In Spain, leader-elect speaks out

MADRID -- Spain's prime minister-elect yesterday rejected charges that his shocking election victory would lead to an appeasement of Islamist radicals blamed for the Madrid train bombings that killed 190 people.

Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Spain had lived with attacks by armed Basque separatists ETA for more than 30 years and had not been cowed into submission by the March 11 train bombings, as suggested by some US politicians and commentators.

"We did not discover the ruthless face of terror three years ago," he told officials of his Socialist Party in an apparent reference to the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. "We have known it for more than 30 years."

Investigators blame the Madrid bombings on Islamist militants possibly linked to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. Police have arrested 17 people in Spain, most of them Moroccans.

Zapatero showed some anger at suggestions he would have lost the March 14 general election had it not been for the Madrid bombs. He said the view that he won because Spanish voters are afraid of terrorists was "simply indecent."

Zapatero has drawn fire for pledging to pull Spain's 1,300 troops out of Iraq unless the United Nations is given much greater control there by the end of June.