US braces for pre-polls terrorist strikes

The warning follows a series of train bombings in Spain that resulted in the defeat in parliamentary elections of the government of Jose Maria Aznar, a staunch conservative supporter of US President George W. Bush and his war in Iraq.

Coming just three days before the vote, the March 11 blasts are credited with swinging the Spanish electorate toward the Socialist Party of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, a vocal opponent of the Spanish participation in the Iraq war.

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The new prime minister ordered all 1,300 Spanish soldiers out of Iraq on Sunday, one day after being sworn in.

This chain of events is seen by many in the United States as the first successful attempt by Islamic militants to influence an election in a Western democracy, and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice warned Sunday there was no guarantee al-Qaeda or some other militant group would not try to pull off a similar feat here.

"I think that we do have to take very seriously the thought that the terrorists might have learned, we hope, the wrong lesson from Spain," she said, appearing on the Fox News Sunday television show.

"I think we also have to take seriously that they might try during the cycle leading up to the election to do something," Rice continued. "In some ways, it seems like it would be too good to pass up for them."