2004 Madrid Train Bombings - Responsibility

Responsibility

Abu Dujan al-Afghani a purported spokesman for Al-Qaida in Europe appeared in a videotape claiming responsibility for the March 11, 2004 Madrid attacks a few days after the attacks.:

According to the Spanish judiciary, a loose group of Moroccan, Syrian, and Algerian Muslims and two Guardia Civil and Spanish police informants are suspected of having carried out the attacks. As of 11 April 2006, Judge Juan del Olmo charged 29 suspects for their involvement in the train bombings.

No evidence has been found of al-Qaeda involvement, although an al-Qaeda claim was made the day of the attacks by the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades. However, U.S. officials note that this group is "notoriously unreliable". On August 2007, al-Qaeda claimed to be "proud" about the Madrid 2004 bombings.

According to The Independent, "Those who invented the new kind of rucksack bomb used in the attacks are said to have been taught in training camps in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, under instruction from members of Morocco's radical Islamist Combat Group."

According to Mohamed Darif, a professor of political science at Hassan II University in Mohammedia, the history of the Moroccan Combat Group is directly tied to the rise of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. According to Darif, "Since its inception at the end of the 1990s and until 2001, the role of the organisation was restricted to giving logistic support to al-Qaeda in Morocco, finding its members places to live, providing them with false papers, with the opportunity of marrying Moroccans and with false identities to allow them to travel to Europe. Since 11 September, however, which brought the Kingdom of Morocco in on the side of the fight against terrorism, the organisation switched strategies and opted for terrorist attacks within Morocco itself."

According to scholar Rogelio Alonso, "the investigation had uncovered a link between the Madrid suspects and the wider world of al-Qaida".

According to scholar Scott Atran, "There isn't the slightest bit of evidence of any relationship with al-Qaida. We've been looking at it closely for years and we've been briefed by everybody under the sun... and nothing connects them." He provides a detailed timeline that lends credence to this view.

According to the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center, this is the only Islamist terrorist act in the history of Europe where international Islamists collaborated with non-Muslims.

According to former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar, Abdelhakim Belhadj, leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and current head of the Tripoli Military Council, was suspected of complicity in the bombings.

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