Madrid Train Bombings

1. Madrid Train Bombings March 11, 2004 Downtown Madrid, Spain

2. Who did it… The Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM)

3. The Attack • During rush hour at 7:37am and continuing for several minutes. • Total of 10 different explosions on 4 different trains • 3 unexploded bags were discovered • 191 people killed • More than 1,800 wounded

4. The Arrest • Cell phones found in the unexploded bag tracked to suspect, Jamal Zougam. • Wiretaps were used to find others involved • Six men charged with mass murder • Mix of educated, middle-class and ideologically radical Muslims • On April 3, 2004, Spanish police approached an apartment building in a working class neighborhood of Madrid. The police surrounded a first-floor apartment and placed it under siege, before an explosive blast killed seven people inside the flat, along with a Spanish Special Forces police officer. The men killed in the blast had rented the apartment just after the March 11 attacks. Prior to killing themselves, these suspects made many phone calls and chanted Koranic verses.

5. The Aftermath • The Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar of the Popular Party was quick to place the blame for the blast on the Basque separatist group ETA. This would prove a fateful decision, costing him the election that was slated for March 14. • Indeed, a videotape found near a mosque on the outskirts of Madrid showed a man, speaking Arabic with a Moroccan accent, claiming responsibility for the massacre. • He said he was the military leader of al-Qaeda in Europe, that he belonged to a group called Ansar al-Qaeda, a group unknown to police. The reason given for the attack at Atocha station in Madrid was Spain's participation in the Iraq war. • In the days immediately following the attacks, millions of Spaniards marched through the streets to protests the attacks at Atocha station. • This was the largest terrorist attack in Europe since Lockerbie in 1988