The head of the National Intelligence Centre, Jorge Dezcaller, added that al-Qaeda had even accused Saddam of not respecting the principles of Islam, the media said.

Dezcaller's comments came in response to questions from the parliamentary committee on control of secret funds, during a closed-door meeting on Thursday.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, a fervent supporter of the US-led war on Iraq, on several occasions claimed there were links between the former Iraqi president and the network of Osama bin Laden, most notably in a speech to the Madrid parliament on February 5.

Dezcaller said there was no evidence to support Aznar's claim but there was reason to believe Saddam's regime had actively supported militant Palestinian groups.

Asked whether the intelligence services believed Baghdad had possessed weapons of mass destruction -- one of the main arguments Washington and London used to justify invading Iraq -- Dezcaller would only say Saddam's regime had been "inclined" to obtain them.

He added that Spain's counter-espionage service was not able to compile first-hand reports on Iraq as complete as those provided by the British intelligence services and consequently based its conclusions in part on data provided by its allies.