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Spain was on the verge of Europe’s worst Islamist attack on March 11, when extremists claiming to be acting on behalf of al-Qaeda bombed a commuter train in Madrid, killing 192 people and injuring nearly 2,000. It’s been 20 years.
The perpetrators claimed the attack was retaliation for Spain’s role in the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Ten years later, jihadists launched a Western intervention against the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria to unleash a new wave of terror in Europe.
AFP looks back at the deadliest attacks of the past 20 years.
A year after Spain, London’s transport system was targeted on July 7, when four suicide bombers detonated themselves in a coordinated attack on a subway and a bus.
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The attack, claimed by al-Qaeda, killed 52 people and injured another 700.
Ten years later, a new wave of jihadist attacks has begun in France, most of which are claimed by IS.
The most tragic incident took place in Paris on November 13th, when IS militants went on a shooting and bombing rampage, killing 130 people at the Bataclan concert hall, bars and restaurants, and the Stade de France stadium. This was the worst attack.
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On March 22, an Islamic State suicide bomber killed 35 people and injured another 340 at Brussels airport and Maelbeek metro station near the European Union headquarters.
Belgian investigators say the attackers were part of the same Brussels-based organization that organized the Paris attacks.
On July 14, Bastille Day, France was targeted again. After a fireworks display in the southern resort city of Nice, a radicalized Tunisian drove a truck into the crowd, killing 86 people and injuring more than 400.
The attacker was shot dead by police, and IS claimed responsibility. French investigators have not found any links between the perpetrators and IS.
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Back in the UK, a young Briton of Libyan descent blew himself up at an Ariana Grande pop concert in Manchester on May 22nd.
The attack killed 22 people, including seven children, and injured about 100 others.
The bombing was claimed by Islamic State, which said the 22-year-old perpetrator used a homemade fragmentation bomb. His family fought in Libya’s civil war.
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On August 17, a group of radicalized Moroccan and Moroccan-Spanish youths rammed a van into pedestrians on Barcelona’s famous Las Ramblas.
Then, in the early morning hours of August 18, five other people drove their car into a pedestrian in the seaside town of Cambrils, 100 kilometers south.
The two attacks, which killed 16 people and injured 140, were claimed by Islamic State and carried out by a force made up mostly of young men raised in Catalonia.
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