Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 52, no. 2, April–May 2010, pp. 83–104
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Since the attacks of 11 September 2001 on New York and Washington DC there has been an ongoing controversy about whether the real threat of global terrorism is posed by al-Qaeda, its territorial extensions and affiliated organisations, or by decentralised groups inspired by, but unconnected to, such entities. The 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings are often held up as the archetype of an independent local cell at work, and the perpetrators depicted as self-recruited, leaderless terrorists. Six years after the blasts, however, new evidence connecting some of the most notorious members of the Madrid bombing network with al-Qaeda’s senior leadership, along with features of the terrorist network itself and distinctive elements of the likely strategy behind the blasts, suggest that these assumptions are misleading. Judicial documentation now fully accessible at Spain’s National Court and other relevant primary or secondary sources can help us better understand what the attacks can tell us about al-Qaeda and a global terrorism in transition, as well as about the changing nature of the threat to open societies.
911 days after
Two-and-a-half years, or exactly 911 days, after 9/11, another spectacular act of mass-casualty terrorism took place on the other side of the Atlantic, and against a much softer target: commuter trains on the railway line connecting the historical town of Alcalá de Henares with Madrid’s downtown Atocha station. Thirteen bombs, each containing no less than 10 kilograms of dynamite and about 650 grams of ironmongery, were placed inside plastic bags and backpacks in 12 different carriages on four trains filled to rush-hour capacity. Some of the 10 to perhaps 13 terrorists who placed the bombs arrived in two vehicles. One, a van, was found by the national police on the morning of the attacks and the other, a car, was discovered three months later. In the former, detonators and traces of explosives were found next to audio cassettes with recordings of Koranic recitations, while in the latter there was a suitcase with more tapes exalting a bellicose notion of jihad.
Ten of the bombs exploded almost simultaneously, between 7:37 and 7:41am. They were detonated by means of cellular phones synchronised in the alarm function (the same brand and model of cellular phone had been used in a similar way in the November 2002 bombings in Bali). Another two devices placed in the rail carriages, as well as an additional bomb left on a flag-stop platform, failed to explode. Disposal experts successfully defused one of these bombs in the early hours of 12 March, providing crucial evidence to further the police investigation of the attacks.
As a result of the blasts in the commuter trains, however, 191 people were killed and 1,841 injured. Though the attacks caused immediate material damages of €17.62 million, the minimum direct economic cost has been estimated at more than €211.58m. The Madrid train bombings were thus not only the most devastating act of insurgent terrorism in modern Spain, but in Western Europe. In lethality, moreover, they were second only to the ...
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Fernando Reinares is Professor of Political Science and Security Studies at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, and Co-Director of the Program on Global Security and Senior Analyst on International Terrorism at Real Instituto Elcano.
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