On March 11, 2004, ten bombs exploded almost simultaneously in the capital, targeting the Atocha station and its surroundings. The then Prime Minister, José Maria Aznar, and his Popular Party (PP) immediately blamed Basque separatists ETA.

A fiasco because, the same evening, a branch of Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Madrid attack and demanded the withdrawal of Spanish forces intervening in Iraq. Today, twenty years after the Madrid attacks, the families of the victims are still waiting for the truth.