Madrid bombing mastermind's confession caught on tape

The man suspected of being one of the Madrid terror bombing masterminds confessed that the attack was his plan, phone tapping transcripts revealed today.

Not realising the phone in his Milan home was bugged by the Italian security service’s Rabei Osman Ahmed – known as Mohammed the Egyptian – told his roommate: “The Madrid attack was my plan and those who died as martyrs are my very dear friends.”

Seven suspects blew themselves in an apartment outside Madrid as police moved in to arrest them on April 3.

“The Madrid connection is me. When it happened I wasn’t there,” part of the transcript read.

Osman Ahmed was arrested in Milan this week and Spain will request his extradition on multiple counts of murder and attempted murder.

Spanish police regard him as a ”key figure” in the March terror attacks that killed 191 people and injured more than 2,000 when bombs blew up on commuter trains in Madrid.

Six people have been arrested in northern Spain in connection with stolen explosives used in the Madrid attack.

”They are suspected of having connections with the robbery of explosives,” said an Interior Ministry official.

The government has said the alleged Islamic militant cell that staged the attacks traded drugs and cash for 440 pounds of dynamite stolen from a mine in the northern Asturias region.

One of the 14 people in jail over the attacks is a Spaniard who used to work in an Asturias mine.