It was 7:30 in the morning, rush hour in Madrid, five years ago today. Ten bombs explode in quick succession at various parts of the city's rail system, killing 191, wounding more than 500, and transforming Spanish society, albeit not nearly as hysterically, or as radically, as American society was transformed by the 2001 bombing. Initial blame pointed at Basque separatists. But the signature simultaneousness of the bombing gave it away: It was al-Qaeda, ostensibly in retaliation for Spain's support of George Bush's war in Iraq. The Spanish contingent there was the third largest at the time.
The bombings would also cost Prime Minister José María Aznar López his job. In office since 1996, the centrist-conservative was replaced by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party one month after the Madrid bombing.
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