Terror On The Tracks

Europe's deadliest bombing attack in years and a claim that al-Qaeda was behind it put the continent on edge. Inside the hunt for the killers

He was one of hundreds of rescue workers who combed through the wreckage last week looking for survivors in the scorched and twisted compartments of a commuter train at Madrid's El Pozo del Tio Raimundo station. When he came across an unremarkable sports bag, he assumed it belonged to one of the victims and put it aside; at some point amid the grim triage, the bag was taken to a local police station, where it was added to a mountain of unclaimed personal possessions--purses, briefcases, shoes, coats, laptop computers. In the chaotic aftermath of the Madrid bomb attacks, no one thought...

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