Madrid remembers its own dark day

For the people of Madrid, yesterday's London bombings were a terrible reminder of what had happened to them on March 11 2004, when 191 people were killed on commuter trains.

From the initial confusion about what was happening, to the reports of packed train carriages being ripped open and scattered bodies, the scenario had unwelcome echoes. "London is living through its own March 11," declared a presenter on the Telemadrid television station as it dropped normal programming for live reports on the bombings.

The similarities were numerous, starting with the choice of a key date in the political calendar. For Madrid it had been a general election due to be held three days after the bombings.

The targets were, again, early morning commuters. As in Madrid, the bombers had chosen the moment when public transport was at its busiest, targets would be packed and chaos ensured.

Simultaneous attacks were another trademark of the Madrid bombers, with even the number of targets apparently coinciding.

Four early morning Madrid commuter trains were targeted by 13 bombs timed to go off over a space of 10 minutes shortly before 8am.

The four trains, each with jagged holes blown through several carriages, were strung along a stretch of overland line between the Atocha terminus and the station at El Pozo del Tio Raimundo.

City authorities still remember the complex and painful job of dealing with more than 100 dead and more than 1,000 wounded at different spots across the city.

"Unfortunately, we in Madrid have lived through a similar day, which I now cannot get out of my mind," city mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón said yesterday.

The home-made bombs put together by the Madrid bombers each included copper detonators, nuts and screws to act as shrapnel and 12kg of Spanish-made Goma 2 Eco explosives. They were detonated by the alarm clocks on mobile phones that were attached to the detonators.

A month later the bombers reappeared, failing in an attempt to derail an express train from Madrid to Seville with a charge laid under the line. When a group of them were eventually discovered hiding out in an apartment in the Madrid dormitory town of Léganes, they were not prepared to be taken alive.

A shoot-out with police was followed by an explosion that blew out the walls of the building, killed all seven men and also cost the life of one of the police officers preparing to storm the building. They had blown themselves up.

Three of the Madrid train bombs failed to explode, allowing police to trace the people who had sold and bought the mobile phones.

As a result, the first few arrests came within two days of the explosions. Around two dozen people, mostly of north African origin, have since been arrested and await trial.

Some of those involved are, however, known to have escaped. One has been linked to a network of violent Islamists in Spain, with connections in Britain, who were recruiting potential suicide bombers for Iraq.