17 February 2006

BILBAO — A bomb exploded in an industrial area in the Basque town of Trapagaran, near the northern city of Bilbao, but nobody was injured.

Prior to the blast, an anonymous caller telephoned the Basque daily Gara, which publishes the communiques of the terrorist group ETA, to warn that the bomb had been planted.

However, authorities investigating the incident said that they still have not determined if ETA was responsible for the attack.

Officials with the Basque Country's autonomous government said that the extent of the material damage caused by the explosion and the type of explosives used will not be known until Friday.

The powerful blast occurred at 11 pm, one hour after the anonymous tip.

The site of the attack was a complex of industrial buildings owned by the Otaduy construction firm and housing mechanical shops.

Gara informed the police immediately upon receiving the bomb threat, and the latter cordoned off a large area around the Otaduy facilities and stopped traffic along a nearby highway and railway line.

The attack came on the same day that several Spanish newspapers published reports that an ETA cease-fire might imminent.

The hope of an end to ETA's 38-year campaign of terrorist violence has dominated the political debate in Spain in recent days, above all since Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero announced last week that the country was approaching the "beginning of the end" for ETA.

The terrorist group has killed more than 830 people over the past four decades in its quest to carve out an independent Basque nation from portions of northern Spain and south west France.

However, although it has continued to stage relatively frequent bomb attacks, those strikes have killed nobody since May 2003 and have been limited, by and large, to targeting private firms, communications infrastructure and government buildings, often late at night.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news