Alonzo
12-30-2006, 02:09 PM
MADRID, Spain ? A car bomb exploded in a parking lot at Madrid's glittery new airport terminal on Saturday, and the government blamed the Basque separatist group ETA. One person was missing and 26 were slightly injured, most of them with damage to their ears from the shockwave.
The blast halted all air traffic on one of the year's busiest travel days and brought a fiery end to an nine-month-old ETA cease-fire and plans for peace talks that had spurred the greatest hopes in a decade of a peaceful end to the conflict.
"Violence is incompatible with dialogue in a democracy," said Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba at a press conference. "This attack interrupts nine months without violent activity. It breaks a permanent cease-fire that ETA issued nine months ago."
Rubalcaba also said that there was one person missing inside the parking lot.
More than 800 people have died since the ETA took up arms in the late 1960s.
The timing of the explosion _ just hours after the execution in Baghdad of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein _ caused initial fears that Islamic militants might be involved. But officials soon discounted that, saying that two warning calls were received in the Basque region just before the explosion.
In the second call, a man claimed responsibility for the separatists, the Basque Interior Department's emergency rescue services said.
The explosion happened at around 9:00 a.m. at the airport's new Terminal 4, and witnesses said it sent shock waves over a wide area.
"I was outside my booth talking to a colleague when there was a massive blast that really shook us and rattled the roof of the toll complex," said Renzo Zarzal, 28, who was manning a highway toll booth some 500 yards away.
Smoke rose from the blast site more than an hour after the explosion and the building housing the parking lot appeared to be on fire.
The Civil Guard, a paramilitary police agency under Interior Ministry command, said the blast was from a car bomb. Javier Ayuso, a spokesman for the emergency rescue services of the Madrid city government, said five of the 26 people injured were taken to the hospital for evaluation, but none of their injuries was serious. The worst off appeared to be a policeman who received cuts from flying glass.
The bombing is likely to quash the nascent peace effort championed by Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. ETA has not killed anyone since May 2003, but continued a series of low-level bombings until just before the March cease-fire.
Zapatero had said in June that his government would negotiate with the ETA only after having concluded that its truce was serious. No talks are known to have taken place.
As recently as Friday, Zapatero said the government remained optimistic that the ETA cease-fire would lead to a definitive peace process, despite increased speculation that ETA might resume attacks.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4434842.html
The blast halted all air traffic on one of the year's busiest travel days and brought a fiery end to an nine-month-old ETA cease-fire and plans for peace talks that had spurred the greatest hopes in a decade of a peaceful end to the conflict.
"Violence is incompatible with dialogue in a democracy," said Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba at a press conference. "This attack interrupts nine months without violent activity. It breaks a permanent cease-fire that ETA issued nine months ago."
Rubalcaba also said that there was one person missing inside the parking lot.
More than 800 people have died since the ETA took up arms in the late 1960s.
The timing of the explosion _ just hours after the execution in Baghdad of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein _ caused initial fears that Islamic militants might be involved. But officials soon discounted that, saying that two warning calls were received in the Basque region just before the explosion.
In the second call, a man claimed responsibility for the separatists, the Basque Interior Department's emergency rescue services said.
The explosion happened at around 9:00 a.m. at the airport's new Terminal 4, and witnesses said it sent shock waves over a wide area.
"I was outside my booth talking to a colleague when there was a massive blast that really shook us and rattled the roof of the toll complex," said Renzo Zarzal, 28, who was manning a highway toll booth some 500 yards away.
Smoke rose from the blast site more than an hour after the explosion and the building housing the parking lot appeared to be on fire.
The Civil Guard, a paramilitary police agency under Interior Ministry command, said the blast was from a car bomb. Javier Ayuso, a spokesman for the emergency rescue services of the Madrid city government, said five of the 26 people injured were taken to the hospital for evaluation, but none of their injuries was serious. The worst off appeared to be a policeman who received cuts from flying glass.
The bombing is likely to quash the nascent peace effort championed by Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. ETA has not killed anyone since May 2003, but continued a series of low-level bombings until just before the March cease-fire.
Zapatero had said in June that his government would negotiate with the ETA only after having concluded that its truce was serious. No talks are known to have taken place.
As recently as Friday, Zapatero said the government remained optimistic that the ETA cease-fire would lead to a definitive peace process, despite increased speculation that ETA might resume attacks.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4434842.html