How Did Spain Avoid Terrorism Before Barcelona?
After experiencing the worst jihadist attack anywhere in Europe in 2004, the country had seemed largely immune—until Thursday.
In 2004, near-simultaneous attacks on Madrid’s commuter train system killed 192 people and injured more than 2,000. Those attacks, blamed on al-Qaeda, remain the deadliest ever to have been carried out on European soil. They prompted Spanish authorities to reassess their internal-security posture—a process that involved hiring thousands of people whose job it was to stop another attack.
Over the next 13 years, as Islamist terrorists targeted cities across Europe—London, Paris, Brussels, Nice, and Manchester
