Probe into Madrid train bombings uncovers no al-Qaida link

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-Qaida 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 – said a Spanish intelligence chief and a Western official intimately involved in counterterrorism measures in Spain.