MADRID, Dec 16 (AFP) - Spain entered 2004 comfortably, eight years into a right-wing government under Jose Maria Aznar, but approaches 2005 in deep trauma after Islamic militants bombed four commuter trains in March killing 191 people.
The March 11 attack, which also left 1,900 injured, was the worst terrorist outrage Spain has known and Europe's worst since the Lockerbie bombing in 1988.
The death toll was less than a tenth of the estimated 3,000 people who died in the September 11 attacks in the United States, but it soon became clear that Madrid's 11-M and America's 9/11 were inter-connected.
The coordinated early-morning bombings in the Spanish capital saw four local trains targeted, an eery echo of the four planes used in the attacks on the United States.
The masterminds behind the carnage were also linked, with Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda striking at the heart of the United States while self-proclaimed Moroccan Al-Qaeda affiliates claimed responsibility in a video for the Madrid deaths.
In addition, the blasts were carried out exactly 911 days after the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon.
Yet neither Aznar, nor his Popular Party, would countenance the possibility of an Islamic attack as they prepared for a general election scheduled just three days later.
Blaming the armed Basque separatist group ETA for the bombings seemed reasonable enough for a few hours.
The group, seeking independence for the Basque region of northern Spain and part of southwestern France, had been caught red-handed preparing to bomb a train on Christmas Eve 2003 and minutes after the March 11 attacks moderate Basque nationalists said ETA was writing its final chapter.
But by doggedly insisting that ETA was to blame, even as evidence emerged fingering Islamic radicals apparently bent on revenge for Aznar's backing of the US-led war in Iraq, the PP lost credibility with voters.
What had been predicted to be an easy polls victory for the PP, turned into a humiliating defeat.
The bloodshed of March 11 helped usher in Zapatero as only Spain's second Socialist prime minister of the democratic era which opened following the 1975 death of military dictator General Franco. Felipe Gonzalez had served from 1982 through to Aznar's arrival in 1996.
Three weeks later, during a police raid in a Madrid suburb, seven suspects blew themselves up rather than face capture.
In the first trial connected with the blasts, a 16-year-old Spaniard who admitted transporting the explosives used from a northern mine to Madrid, in exchange for around 1,000 euros (1,300 dollars), was given six years in youth detention.
Most of the remaining 20 suspects are Moroccan nationals, who face terrorism-related charges, while waves of arrests continue.
Aznar told an inquiry investigating the attacks they had "nothing to do with the intervention in Iraq," but his Socialist successor Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero flatly contradicted him, telling investigators that "our participation in Iraq increased the (terrorist) risk."
By the autumn, having swiftly fulfilled an election pledge to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq, Zapatero and his government of eight men and eight women had introduced various initiatives designed to liberalise one of Europe's most socially conservative countries.
Measures such as the legalisation of same-sex marriages and facilitating divorce have angered the Church hierarchy, but enjoy popular support.
The spectre of terror still looms when an apparent plot by suspected Islamic radicals to bomb buildings in the capital, including Real Madrid's stadium, was uncovered.
In addition, ETA has continued its low-level violence, carrying out a spate of small blasts in early December.
Fermin Bouza, a sociologist with Madrid's Complutense University, says terrorism will remain at the top of the agenda.
"We are in a turbulent period. There is a strong possibility of further attempts" of attacks, Bouza told AFP.
On the foreign policy front, Zapatero has boosted Spain's relations with its EU neighbours, with whom Aznar had often frosty relations.
Now the frostiness is with Washington, with US President George W. Bush re-elected to serve a second White House term.
"I think Zapatero and Bush will just have to learn to live with one another -- difficult though that may be," predicted Bouza.
"One thing Spain can certainly do is act as a bridge between the EU and the Arab world."

12/16/2004 13:06 GMT - AFP