the standoff (one policeman also died). In all 74 people were arrested, of whom 22 were jailed. An Egyptian, Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, was later named as the likely mastermind behind the attack; he remained at large on the first anniversary of the attacks. Nasar was believed to be an associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist with ties to Al Qaeda who is blamed for leading many terrorist attacks in Iraq after the U.S. invasion. Anti-terrorist police in Madrid and London said the Madrid bombings were the first attack by Al Qaeda in Europe.

On October 31, 2007, 21 people accused of charges ranging from murder to membership in a terrorist organization were convicted after a trial that began in February 2007; seven other defendants, including the alleged ringleaders, were acquitted of all charges.

In July 2008 four convictions were overturned on appeal. The acquittal of one alleged ringleader, appealed by the prosecution, was upheld, bringing the number of convictions to 17 and the number of acquittals to 11.

Impact: On March 14, 2004, the ruling conservative National People's Party lost its parliamentary majority to the Socialist Party (164 seats to the NPP's 148). Shortly thereafter the new Spanish prime minister ordered a withdrawal of the Spanish military contingent in Iraq, as he had promised to do well before the bombings. The Madrid attack also rattled much of Europe--which has a significant Muslim immigrant population--with evidence that Al Qaeda was now intent on attacking European as well as American targets.

The Incident. On the morning of Thursday, March 11, 2004, ten bombs exploded in rapid succession between 7:39 and 7:42 A.M. aboard trains pulling into three different commuter train stations in Madrid. The bombs, left in backpacks and gym bags aboard the trains, were detonated by cell phone calls. The bombs killed 191 people and injured about 1,800.

Twelve hours after the initial attack a cell phone in an unclaimed backpack taken to a police station rang. Looking into the bag, police found a phone attached to 22 pounds of dynamite; the bag was stuffed with nails and screws. For an unknown reason, the cell phone failed to detonate the bomb--but it did provide a vital clue pointing to the bombers. Police also found two more bags and destroyed them in controlled explosions.

The coordinated attacks in Madrid were the largest such terrorist assault ever recorded in Europe.

Three weeks after the attack in Madrid police uncovered a bomb on a high-speed rail line linking Madrid and Seville, as well as seven armed explosive devices and plans to attack Jewish targets in Spain.

Two months after the attack, the body of the Spanish policeman killed in the standoff with the Moroccans was disinterred from his tomb and the body was mutilated.

Perpetrators/Suspects. Police used the internal identification card inside the cell phone found in an unexploded backpack bomb to trace and arrest five suspects on the Saturday following the attack--three Moroccans and two Indian nationals (the Indians were thought to have sold illegal cell phones and prepaid calling cards to the terrorists, rather than to have been involved in the bomb plot). On April 3, 2004, police tracked down four men whom it called the "core" of the attack and surrounded them in their apartment near Madrid. The four blew themselves up rather than surrender, but not before one policeman was killed. Among those killed was Sarhane Ben Abdelmajd Fakhet, a Tunisian thought to have been one of the key coordinators of the bombings.

Police concluded that the prime organization behind the Madrid bombings was the Moroccan Islamic Combat Group, an organization linked to Al Qaeda and comprising Moroccan Islamists living in Europe. Police also named the Salafist Group for Combat and Preaching, an Algerian Islamist organization, after finding fingerprints of an Algerian, Ouhnane Daoud, on a bag of detonators discovered at a station where one of the bombed commuter trains stopped en route to Madrid.

On April 15, 2004, a videotape surfaced on which Osama bin Laden offered a truce in Europe if governments withdrew troops from Iraq, further underscoring Al Qaeda's involvement in the Madrid bombings.

Amer Azizi, a Moroccan national, was indicted by a Spanish investigating magistrate as an organizer of the attacks. Azizi is believed to have organized a meeting in July 2001 in Spain at which the key plotters of the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington met.

Antiterrorism experts said the groups involved in Madrid, and perhaps others, exist on the fringes of Europe's large Muslim community from which they recruit disillusioned young Muslims. Some of the recruits are willing to be "programmed" into suicide bombers.

The 2006 report by Judge Juan del Olmo suggested there were two main motives for the attack--retaliation for Spain's participation in the invasion of Iraq, and retaliation for a Spanish crackdown on radical Islamist groups dating from the late 1990s.

Outcome. On April 11, 2006, a Spanish judge indicted 28 people in connection with the attacks, including five men accused of conspiring to carry out the attacks, one accused of being a collaborator, and the rest accused of indirect or support roles.

After a trial that lasted from February-July 2007, verdicts were announced on October 31, 2007. Of the 28 defendants, 21 were found guilty on charges ranging from murder (three defendants) to membership in a terrorist organization. (Four of the convictions were overturned on appeal in July 2008.) Seven other defendants were acquitted of all charges, including one of the alleged ringleaders, Egyptian Rabei Osman, who was taped in a phone call claiming to have inspired the incident. Osman had been jailed in Italy on charges of belonging to an international terrorist organization. The prosecution appealed Osman's acquittal, but the appeals court upheld the original verdict in July 2008. The appeals ruling said the prosecution's "presentation of the facts contains an affirmation of such a general nature that it is not sufficient to establish his belonging to a determined organization or terrorist group."

The three men convicted on charges of murder were sentenced to Spain's maximum term of 40 years in prison, even though in theory the prosecution asked for terms of almost 3,900 years (30 years in jail for each of the 191 dead plus 18 years in jail for each of the 1,800 wounded).

Broader Impact. The train bombings came just three days before Spanish parliamentary elections. In the immediate aftermath of the bombings incumbent Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar of the National People's Party insisted that the bombings were the work of ETA, a Basque separatist group blamed for dozens of earlier bombings. Aznar, who was defending his decision to send troops to Iraq in alliance with the United States, apparently believed that public anger at the attacks would redound to his benefit if the attacks were blamed on the Basques, rather than linked to Islamic terrorism and thus to his Iraq policy. His calculation proved wrong, as the Socialist Party led by José Luis Rodriguez gained a parliamentary majority and assembled a parliamentary coalition that delivered on the Socialists' earlier promises to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq. Spain did so within a few weeks, as did Honduras, which had a small contingent of troops in Iraq under Spanish command.

The Madrid attacks also spurred police and intelligence agencies in Europe to work closely to track possible terrorists hiding in Europe's numerous communities of Muslims, many of whom are immigrants living on the bottom rung of the socio-economic ladder. Immediately following the Madrid attacks, police in Italy, France, and Britain made several arrests of people suspected of involvement or complicity in the Madrid attacks. The attacks spurred a new, higher level of intra-European cooperation on intelligence matters involving terrorism.

History/Background. Spain has a long history of terrorist attacks conducted by Basque separatists. It was not wholly illogical for Prime Minister Aznar to jump to the conclusion that the March 11 bombings were the work of Basques, since the attacks shared several characteristics of earlier incidents claimed by ETA.

Moreover, Basque nationalist terrorists have long-established ties with other national terrorist groups, notably the Provisional Irish Republican Army and terrorist groups operating in Colombia.

Spanish and Moroccan investigators linked the Madrid attacks to coordinated suicide bombings that killed 33 people in Casablanca the previous May.

Bibliography

Buesa, Mikel, et al. "The Economic Cost of March 11: Measuring the Direct Economic Cost of the Terrorist Attack on March 11, 2004 in Madrid" Terrorism & Political Violence. 19:4 (Winter 2007) 21p. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tsh&AN=27192926&site=isc-live

Dickey, Christopher, Eric Pape, et al. "Once Again, Horror … and Resolve: From 9/11 to 3/11." Newsweek, Mar. 22, 2004, p. 22. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tsh&AN=12521409&site=isc-live

Gunaratna, Rohan. "The Post-Madrid Face of Al Qaeda." Washington Quarterly, Summer 2004,. p. 91. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tsh&AN=13233897&site=isc-live

Houghton, Brian K. and Jonathan M. Schachter. "Coordinated Terrorist Attacks," FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, May 2005, Vol. 74 Issue 5, p. 11. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tsh&AN=17908324&site=isc-live

Jordan, Javier, Fernando M. Mañas, and Nicola Horsburgh. "Strengths and Weaknesses of Grassroot Jihadist Networks: The Madrid Bombings." Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. 31:1 (January 2008) 23p. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tsh&AN=28111309&site=isc-live

Segell, Glen M. "Intelligence Methodologies Applicable to the Madrid Train Bombings, 2004" International Journal of Intelligence & Counter Intelligence, Summer 2005, Vol. 18 Issue 2, p. 221. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tsh&AN=16815865&site=isc-live

Thieux, Laurence. "European Security and Global Terrorism: the Strategic Aftermath of the Madrid Bombings." Perspectives: Central European Review of International Affairs; Summer 2004, p. 59. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tsh&AN=14614816&site=isc-live