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Spain Marks Anniversary Of Train Bombings


Aftermath of 2004 bombing 11 March 2005 -- Church bells rang across Spain's capital today to mark the first anniversary of the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people and injured more than 2,000 others. The bells began ringing at more than 600 churches at the same time of day that the first bomb exploded.

Spain's national day of mourning to commemorate the anniversary will include five minutes of silence at midday.

The first of the 10 coordinated blasts on four commuter trains went off at 7:37 a.m. on 11 March 2004 in the bloodiest terrorist attack in Europe since the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Scotland.

Islamic militants, mainly from Morocco, claimed responsibility for the attacks in the name of Al-Qaeda as revenge for Spain's government sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Spain's King Juan Carlos, in an address to an antiterrorism conference in Madrid held to coincide with the anniversary, said yesterday that democracies must be determined not to surrender to terrorism, which he called a "perverse, inhuman, and unjustifiable" phenomenon.

(Reuters/AFP)
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