Car Bomb Explodes in Northern Spain as EU Summit Ends; Fifth Bomb Blast in Two Days

Associated Press Writer ^ | Published: Jun 22, 2002 | By Jerome Socolovsky

[Bad~Rodeo]

MADRID, Spain (AP) - A car bomb - the fifth explosion in two days - blew up in the northern city of Santander on Saturday, two hours after a package bomb went off on the southern coast. The two attacks coincided with the closing of the European Union summit in Seville and were the work of Basque separatist.

No injuries were reported in the latest blast that went off at 2:47 p.m. in Santander, a northern coastal city 244 miles from Madrid.

Earlier in the day, a package bomb exploded in a hotel parking lot in the southern coastal city of Malaga. No one was injured in that blast.

Police in Santander received a telephone warning that a car would explode in 30 minutes, as they had in previous explosions. A spokesman said police had time to evacuate the area even though the bomb exploded five minutes before the ETA caller said it would.

At the start of the European Union summit on Friday, three car bombs rocked the southern cities of Marbella and Fuengirola and the northeast city of Zaragoza. Those explosions also were claimed by ETA, or Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, which stands for Basque Homeland and Freedom.

ETA has killed more than 800 people since the late 1960s in its violent campaign for an independent Basque state in northern Spain and southwestern France. Spain, the United States and the European Union have all branded ETA a terrorist organization.

The first explosion Friday morning shook Fuengirola, 70 miles southeast of Seville, critically injuring a British tourist who crossed a police line. Five other people were hurt by flying glass.

Six hours later, a bomb went off the center of nearby Marbella, a playground for the rich and famous, burning cars but causing no injuries.

The third bomb exploded Friday night in Zaragoza, 530 miles northeast of Seville. Police said a security guard and two others were slightly injured in the blast in a department store parking lot.

The EU summit was held in a sprawling convention complex surrounded by police roadblocks and army and air force units on high alert.

Last year, ETA group warned tourists to stay away from Spain's Mediterranean coast and detonated car bombs at Salou and Roses, near Barcelona. They also hit Malaga's international airport, which serves many of the 1 million tourists who visit the Mediterranean Costa del Sol each year, mostly in summer.

Friday's attacks came a week after law enforcement authorities found 288 pounds of dynamite and other explosives, along with boxes of detonators and wiring, in a wooded area on the coast near Valencia.

The bombings also came after the lower house of parliament approved a bill to outlaw the political wing of ETA, which has seven seats in the Basque regional assembly.

Last weekend, tens of thousands of people marched through the northern city of Bilbao to protest the legislation, which is expected to receive overwhelming approval in the Senate next week.

[Lazamataz]

Spain seems like an unlikely place for terrorism. Heck, you never hear any news out of Spain lately.

Spain: Europe's Slowest Child.

[Clara Lou]

I believe the Basque separatists have been active for decades. They don't seem to be as deeply into human slaughter as the Palestinians, though.

[Lazamataz]

I believe the Basque separatists have been active for decades.

There must be some pretty durned old terrorists in that group.

[cardinal4]

Spain: Europe's Slowest Child.

Whats France?

[Lazamataz]

Whats France?

A Bastard.

[July 4th]

ETA does something every once in a while, and I think the Brittany separatists in France are still technically active, blowing up a McDonalds a few years back. So much for the sophisticated Europeans...

[Lazamataz]

I think the Brittany separatists in France are still technically active, blowing up a McDonalds a few years back.

Well, you can't hate them for that.

I think it isn't even a crime to blow up a McDonalds.

[habs4ever]

Hey, you heard the boom??

[Stultis]

Police in Santander received a telephone warning that a car would explode in 30 minutes, as they had in previous explosions.

Now that the E.U., and even the U.S., have demonstrated by their appeasements of the Palestinians that homicidal, mass-murder terror attacks gain concessions and attention to nationalist "aspirations," this well may change (i.e. no more warning calls).

[walden]

Many of the Basque separatists were trained in terrorist camps in Afghanistan, along with IRA & other seemingly unrelated groups. The common thread here is anarchy and nihilism. More and more, I'm starting to believe that the terrorists of the world don't actually have ANY political desires, other than death, destruction, and chaos.

[livius]

ETA receives a constant infusion of dissatisfied youth, because ETA terrorism has successfully destroyed the economy and life of Northern Spain and there is high unemployment. It also, of course, receives lots of University leftists. Businessmen have to pay a "revolutionary tax" or have their businesses bombed; national and local politicians who oppose ETA are assassinated; the police wear masks to protect their identities so that their families will not be targeted, as often happens. And the national government is powerless to do anything about it, partly because of the left-wingers in the govt and the fact that this situation has been allowed to drag on since the death of Franco (who used to deal with it by catching ETA members and putting them to death).

ETA trains in Middle Eastern terror camps and works with FARC and other Latin American terrorist groups. More worrying is that its members have recently been found working with Islamic terrorists in Mexico and other parts of Latin America. In fact, ETA's head honcho in Latin AMerica converted to Islam.

ETA would do just as much damage in Spain as the Palestinians do in their part of the world, if it could get away with it. So far, it can't. But look for ETA, like many other fundamentally left-wing/anarchist terrorist groups, to get much more involved with Islamic terrorism and much more globally active in the future.

[ginle]

These guys have been pretty quiet for a number of years I thought, now the war to erradicate terrorism from the planet has started they are back in action again. Oh well just another group of several thousand people that need wacking, the U.S. WILL get around to them.

[Clara Lou]

Interesting information-- and sad. I didn't realize things were in such a bad way in Spain. It's interesting: Things are bad so the perceived solution is to bomb and kill to make things better.

[livius]

Things are fine in Spain. Things are bad in País Vasco (where ETA hangs out) because terrorism has destroyed the economy of what used to be the economic engine of Spain.

ETA reps once announced that their ideal socialist state was..ALBANIA! I guess they've achieved it, or at least in their part of Spain.

!Ay, pobre España!

[GuillermoX]

You're ignorant.

[Lazamataz]

You're ugly.

I'm uninformed about Spain, but I can run rings around you in other topics.