During the peak of Madrid rush hour on the morning of Thursday, 11 March 2004, ten explosions[28] 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 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 (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.[29]
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, UTC +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 at a Hipercor chain supermarket in Barcelona. On that occasion, responsibility was claimed by the Basque armed militant group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (“Basque Fatherland and Liberty”, or ETA). It was also the worst incident of this kind in Europe since the Lockerbie bombing in 1988.
A device composed of 12 kilograms of Goma-2 ECO with a detonator and 136 meters of wire (connected to nothing) was found on the track of a high-speed train (AVE) on 2 April.[30] 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.[31]
Shortly after the AVE incident, police identified an apartment in Leganés, 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.[32] 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.[30]
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.[33]
Five to eight suspects believed to be involved in the 11 March attacks managed to escape.[34] ABC reported in December 2006 that the ETA] reminded Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero 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.
