MADRID TRAIN BOMBINGS

Summary

The 11 March 2004 attacks consisting of a series of 10 explosions occurred at the height of the morning rush hour aboard four commuter trains. Thirteen improvised explosive devices were used and all but three detonated.

The attacks were the deadliest assault by a terrorist organisation against civilians in Europe since the Lockerbie bombing in 1988 and the worst terrorist assault in modern Spanish history. The number of victims in this attack surpassed Spain’s previous worst bombing incident at a Hipercor chain supermarket in Barcelona in 1987, which killed 21 and wounded 40; on that occasion, responsibility was claimed by the Basque armed terrorist group ETA.

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 wrong-doing. Since then evidence has strongly pointed to the involvement of extremist Islamic groups with the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group the focus of investigations.

A further attempted bombing of the track of the high-speed AVE train took place on April 2 but was unsuccessful. Shortly afterwards police identified an apartment in Leganes, south of Madrid, as the base of operations for the individuals suspected of being the organisers of the Madrid and AVE attacks. The suspected terrorists committed suicide by setting off explosives, killing themselves and one of the policemen in the blast.

It is generally presumed that the terrorists killed at Leganes were, indeed, the individuals responsible for both attacks.

The attacks

The explosions occurred during the morning rush hour, targeting a busy commuter rail line that runs just south of downtown Madrid. Four bombs (planted at the front, middle and rear of a single train) exploded at 7:39 at Atocha station, and three bombs planted on another train went off simultaneously just outside Tellez Street, near Atocha station. Two more bombs on a further train detonated at 7:41 at El Pozo station. One further bomb exploded on a train at Santa Eugenia station at 7:42. Most of the casualties occurred at Atocha/Téllez (89 dead) and El Pozo (70) with another 17 at Santa Eugenia. By 23 March, 191 people were confirmed dead, 177 at the scene and 13 while under medical care. More than 1,800 were wounded.

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 Tellez train. A third unexploded device was later brought from the station at El Pozo to a police station and became the 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.

All of the devices are thought to have been hidden inside backpacks. Despite claims by the Spanish Government that the explosive used was Titadine, a type of compressed dynamite used by ETA in recent years, forensic analysis of one of the remaining unexploded devices found at El Pozo revealed the explosive used to be Goma-2, manufactured in Spain and not used by ETA since the 1980s. A van was found parked outside the station at Alcalá de Henares containing detonators, audio tapes with Muslim verses, and cell phones.

Responsibility

ETA has a history of mounting bomb attacks in Madrid, planting delayed-action bombs to kill rescue workers and using booby traps such as explosives in wallets. The 11 March attacks however were on a scale far exceeding anything previously attempted by a European terrorist organisation. Observers noted that ETA customarily issues warnings before its mass bombings and that there was no warning for this attack.

Al-Qaeda had certainly shown an interest in Spain in the period preceding the attacks. In November 2001, Spanish authorities arrested eight men suspected of being al-Qaeda operatives, one of whom reportedly had past links with Basque ETA. Osama bin Laden issued a public threat in October 2003 to carry out suicide bombings against any countries joining the US-led invasion of Iraq: ‘We reserve the right to retaliate at the appropriate time and place against all countries involved, especially Britain, Spain. Australia, Poland, Japan and Italy.’ At the time, Spain had some 1,300 soldiers stationed on Iraqi soil.

Information made public on 12 March by the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment revealed intelligence agencies had known for two months that a terrorist attack was being planned against a country entering into an election period. However, they mistakenly believed that country to be Iraq. Documents found over the internet described in detail the tactics and strategies to be employed. The tactic was to break the US-led occupation of Iraq by performing successive strikes on the cooperating member states, starting with the one which would most easily lose its resolve to keep its troops stationed in Iraq, and then following on with the rest. As the Iraq war was very unpopular in Spain, this would make a likely first target.

The attacks came on the morning of the penultimate day of campaigning before the Sunday elections.

The investigation

Although the Spanish Government initially blamed Basque separatist group ETA, the investigation took a different turn with the discovery of an abandoned white van containing detonators of a type not used by ETA, and a tape recording with verses of the Koran.

Another breakthrough came when an unexploded bag bomb was found and defused aboard the wrecked train at El Pozo station. Investigators discovered the bombers used mobile phones to set off the devices, and traced the recovered phone’s sim card to two Indian salesmen who had sold 13 other identical cards to three Moroccan men –Jamal Zougam, Mohamed Chaoul and Mohamed Bekkall. Zougam was also identified by survivors of the blasts as a man seen loading bags onto the trains at Alcala de Henares. He was arrested on 13 March and provisionally charged with multiple counts of murder and terrorist offences.

Serial numbers on the outside wrapping of the explosives found in the bag were traced to a mine in northern Spain. On 18 March, Jose Emillo Suàrez Trashorras was arrested and charged with supplying some of the explosives to the bombers. On 16 June, a 16-year-old boy was also arrested and charged with stealing 20kg of explosives. The boy, who cannot be named and is known only by his nickname ‘El Gitanello’ (the little gypsy) later stood trial and was sentenced to six years in a juvenile detention centre.

On 3 April in an effort to trace other phone sim cards believed to have been used by the bombers, investigators raided a flat in Leganes in the suburbs of Madrid. Before any arrests were made seven men inside blew themselves up. Moroccan brothers Mohammed Oulad Akcha, and Rachid Oulad Akcha were among the dead. Police later named them as prime suspects in the train attacks. Also killed in the flat siege was Serhane ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, known as ‘The Tunisian’, a man police named as the ringleader of the bombings.

In the months after the attacks, police arrested dozens more suspects in an investigation spanning six countries. To date some 70 people have been arrested. Investigators believe a network of mainly Moroccan Islamic militants orchestrated the attacks although members of the former government, now in opposition, have continued to voice an opinion that ETA also had some involvement.

A year after the train blasts, Spanish investigators believed they had clarified the key aspects of the country’s worst terrorist attack. Judge Juan del Olmo released a 40,000 page report which stated that three groups were involved in the preparation and execution of the bombings. In December he charged the alleged leader of a Moroccan Islamic Combat Group thought to be linked to al-Qaeda with 191 counts of murder. The Moroccan Islamic Combat Group is also blamed for the May 2003 Casablanca bombings.

At least five suspects in the Madrid blasts are thought to remain at large. Investigators are now looking at suspects who have been charged in other cases with belonging to al-Qaeda or the Moroccan Islamic Combat Group. Despite the progress that has been made in dismantling Islamic terrorist cells in Spain and elsewhere in Europe counterterrorism experts stress that the threat of similar attacks remains. Experts are said to believe the full extent of the terrorist network involved in the 11 March bombings has yet to be determined both in Spain and internationally. They are correct, for 16 months later a similar attack took place on the London Underground with equally devastating results.

Terrorism is no different in Spain, London, Bali, New York or any other country.