A car bomb exploded outside a Guardia Civil barracks in the town of Durango in the Basque region of northern Spain Aug. 24, wounding two officers and causing considerable damage to the building and vehicles. Authorities said the attack was likely carried out by the separatist group ETA, which ended a ceasefire in June. The blast came days after Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba warned that an ETA attack was imminent. Recent weeks have seen the arrests of a number of ETA suspects, mainly in France, with 400 kilos of explosives seized.
ETA has been blamed for 819 killings in its 40-year campaign for an independent Basque state. The group had declared a "permanent ceasefire" in March 2006, but then claimed responsibility for the bombing of Madrid's airport on December 30, 2006, which killed two Ecuadoran men. The government called off pending peace talks with ETA after the airport attack. ETA formally declared the ceasefire over in June this year. (MWC News [2], Aug. 25)
See our last post on Spain and the Basques [3].
