Why Madrid?

Spain’s Prime Minister, José María Aznar, was a supporter of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. He sent 1,300 Spanish troops to Iraq to join the occupation force. It is believed that the attacks on Madrid were carried out by al-Qaeda in response to Spain’s involvement in the Iraq conflict.

It was originally reported that the Basque separatist group, ETA, was responsible for the Madrid bombings, which came just a few days before Spain’s general election. Some suggested that ETA wanted to cause as much disruption as possible to the election process. Others believed that the lack of warning and nature of the attack did not fit with ETA’s usual method of operation. The blasts occurred in working-class districts of the city and were synchronised to explode almost simultaneously, to cause maximum civilian casualties, which had not been the case in previous Basque separatist attacks. The bombing was also on a much larger scale than any attack ETA had made before.

The Madrid bombings came 911 days after the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York. Evidence was soon found which threw suspicion on Islamic terrorists with connections to al-Qaeda. On 14th March 2004, a video was discovered near a mosque in Madrid, in which a man claiming to be the military spokesman for al-Qaeda in Europe, said the bombings in Madrid were in revenge for “…collaboration with criminals Bush and his allies.”

Over the next few weeks, suspects with links to Islamic terrorist organisations were arrested in Spain in connection with the bombings. The Spanish authorities also asked for international arrest warrants for ten suspects located in other countries.

Prime Minister Aznar and his Popular Party suffered defeat by the Socialist Party in the elections held three days after the attack. Soon after, the new Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero announced he was planning to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq. Many Spanish people, who had opposed their country’s involvement in the conflict, welcomed the withdrawal of Spanish troops.