The Madrid Train Bombings Kill 191
Ten bombs on four commuter trains three days before a general election become Spain's deadliest terrorist attack
Quick facts
- Date
- March 11, 2004
- Bombs / trains
- 10 bombs, 4 commuter trains, Atocha station area
- Casualties (range across sources)
- 191-193 killed, c. 1,800-2,000 injured
- Political aftermath
- New government withdraws Spanish troops from Iraq, May 2004
What happened
On the morning of March 11, 2004, ten bombs exploded on four commuter trains in and around Madrid's Atocha station, beginning at 7:37 a.m. HISTORY reports 193 people killed and nearly 2,000 injured, while the National September 11 Memorial and Museum's account puts the toll at 191 dead and more than 1,800 injured, victims who came from 17 different countries. The attack was carried out by an extremist Islamist militant group loosely tied to al-Qaida, three days before Spain's general election. The bombing shifted the political mood against the incumbent government's support for the Iraq War, and the incoming government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero withdrew the last Spanish troops from Iraq that May.
Why it matters
The bombing was, in the words of the 9/11 Memorial's account, the deadliest terrorist attack in modern Spanish history, and its timing just before a national election tied an act of mass violence directly to a change in government policy on an ongoing war, a link international observers watched closely at the time.
How we know
The Madrid bombings are documented in Spanish police and judicial investigation records, including the 2007 convictions of 18 defendants, and corroborated independently by HISTORY's and the National September 11 Memorial and Museum's contemporaneous accounts of the attack and its casualties.
Sources
- HISTORY (A&E Networks). Terrorists Bomb Trains in Madrid · Reputable sourcehistory.com · The domain "history.com" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- National September 11 Memorial & Museum. Today Marks 11th Anniversary of 2004 Madrid Terrorist Attack · Reputable source911memorial.org · The domain "911memorial.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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