Car bomb A car bomb, bus bomb, lorry bomb, or truck bomb, also known as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED), is an improvised explosive device designed to be detonated in an automobile or other vehicles. Car bombs can be roughly divided ...

attacks were carried out by the armed

Basque separatist Basque nationalism ( eu, eusko abertzaletasuna ; es, nacionalismo vasco; french: nationalisme basque) is a form of nationalism that asserts that Basques, an ethnic group indigenous to the western Pyrenees, are a nation and promotes the poli ...

group

ETA Eta (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἦτα ''ē̂ta'' or ell, ήτα ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative in most dialects, ...

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

on 21 June 1993, killing 7 people and injuring a further 29. The target was an army vehicle transporting members of the army. The dead included four

lieutenant colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...

s, a

commander Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countries this naval rank is termed frigate captain. ...

, a

sergeant Sergeant (abbreviated to Sgt. and capitalized when used as a named person's title) is a rank in many uniformed organizations, principally military and policing forces. The alternative spelling, ''serjeant'', is used in The Rifles and other uni ...

and the civilian driver of the vehicle. This was ETA's deadliest attack of 1993.

Background

ETA had previously placed car bombs in Madrid, the deadliest being the

Plaza República Dominicana bombing The Plaza República Dominicana bombing was a car bomb attack carried out by the armed Basque nationalism, Basque separatist group ETA (separatist group), ETA in Madrid, Spain on 14 July 1986, which killed 12 people and injured another 32. The ...

in July 1986, which had killed 12 Civil Guards. The attack came 16 months after the

1992 Madrid attack The Madrid attack was a car bombing carried out by the armed Basque separatist group ETA in Madrid, Spain on 6 February 1992, which killed 5 people and injured a further 7. The target was a military vehicle transporting members of the army. The d ...

, when ETA had killed four members of the military and a civilian employee of the army and a year after another car bomb attack targeting the military had left 13 people wounded.Masacre terrorista en Madrid
22 June 1993, p11 It was ETA's first attack in the capital since 30 December 1992, when they had killed a retired

civil guard Civil Guard refers to various policing organisations: Current * Civil Guard (Spain), Spanish gendarmerie * Civil Guard (Israel), Israeli volunteer police reserve * Civil Guard (Brazil), Municipal law enforcement corporations in Brazil Histori ...

.Interior atribuye los atentados al comando Madrid de ETA
La Vanguardia, 22 June 1993, p14 The bombing occurred 15 days after the

Spanish general election There are four types of elections in Spain: general elections, elections to the legislatures of the autonomous communities (regional elections), local elections and elections to the European Parliament. General elections and elections to the legi ...

and came at a time when negotiations on forming a coalition government were under way.

The attacks

The first and main attack occurred at 0815 on Joaquín Costa Street, near the corner of Glorieta López de Hoyos. Forty kilos of explosives had been placed inside an Opel CorsaLa masacre terrorista de Madrid
La Vanguardia, 23 June 1993, p11 killing seven and causing material damage to 14 nearby buildings, resulting in 90 families having to leave their homes temporarily. The second attack occurred an hour later on Serrano Street, 50 metres away, in a high security zone near the American and French embassies. It injured school children who had been waiting for their school bus. The car used was a red Ford, containing four or five kilos of explosives, which had been parked there a half hour before the attack. The exact target of the second bomb was unclear.

Reactions

The attack was condemned by all the main Spanish political parties and led to the King of Spain cancelling his participation in the Centre of Defense Studies. In the Basque Country, a five-minute break in the working day in memory of the victims was organised. The Spanish Ministry of the Interior blamed the attacks on ETA's Madrid commando, which had been reconstituted in 1991. Police sources identified María Soledad Iparraguirre, alias "Anboto" or "Marisol", as one of those involved in the attack. Anboto was arrested in France in October 2004 and in December 2010 was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Later investigation

In 2013, on the eve of the expiration of the case's statute of limitations, journalist Pablo Romero – son of lieutenant colonel Juan Romero Alvárez, one of the victims of the 1993 attack – began a new investigation of the case after discovering a new clue while re-reading the eight tomes that made up the case file. The new clue led Spain's National Court to reopen its own investigation and summon convicted terrorist Jesús García Corporales as a formal suspect. Romero's investigation became the subject of
series of special reports
published in ''El Español'' in 2013 in which he indicated that members of ETA's Madrid cell were directly responsible for the attack, and where he also highlighted how the Spanish State had neglected to do its part both in preventing the bombing and later pursuing guilty parties. In 2018, Romero turned the story into one of Spain's most listened-to podcasts
Las Tres Muertes de Mi Padre
(My Father's Three Deaths), which received the 2018 Ondas Award, one of Spain's most prestigious journalism prizes.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Madrid attack ETA (separatist group) actions Mass murder in 1993 Car and truck bombings in Spain Improvised explosive device bombings in Madrid 1990s in Madrid 1993 murders in Spain 1993 disasters in Spain Terrorist incidents in Europe in 1993 Terrorist incidents in Spain in the 1990s Mass murder in Spain Car and truck bombings in the 1990s Improvised explosive device bombings in 1993 June 1993 crimes June 1993 events in Europe