ETA had previously placed car bombs in Madrid, the deadliest being the Plaza República Dominicana bombing in July 1986, which had killed 12 Civil Guards. The attack came 16 months after the 1992 Madrid attack, 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. It was ETA's first attack in the capital since 30 December 1992, when they had killed a retired civil guard.