Terrorists targeted election

last updated 8 January 2015

Madrid

The train bombings that killed 191 people in Madrid last March were almost certainly intended to influence the parliamentary election later that week, a leading Spanish newspaper said this week. Pro-war leader José Aznar lost the election to anti-war candidate José Zapatero, who had promised to bring the Spanish troops home from Iraq. El Mundo reported that newly revealed transcripts of wiretapped conversations showed the surviving conspirators rejoicing at the change in government. “We are immensely happy that the dog Aznar has fallen,” suspected bombing mastermind Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed says on one tape. “Whoever follows the dog will only have an earthquake, and Madrid is proof of that.” El Mundo said the tapes suggested that the bombings amounted to “an undercover coup.”