Free Republic

A scandal over apparent efforts made by Jacques Chirac and his former prime minister to dash the presidential hopes of his rival Nicolas Sarkozy gathered pace yesterday after evidence emerged suggesting that the current interior minister was aware of the alleged plot. Michèle Alliot-Marie, 61, defence minister when Mr Chirac was president, is expected to be questioned and perhaps placed under investigation after new evidence suggested she was aware of the attempt to smear Mr Sarkozy and failed to inform him. Michèle Alliot-Marie was defence minister when Jacques Chirac's was president The so-called Clearstream affair surrounds allegations that several high-profile...

MADRID, Spain — A two-year investigation into the Madrid train bombings concludes the 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 U.S. troops in Iraq — the Spanish intelligence chief and a western official intimately involved in counterterrorism measures in Spain told The Associated Press.

The US president has rebuked Spain's new prime minister for going ahead with his election promise to withdraw troops from the coalition in Iraq. George W Bush voiced regret at the "abrupt Spanish action" in a five-minute phone call to Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the White House said. He further warned against giving "false comfort to terrorists". The White House also announced that the John Negroponte, the US envoy to the UN, is to play a key role in Iraq. The president urged that the Spanish withdrawal take place in a co-ordinated manner that does not put at risk other...