- Title: Madrid holds funeral mass to mark 20th anniversary of train bombings attack
- Date: 11th March 2024
- Summary: WOMAN INSIDE THE CATHEDRAL DRAPED ON SPANISH FLAG AS PRIESTS ARRIVE FOR MASS VARIOUS OF PRIESTS WALKING TOWARDS THE PODIUM VARIOUS OF MASS IN PROGRESS
- Embargoed: 25th March 2024 10:24
- Keywords: 11m Almudena cathedral Islamist attack Madrid Spain bombing mass train attack
- Location: MADRID, SPAIN
- City: MADRID, SPAIN
- Country: Spain
- Topics: Bombing (non-military),Conflicts/War/Peace,Europe
- Reuters ID: LVA002707411032024RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:Madrid on Monday (March 11) paid tribute to the victims of one of Europe's worst Islamist militant attacks marking 20 years since a series of explosions ripped through four commuter trains in the Spanish capital on March 11, 2004, killing 191 people.
Church bells tolled in the Spanish capital at 0900 local (0800 GMT) in memory of the 191 people who lost their lives in the morning of March 11, 2004.
The Association of Victims of terrorism held a funeral mass at the Almudena Cathedral to pay tribute to the victims, Madrid's regional president Isabel Diaz Ayuso and mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida attended the mass.
Several memorial acts are expected to take place in the Spanish capital throughout the day.
Ten backpacks filled with explosives activated via mobile phones detonated on four packed commuter trains that Monday morning. The explosions left tracks strewn with bodies and injured almost 2,000 people.
Then Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar initially linked Basque separatists ETA to the attacks. The move would lead Spaniards to throw out his centre-right government in a spectacular election upset three days after the bombings as ETA denied they were involved and a video tape purportedly from al Qaeda said the Islamic militant group bombed the trains in retaliation for Spain's cooperation with U.S. President Bush and his allies.
Seven suspects, including two suspected ringleaders of the train bombings, blew themselves up in a suburban apartment after police closed in on them three weeks after the attack.
A Spanish court in 2007 found 21 people guilty of involvement in the train bombings but cleared three men of masterminding the attack.
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