Madrid | March 10

Breaking News - 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.

The intelligence chief said there were no phone calls between the Madrid bombers and al-Qaida 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-Qaida operation,” he said. “It was homegrown.”