MADRID, March 10: A two-year probe into the Madrid train bombings concludes the Islamic terrorists who carried out the blasts were homegrown radicals acting on their own rather than at the behest of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, two senior intelligence officials said.
Spain still remains home to a web of radical Algerian, Moroccan and Syrian groups bent on carrying out attacks — and aiding the insurgency against US troops in Iraq — a Spanish intelligence chief and a western official intimately involved in counterterrorism measures in Spain told The Associated Press.
The intelligence chief said there were no phone calls between the Madrid bombers and Al Qaeda and no money transfers.
The western official said the plotters had links to other Islamic radicals in western Europe, but the plan was hatched and organised in Spain. “This was not an Al Qaeda operation,” he said. “It was homegrown.”
Both men spoke on condition of anonymity, the first because Spanish security officials are not allowed to discuss details of an ongoing investigation and the second due to the sensitive nature of his job.
The attack has been frequently described as Al Qaeda-linked since a man who identified himself as Abu Dujan al-Afghani and said he was Al Qaeda’s “European military spokesman,” claimed responsibility in a video released two days later.—AP
