11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Madrid train bombings consisted of a series of coordinated bombings against the Cercanías
Cercanías
Cercanías is the name given to the commuter rail systems of Spain's major metropolitan areas. In Catalonia and Valencia, however, the term is replaced by Rodalies , while the designation Aldirikoak is used in the Basque Country....

(commuter train) system of Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

, Spain on the morning of 11 March 2004 (three days before Spain's general elections), killing 191 people and wounding 1,800. The official investigation by the Spanish Judiciary

Audiencia Nacional of Spain

The Audiencia Nacional is a a special and exceptional high court in Spain. It has its seat in Madrid and jurisdiction over all of Spain and international crimes which come under the competence of Spanish courts....

determined the attacks were directed by an al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...

-inspired terrorist cell

Clandestine cell system

A clandestine cell structure is a method for organizing a group of people in such a way that it can more effectively resist penetration by an opposing organization. Depending on the group's philosophy, its operational area, the communications technologies available, and the nature of the mission,...

although no direct al-Qaeda participation (only "inspiration") has been established. Spanish miners who did not carry out the attacks but 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 (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party

Spanish Socialist Workers' Party

The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is a social-democratic political party in Spain. Its political position is Centre-left. The PSOE is the former ruling party of Spain, until beaten in the elections of November 2011 and the second oldest, exceeded only by the Partido Carlista, founded in...

(PSOE) and Partido Popular

People's Party (Spain)

The People's Party is a conservative political party in Spain.The People's Party was a re-foundation in 1989 of the People's Alliance , a party led and founded by Manuel Fraga Iribarne, a former Minister of Tourism during Francisco Franco's dictatorship...

(PP)), accusing each other of concealing or distorting evidence for electoral reasons. The bombings occurred three days before general elections

Spanish legislative election, 2004

Legislative elections were held in Spain on 14 March 2004. At stake were all 350 seats in the lower house of the Cortes Generales, the Congress of Deputies, and 208 seats in upper house, the Senate. The governing People's Party was led into the campaign by Mariano Rajoy, successor to outgoing...

which resulted in the defeat of the incumbent José María Aznar

José María Aznar

José María Alfredo Aznar López served as the Prime Minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004. He is on the board of directors of News Corporation.-Early life:...

's PP, which had obtained a small but narrowing lead in the opinion polls. Immediately after the bombing leaders of the PP claimed evidence indicating the Basque separatist organization ETA

ETA

ETA , an acronym for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna is an armed Basque nationalist and separatist organization. The group was founded in 1959 and has since evolved from a group promoting traditional Basque culture to a paramilitary group with the goal of gaining independence for the Greater Basque Country...

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 have been seen as a consequence of the PP government taking Spain into the Iraq War, a policy very unpopular with Spaniards.

Nationwide demonstrations and protests followed the attacks. The predominant view among political analysts is that the Aznar administration lost the general elections as a result of the handling and representation of the terrorist attacks, rather than the bombings per se.

After 21 months of investigation, judge Juan del Olmo

Juan del Olmo

Juan del Olmo is a Spanish judge in the 2004 Madrid train bombings case. In 2003, he ordered that the Euskaldunon Egunkaria newspaper be closed on grounds of accusations driven by a "narrow and erroneous view according to which everything that has to do with the Basque language and with culture in...

ruled Moroccan national Jamal Zougam

Jamal Zougam

Jamal Zougam was one of six men implicated in the 11 March 2004 Madrid Train Bombings. He was detained on 13 March 2004, accused of multiple counts of murder, attempted murder, stealing a vehicle, belonging to a terrorist organisation and four counts of carrying out terrorist acts.Spain's El País...

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

Nationality	Deaths
Spain	142
Romania	16
Ecuador	6
Poland	4
Bulgaria	4
Peru	3
Dominican Republic	2
Colombia	2
Morocco	2
Ukraine	2
Honduras	2
Senegal	1
Cuba	1
Chile	1
Brazil	1
France	1
Philippines	1
Total	191

During the peak of Madrid rush hour on the morning of Thursday, 11 March 2004, ten explosions occurred aboard four commuter trains (cercanías). The date led to the popular abbreviation of the incident as “11-M”. All the affected trains were traveling on the same line and in the same direction between Alcalá de Henares

Alcalá de Henares

Alcalá de Henares , meaning Citadel on the river Henares, is a Spanish city, whose historical centre is one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites, and one of the first bishoprics founded in Spain...

and the Atocha station in Madrid. It was later reported that thirteen improvised explosive device

Improvised explosive device

An improvised explosive device , also known as a roadside bomb, is a homemade bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action...

s (IEDs) had been placed on the trains. Bomb disposal

Bomb disposal

Bomb disposal is the process by which hazardous explosive devices are rendered safe. Bomb disposal is an all encompassing term to describe the separate, but interrelated functions in the following fields:*Military:...

teams (TEDAX) 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, as described below (all timings given are in local time CET

Central European Time

Central European Time , used in most parts of the European Union, is a standard time that is 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time . The time offset from UTC can be written as +01:00...

, UTC

Coordinated Universal Time

Coordinated Universal Time is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is one of several closely related successors to Greenwich Mean Time. Computer servers, online services and other entities that rely on having a universally accepted time use UTC for that purpose...

+1):

Atocha Station (train number 21431) – Three bombs exploded. Based on the video recording from the station security system, the first bomb exploded at 07:37, and two others exploded within 4 seconds of each other at 07:38.
El Pozo del Tío Raimundo Station (train number 21435) – At approximately 07:38, just as the train was starting to leave the station, two bombs exploded in different carriages.
Santa Eugenia Station (train number 21713) – One bomb exploded at approximately 07:38.
Calle Téllez, (train number 17305), approximately 800 meters from Atocha Station – Four bombs exploded in different carriages of the train at approximately 07:39.

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, SAMUR (Servicio de Asistencia Municipal de Urgencia y Rescate), 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 was 191. There were victims from 17 countries: 142 Spanish, 16 Romanians, 6 Ecuadorian, 4 Poles, 4 Bulgarians, 3 Peruvians, 2 Dominicans, 2 Colombians, 2 Moroccans, 2 Ukrainians, 2 Hondurans, 1 Senegalese, 1 Cuban, 1 Chilean, 1 Brazilian, 1 French, and 1 Filipino.

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

1987 Hipercor bombing

The 1987 Hipercor bombing was a car bomb attack by the Basque separatist organisation ETA which occurred on 19 June 1987 at the Hipercor shopping centre on Avinguda Meridiana, Barcelona, Spain. The bombing killed 21 people and injured 45 people.-Background:...

at a Hipercor chain supermarket in Barcelona. On that occasion, responsibility was claimed by the Basque

Basque nationalism

Basque nationalism is a political movement advocating for either further political autonomy or, chiefly, full independence of the Basque Country in the wider sense...

terrorist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna

ETA

("Basque Fatherland and Liberty", or ETA). It was also the worst incident of this kind in Europe since the Lockerbie bombing

Pan Am Flight 103

Pan Am Flight 103 was Pan American World Airways' third daily scheduled transatlantic flight from London Heathrow Airport to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport...

in 1988.

Further bombings spur investigation

A device composed of 12 kilograms of Goma-2

Goma-2

Goma-2 Eco is a type of high explosive manufactured for industrial use by Unión Española de Explosivos S.A.It is a gelatinous, Nitroglycol-based explosive widely used within Spain and exported abroad.It was used by ETA in the 1980s and 1990s....

ECO with a detonator and 136 meters of wire (connected to nothing) was found on the track of a high-speed train (AVE

AVE

Alta Velocidad Española is a service of high-speed rail in Spain operated by Renfe, the Spanish national railway company, at speeds of up to . The name is literally translated from Spanish as "Spanish High Speed", but also a play on the word , meaning "bird".AVE trains run on a network of...

) on 2 April. The Spanish Judiciary chose not to investigate that incident and the perpetrators remain unknown. The device used in the AVE incident was unable to explode because it lacked an initiation system.

Shortly after the AVE incident, police identified an apartment in Leganés

Leganés

Leganés is a city in central Spain. Part of the greater Madrid conurbation - mainly a satellite-city with a population of 186,066 it is located about 11 km southwest of the city centre....

, south of Madrid, as the base of operations for the individuals suspected of being the material authors of the Madrid and AVE attacks. The suspected militants, headed by Jamal Zougam, Serhane Abdelmaji "the Tunisian" and Jamal Ahmidan "the Chinese", were trapped inside the apartment by a police raid on the evening of Saturday 3 April. At 9:03 pm, when the police started to assault the premises, the militants committed suicide by setting off explosives, killing themselves and one of the police officers.
Investigators subsequently found that the explosives used in the Leganés explosion were of the same type as those used in the 11 March attacks (though it had not been possible to identify a brand of dynamite from samples taken from the trains) and in the thwarted bombing of the AVE line.

Based on the assumption that the militants killed at Leganés were, indeed, the individuals responsible for the train bombings, the ensuing investigation focused on how they obtained their estimated 200 kg of explosives. The investigation revealed that they had been bought from a retired miner who still had access to blasting equipment.
Five to eight suspects believed to be involved in the 11 March attacks managed to escape.

ABC reported in December 2006 that the ETA reminded Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party . He was elected for two terms as Prime Minister of Spain, in the 2004 and 2008 general elections. On 2 April 2011 he announced he will not stand for re-election in 2012...

about 11 March 2004 as an example of what could happen unless the Government considered their petitions (in reference to the 2004 electoral swing), although the source also makes it clear that ETA 'had nothing to do' with the attack itself.

Aftermath

In France, the Vigipirate

Vigipirate

Vigipirate is France's national security alert system. Created in 1978 by President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, it has since been updated three times: in 1995 , 2000, and 2004....

plan was upgraded to orange level. In Italy, the Government declared a state of high alert.

In December 2004 José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

claimed that the PP government erased all of the computer files related to the Madrid bombings, leaving only the documents on paper.

On 25 March 2005, prosecutor Olga Sánchez asserted that the bombings happened 911 days after the 11 September attacks due to the "highly symbolic and qabbalistic

Kabbalah

Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...

charge for local al-Qaida groups" of choosing that day. However, because 2004 was a leap year, 912 days had in fact passed between 11 September 2001 and 11 March 2004, though one could say there are 911 days between those days. Furthermore, the bombings occurred exactly two and half years after the 11 September attacks in 2001.

On 27 May 2005 the Prüm Convention

Prüm Convention

The Prüm Convention is a treaty which was signed on 27 May 2005 by Germany, Spain, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Austria, and Belgium in the town of Prüm in Germany...

, implementing inter alia the principle of availability which began to be discussed after the Madrid bombings, was signed by Germany, Spain, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Austria, and Belgium.

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.

On 17 March 2008 Basel Ghalyoun, Mohamed Almallah Dabas, Abdelillah El-Fadual El-Akil and Raúl González Peña, having been previously found guilty by the Audiencia Nacional, were released after a Higher Court ruling. This court also verified the release of the Egyptian Rabei Osman al-Sayed.

Responsibility

According to the Spanish judiciary, a loose group of Moroccan, Syrian, and Algerian Muslims and two Guardia Civil and Spanish police informant

Informant

An informant is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law enforcement world, where they are officially known as confidential or criminal informants , and can often refer pejoratively to the supply of information...

s, are suspected of having carried out the attacks. As of 11 April 2006, Judge Juan del Olmo

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. However, U.S. officials note that this group is "notoriously unreliable". On August 2007, al-Qaida claimed to be "proud" about the Madrid 2004 bombings.

According to The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...

, "Those who invented the new kind of rucksack bomb used in the attacks are said to have been taught in training camps in Jalalabad

Jalalabad

Jalalabad , formerly called Adinapour, as documented by the 7th century Hsüan-tsang, is a city in eastern Afghanistan. Located at the junction of the Kabul River and Kunar River near the Laghman valley, Jalalabad is the capital of Nangarhar province. It is linked by approximately of highway with...

, Afghanistan, under instruction from members of Morocco's radical Islamist Combat Group."

According to Mohamed Darif, a professor of political science

Political science

Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...

at Hassan II University in Mohammedia

Mohammedia

Mohammedia is a port city on the west coast of Morocco located between Casablanca and Rabat in the region of Greater Casablanca. It hosts the most important oil refinery of Morocco, Samir, which makes it the center of the Moroccan petrol...

, the history of the Moroccan Combat Group is directly tied to the rise of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. According to Darif, "Since its inception at the end of the 1990s and until 2001, the role of the organisation was restricted to giving logistic support to al-Qaeda in Morocco, finding its members places to live, providing them with false papers, with the opportunity of marrying Moroccans and with false identities to allow them to travel to Europe. Since 11 September, however, which brought the Kingdom of Morocco in on the side of the fight against terrorism, the organisation switched strategies and opted for terrorist attacks within Morocco itself."

According to scholar Rogelio Alonso "the investigation had uncovered a link between the Madrid suspects and the wider world of al-Qaida".

According to scholar Scott Atran

Scott Atran

Scott Atran is an American and French anthropologist.-Education and early career:Atran was born in New York City in 1952 and he received his PhD in anthropology from Columbia University. While a student at Columbia, he became assistant to anthropologist Margaret Mead at the American Museum of...

"There isn't the slightest bit of evidence of any relationship with al-Qaida. We've been looking at it closely for years and we've been briefed by everybody under the sun... and nothing connects them." He provides a detailed timeline that lends credence to this view.

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 of ETA involvement

Immediate reactions to the attacks in Madrid were the several press conferences held by the Spanish minister of interior of José María Aznar

José María Aznar

José María Alfredo Aznar López served as the Prime Minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004. He is on the board of directors of News Corporation.-Early life:...

government involving ETA

ETA

. The Spanish government maintained this theory for two days. Because the bombs were three days before the general elections

Spanish legislative election, 2004

in Spain, the situation had many political interpretations. The massacre also took place exactly two and a half years after the 11 September terrorist attack on the United States in 2001. (Others suggest, however, that terrorists wishing to emphasize a connection with 9/11 would not rely on such an oblique connection as its "2½ year anniversary.")Other interpretations of this date since 9/11 points out that the bombing took place 911 days exactly since the 11 September terrorist attack The United States also initially believed ETA was responsible then questioning if Islamists were responsible.

Due to the government theory, statements issued shortly after the Madrid attacks, including from lehendakari

Lehendakari

The President of the Basque Government , usually known in English as the Basque regional president, is the head of government of Basque Country. The president leads the executive branch of the regional government....

Juan José Ibarretxe

Juan José Ibarretxe Markuartu is a Basque politician of Spain. A leading member of the Basque Nationalist Party , he was President of Spain's Basque Country autonomous community from January 2, 1999 to May 7, 2009....

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

Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group

The Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group or Moroccan Islamic Fighting Group is a Sunni Islamist terrorist organization affiliated with al-Qaeda. It is sometimes referred to as GICM after its French name Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain...

named as a focus of investigations.

Although ETA has a history of mounting bomb attacks in Madrid, the 11 March attacks exceeded any attack previously attempted by a European 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

Al-Qaeda

, or maybe to a new generation of ETA activists using al-Qaeda as a role model. Observers also noted that ETA customarily, but not always, issues warnings before its mass bombings and that there had been no warning for this attack. Europol

Europol

Europol is the European Union's criminal intelligence agency. It became fully operational on 1 July 1999....

director Jürgen Storbeck commented that the bombings "could have been ETA.... But we're dealing with an attack that doesn't correspond to the modus operandi

Modus operandi

Modus operandi is a Latin phrase, approximately translated as "mode of operation". The term is used to describe someone's habits or manner of working, their method of operating or functioning...

they have adopted up to now".

Political analysts believe ETA's guilt would have strengthened the PP's chances of being re-elected, as this would have been regarded as the death throes of a terrorist organisation reduced to desperate measures by the strong anti-terrorist policy of the Aznar

José María Aznar

José María Alfredo Aznar López served as the Prime Minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004. He is on the board of directors of News Corporation.-Early life:...

administration. On the other hand, an Islamist attack would have been perceived as the direct result of Spain's involvement in Iraq, an unpopular war that had not been approved by the Spanish Parliament.

Investigation

All of the devices are thought to have been hidden inside backpack

Backpack

A backpack is, in its simplest form, a cloth sack carried on one's back and secured with two straps that go over the shoulders, but there can be exceptions...

s. The police investigated reports of three people in ski masks getting on and off the trains several times at Alcalá de Henares

Alcalá de Henares

Alcalá de Henares , meaning Citadel on the river Henares, is a Spanish city, whose historical centre is one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites, and one of the first bishoprics founded in Spain...

between 7:00 and 7:10. A Renault Kangoo

Renault Kangoo

The Renault Kangoo and Kangoo Express are panel van and leisure activity vehicle produced by French automaker Renault since 1997. The Kangoo is manufactured in the MCA plant in Maubeuge, France, and in Santa Isabel, Argentina. The version for the ASEAN markets was assembled by the Tan Chong Euro...

van was found parked outside the station at Alcalá de Henares containing detonator

Detonator

A detonator is a device used to trigger an explosive device. Detonators can be chemically, mechanically, or electrically initiated, the latter two being the most common....

s, audio tapes with Qur'an

Qur'an

The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...

ic verses, and cell phones

Mobile phone

A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...

.

The provincial chief of TEDAX (the bomb disposal

Bomb disposal

experts of the Spanish police) declared on 12 July 2004 that damage in the trains could not be caused by dynamite, but by some type of military explosive, like C3

Plastic explosive

Plastic explosive is a specialised form of explosive material. It is a soft and hand moldable solid material. Plastic explosives are properly known as putty explosives within the field of explosives engineering....

or C4

C-4 (explosive)

C4 or Composition C4 is a common variety of the plastic explosive known as Composition C.-Composition and manufacture:C4 is made up of explosives, plastic binder, plasticizer and usually marker or odorizing taggant chemicals such as 2,3-dimethyl-2,3-dinitrobutane to help detect the explosive and...

. An unnamed source from the Aznar administration claimed that the explosive used in the attacks had been Titadine

Titadine

Titadyn 30 AG is a type of compressed dynamite used in mining and manufactured in southern France by Titanite S.A. The explosive comes in the form of salmon-coloured tubes of a range of diameters, from 50 to 120 mm...

(used by ETA, and intercepted on its way to Madrid 11 days before).

In March 2007 TEDAX chief claimed that they knew that the unexploded explosive found in the Kangoo van was GOMA 2 ECO the very day of the bombings. He also asserted that "it is impossible to know" the components of the explosives that went off in the trains, though on the other hand he asserted that it was dynamite. The Judge Javier Gómez Bermúdez replied "I can not understand" to these assertions.

Examination of unexploded devices

A radio report mentioned a plastic explosive called "Special C". However, the government said that the explosive found in an unexploded device, discovered among bags thought to be victims' lost luggage, was the Spanish made Goma-2 ECO. The unexploded device contained 10 kg (22 lb) of explosive with 1 kg (2.2 lb) of nails and screws packed around it as shrapnel

Fragmentation (weaponry)

Fragmentation is the process by which the casing of an artillery shell, bomb, grenade, etc. is shattered by the detonating high explosive filling. The correct technical terminology for these casing pieces is fragments , although shards or splinters can be used for non-preformed fragments...

. On the other hand it has been alleged by the chief coroner of the aftermath of the attacks that no shrapnel was found in any of the victims.

Goma-2 ECO was never before used by al-Qaida, but the explosive and the modus operandi were described by The Independent as ETA

ETA

trademarks, although the Daily Telegraph came to the opposite conclusion.

Two bombs—one in Atocha and another one in El Pozo

El Pozo

El Pozo is a small town located about 20 minutes northeast of Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico. The name of the town means "The Well" in the Spanish language....

stations, numbers 11 and 12—were detonated accidentally by the TEDAX. According to the provincial chief of the TEDAX, deactivated rucksacks contained some other type of explosive. The 13th bomb, which was transferred to a police station, contained dynamite, although it did not explode because it was missing two wires connecting the explosives to the detonator. That bomb used a mobile phone (Mitsubishi

Mitsubishi

The Mitsubishi Group , Mitsubishi Group of Companies, or Mitsubishi Companies is a Japanese multinational conglomerate company that consists of a range of autonomous businesses which share the Mitsubishi brand, trademark and legacy...

Trium) as a timer, requiring a SIM

Subscriber Identity Module

A subscriber identity module or subscriber identification module is an integrated circuit that securely stores the International Mobile Subscriber Identity and the related key used to identify and authenticate subscriber on mobile telephony devices .A SIM is held on a removable SIM card, which...

card to activate the alarm and thereby detonate. The analysis of the SIM card allowed the police to arrest an alleged perpetrator. On Saturday, 13 March, when three Moroccans and two Pakistani muslims were arrested for the attacks, it was confirmed that the attacks came from an Islamic group. Only one of the five persons (the Moroccan Jamal Zougam) detained that day was finally prosecuted.

Suicide of suspects

On 3 April 2004, in Leganés

Leganés

Leganés is a city in central Spain. Part of the greater Madrid conurbation - mainly a satellite-city with a population of 186,066 it is located about 11 km southwest of the city centre....

, south Madrid, four terrorists died in an apparent suicide explosion, killing one Grupo Especial de Operaciones

Grupo Especial de Operaciones

The Grupo Especial de Operaciones , commonly known as GEOs, are the Special Operations Forces of the Spanish Cuerpo Nacional de Policía of Spain. They are stationed in Guadalajara near the capital, Madrid. The GEO has response capabilities and is responsible for VIP protection duties, as well as...

(GEO) (Spanish special police assault unit) police officer and wounding eleven policemen. According to witnesses and media, between five and eight suspects escaped that day.

Security forces carried out a controlled explosion of a suspicious package found near the Atocha station and subsequently deactivated the two undetonated devices on the Téllez train. A third unexploded device was later brought from the station at El Pozo to a police station in Vallecas, and became a central piece of evidence for the investigation. It appears that the El Pozo bomb failed to detonate because a cell-phone alarm used to trigger the bomb was set 12 hours late.

Conspiracy theories

Sectors of the People's Party

People's Party (Spain)

(PP), and certain media, such as El Mundo
El Mundo (Spain)
El Mundo is the second largest printed and the largest digital daily newspaper in Spain and one of the newspapers of record in that country, with a daily circulation topping 300,000 readers for the printed edition and 24 million unique web visitors per month for the...

newspaper and the COPE

Cadena COPE

COPE, an acronym for Cadena de Ondas Populares Españolas is a private, right wing, commercial, Spanish radio network owned by a series of institutions within the Spanish Catholic Church...

radio station, continue to support theories relating the attack to a vast conspiracy to remove the governing party from power. Support for the conspiracy was also given by the Asociación de Víctimas del Terrorismo

Asociación de Víctimas del Terrorismo

The Association of Victims of Terrorism is a Spanish association created in 1981 by victims of terrorist attacks. Its members include those injured in terrorist attacks, and their families, by ETA, GRAPO, the Provisional Irish Republican Army and Al Qaeda. It has a membership of 6,000Its current...

(AVT), Spain's largest association of victims of terrorism.

These theories speculate that ETA

ETA

and members of the security forces and national and foreign (Morocco) secret services, were involved in the bombings. Defenders of the claims that ETA participated in some form in the 11 March attacks have affirmed that there is circumstantial evidence linking the Islamists with two ETA members who were detained while driving the outskirts of Madrid in a van containing 500 kg of explosives 11 days before the train bombings.

Trial

Judge Juan del Olmo

Juan del Olmo

found "local cells of Islamic extremists inspired through the Internet" guilty for the 11 March attacks, not Armed Islamic Group

Armed Islamic Group

The Armed Islamic Group is an Islamist organisation that wants to overthrow the Algerian government and replace it with an Islamic state...

or Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group

Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group

. These local cells consist of hash

Hashish

Hashish is a cannabis preparation composed of compressed stalked resin glands, called trichomes, collected from the unfertilized buds of the cannabis plant. It contains the same active ingredients but in higher concentrations than unsifted buds or leaves...

traffickers of Moroccan origin, remotely linked to an al-Qaeda cell that had been already captured. These groups bought the explosives (dynamite Goma-2

Goma-2

ECO) from low-level thieves, police and Guardia Civil confidants in Asturias

Asturias

The Principality of Asturias is an autonomous community of the Kingdom of Spain, coextensive with the former Kingdom of Asturias in the Middle Ages...

using money from the small-scale drug trafficking.

According to El Mundo, "the notes on the Moroccan confidant 'Cartagena' prove that the Police had the leaders of the cell responsible for the 11 March attacks under surveillance." However, none of the notes refer to the preparation of any terrorist attack.

The trial of 29 accused began on 15 February 2007. According to El País, "the Court dismantled one by one all conspiracy theories" and demonstrated that any link or implication of the bombings with ETA was either misleading or without any foundation. During the trial the defendants withdrew their previous declarations and denied any involvement. According to El Mundo
El Mundo (Spain)
El Mundo is the second largest printed and the largest digital daily newspaper in Spain and one of the newspapers of record in that country, with a daily circulation topping 300,000 readers for the printed edition and 24 million unique web visitors per month for the...

the questions about "who, why, when and where were the Madrid train attacks planified" are still "open", because the alleged masterminds of the attacks were absolved. El Mundo also claimed -among other misgivings- that the Spanish Judiciary reached "scientifically unsound" conclusions about the kind of explosives used in the trains, and that no direct al-Qaeda link was found, thus "debunking the key argument of the official version". Scholar Scott Atran

Scott Atran

described the Madrid trial as "a complete farce" pointing at the fact that "There isn't the slightest bit of evidence of any operational relationship with al-Qaida". Instead, "The overwhelming majority of [terrorist cells] in Europe have nothing to do with al-Qaida other than a vague relationship of ideology."

Though the trial proceeded smoothly in its opening months, 14 of the 29 accused mounted a hunger strike

Hunger strike

A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not...

in May, protesting against the alleged "unfair" role of political parties and media in the legal proceedings. Judge Javier Gómez Bermúdez refused to suspend the trial despite the strike, and the hunger strikers ended their fast on 21 May.

The last audience of the trial was held on 2 July 2007.
Transcripts and videos of the audiences are visible on datadiar.tv.

On 31 October 2007, the Audiencia Nacional of Spain

Audiencia Nacional of Spain

delivered its verdicts. Of the 28 defendants in the trial, 21 were found guilty on a range of charges from forgery to murder. Two of the defendants were sentenced each to more than 40,000 years in prison, but Spanish law limits the actual time served to 40 years.

Police surveillance and informants

In the investigations carried out after the bombings to find out what went wrong in the security services, many individual negligences and miscoordinations between different branches of the police were found. The group dealing with Islamist extremists was very small and in spite of having carried out some surveillances, they were unable to stop the bombings. Also some of the criminals involved in the "Little Mafia" who provided the explosives were police informants and had leaked to their case officers some tips that were not followed up on.

Some of the alleged perpetrators of the bombing were reportedly under surveillance by the Spanish police since 2001.

Controversies

The authorship of the bombings remains a controversial issue in Spain. Sectors of the Partido Popular (PP) and some of the PP-friendly media outlets (primarily El Mundo
El Mundo (Spain)
El Mundo is the second largest printed and the largest digital daily newspaper in Spain and one of the newspapers of record in that country, with a daily circulation topping 300,000 readers for the printed edition and 24 million unique web visitors per month for the...

and the Cadena COPE

Cadena COPE

COPE, an acronym for Cadena de Ondas Populares Españolas is a private, right wing, commercial, Spanish radio network owned by a series of institutions within the Spanish Catholic Church...

radio station), claim that there are inconsistencies and contradictions in the Spanish judicial investigation.

As Spanish and international investigations continue to claim the unlikeliness of ETA's active implication, these claims have shifted from direct accusations involving the Basque terrorist organization to less specific insinuations and general skepticism.
Additionally, there is controversy over the events that took place between the bombings and the general elections held three days later.

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.

The emotional state of fear of those days in Madrid was the basis for a scientifical work which showed the association between emotional states of fear and prelabor rupture of membranes at term. Four years later in 2008, the popular music group, La Oreja De Van Gogh, released their album "A las cinco en el Astoria" with a song titled "Jueves" that served as a remembrance to this tragic incident.

Specifically about the 2004 Madrid bombings

Aftermath of the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings
Atocha Train Station Memorial
Brandon Mayfield
Brandon Mayfield
Brandon Mayfield is an American attorney in Washington County, Oregon. He is best known for being erroneously linked to the 2004 Madrid train bombings. On May 6, 2004, the FBI arrested Mayfield as a material witness in connection with the Madrid attacks, and held him for over two weeks...

, wrongfully identified via fingerprints
Casualties of the 11 March 2004 Madrid bombings
Casualties of the 11 March 2004 Madrid bombings
The March 11th Madrid bombings killed 191 people. Initial reports said that 202 people had died, but this number was later lowered to 190.. The toll was raised to 191 in May after a baby of one of the wounded was born and died of the mother's injuries....
Controversies about the 2004 Madrid train bombings
Controversies about the 2004 Madrid train bombings
-Accuracy of government statements:The conservative PP government was accused of falsely blaming Euskadi Ta Askatasuna for the attacks. The very day of the attacks, police officials informed the Government that explosives usually used by ETA were found at the blast sites. This, along with other...
Dead drop
Forest of the Departed
Forest of the Departed
The Forest of Remembrance , formerly known as the Forest of the Departed , is a memorial garden located in the park of El Retiro in Madrid, Spain that commemorates the 191 civilian victims of the 2004 Madrid train bombings and the special forces agent who died in the attacks on 11 March 2004...
Reactions to the 2004 Madrid train bombings
Reactions to the 2004 Madrid train bombings
-Social:On 12 March 2004, Spaniards took to the streets protesting against the bombings in a government-organized demonstration to condemn ETA, which at the time was being blamed for the attacks. Vigo, which has a population of 300,000 inhabitants, saw 400,000 demonstrators on its streets...
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and the 2004 general election
2004 Madrid Train Bombings Suspects
2004 Madrid train bombings suspects
A list of suspects and convictions related to the 2004 Madrid Train Bombings.- Defendants :Jamal Zougam - found guilty and given a 50 year jail sentence, was arrested two days after the March 2004 attacks....
Rabei Osman
Rabei Osman
Rabei Osman born July 22, 1971, Alazizya-Samnoud, Egypt is an Egyptian citizen who was arrested on July 2004 by Italian State Police on terrorism charges...
2006 Toronto terrorism plot, same plot but foiled by the Canadian police
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...

External links

Commuter rail map

In English

BBC News In Depth
- Maps
CNN In-Depth Specials
U.N. Security Council Resolution 1530
Weekly coverage of the trial on Madrid11.net
Madrid: UN's Credibility Critically Wounded
Spanish Reporters: Government Silenced the Truth About the Attacks
context – Terrorism's Future, Rahul Mahajan
A translation of Juan Carlos I's and Prime Minister Aznar's speeches to the nation, 11 March 2004
Remembering 11 March: The Madrid Bombings and Their Effect on Spanish Government, Society and the Antiwar Movement – Broadcast by Democracy Now!
Democracy Now!
Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...

on 23 November 2004.
PBS TV Frontline Video – see Chapter 1 of Al Qaeda's New Front
Real Instituto Elcano – Framing of the 3/11 attacks and electoral accountability
JihadMonitor.org Spanish Open Sources Project on Jihadist Terrorism
The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

Bomb squad link in Spanish blast
Complete list of defendants with the final sentences

Disputing statements made by Spanish government and judiciary

Spain’s “Terrorgate”?, National Review
National Review
National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...

.
Madrid's vanished horror, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

– opinion piece written by deputy editor of El Mundo.
Winds of Change.net

Rebuttals

Spain’s 11-M and the right’s revenge, openDemocracy
OpenDemocracy
openDemocracy is a website for debate about international politics and culture, offering news and opinion articles from established academics, journalists and policymakers covering current issues in world affairs. openDemocracy was founded in 2000 by Anthony Barnett, David Hayes, Susan Richards and...

.
Popular peevishness, The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...

.
Two years on, parties at odds over blame, Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....

.

In Spanish

Jugement of 11-M ELPAÍS.com
11-M ELPAÍS.com
Commission of 11-M ELPAÍS.com
One year of 11-M ELPAÍS.com
11-M ELPAÍS.com
Graphic of the 29 people indicted (21 sentenced)
Spanish Judiciary Indictment.
El Mundo Special.
Timeline by El Mundo.
List of official government statements by Cadena SER, and editorial article
Victims' profiles by El País and Cadena Ser
Cadena SER
La Cadena SER is Spain's premier radio network in terms of both seniority and audience share...
Listen to Cadena Ser throughout 11-M
Selected bibliography on political analyses of the 11-M aftermath.

Disputing statements made by Spanish government and judiciary

Especial de Telemadrid emitido el 9 de marzo de 2006
Antonio Rubio, Las notas del confidente 'Cartagena' prueban que la Policía controlaba a la cúpula del 11-M, El Mundo
El Mundo (Spain)
El Mundo is the second largest printed and the largest digital daily newspaper in Spain and one of the newspapers of record in that country, with a daily circulation topping 300,000 readers for the printed edition and 24 million unique web visitors per month for the...

, 31.05.05
Spanish Police Union CEP ("Confederación Española de Policía") media interventions doubting the Indictment. The CEP also supported "Peones Negros" demonstrations Libertaddigital.es
AVT webpage Asociación de Víctimas del Terrorismo
Asociación de Víctimas del Terrorismo
The Association of Victims of Terrorism is a Spanish association created in 1981 by victims of terrorist attacks. Its members include those injured in terrorist attacks, and their families, by ETA, GRAPO, the Provisional Irish Republican Army and Al Qaeda. It has a membership of 6,000Its current...

, Spanish Association of Victims of Terrorism.
Web de la plataforma ciudadana Peones Negros por la verdad del 11M

Rebuttals

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