Spain’s newly elected Socialist prime minister pledged Monday to shift allegiance away from Washington to Paris and Berlin, a move that could lead to a reduction of American influence in Europe on a range of issues. Meanwhile, American intelligence officials said Monday that they were now increasingly convinced that Muslim militants, not the Basque separatist group ETA, were responsible for the train bombings in Madrid on Thursday that killed 200 people and wounded 1,500. European and United Nations diplomats complained that they felt misled by the outgoing Spanish government, which said after the bombing that ETA was to blame and pressed for a condemnation of ETA at the Security Council. In his first remarks to reporters since his party’s stunning defeat of the center-right Popular Party candidate on Sunday, Prime Minister-elect José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero repeated his promise to pull Spanish troops from Iraq in the absence of a United Nations mandate. Such a mandate is considered likely, however, after the United States transfers sovereignty to Iraq in June. Full Story
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