SPAIN:A car-bomb exploded at a police barracks in northern Spain's Basque Country early yesterday, killing one officer and wounding four others in an attack the regional government blamed on Eta Basque separatists.
Prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who broke off an attempt at peace talks with Eta in December 2006, called the attack "cowardly, miserable and criminal".
The bomb went off in a Civil Guard barracks in Legutiano, a regional police spokeswoman said, killing a 41-year-old officer, Juan Manuel Piñuel Villalón.
Police said there was no advance warning of the blast, in which two men and two women officers were also hurt, and no one had claimed responsibility. But the government blamed Eta, which has waged four decades of violent struggle during which more than 800 people have been killed.
"They were hoping to carry out a massacre," interior minister Alfredo Rubalcaba told reporters after travelling to the Basque Country. "They left a car bomb packed with a substantial amount of explosives at the door of a barracks where there were a total of 29 people, including five children and an 18-year-old girl," he added.
Police at the scene wore masks to protect their identities from Eta as a rescue team with dogs searched for anyone trapped in the rubble.
Eta wants independence for Basques, whose traditional lands lie in northern Spain and southwestern France.
Polls show most Basques do not seem to want independence, although the leader of Spain's Basque regional government, Juan José Ibarretxe, is defying the Spanish government with plans to hold a referendum on whether to begin a debate on ties with Spain.
More than 750 suspected Eta members have been arrested since 2000 and the group is believed to have been seriously weakened.
The Spanish government began peace talks with Eta after it declared a ceasefire in 2006 but broke them off after the rebels killed two people in a bomb attack at Madrid Airport.
Eta's last fatal victim was a former small-town politician affiliated to Spain's governing Socialist Party, who was gunned down just before a national election in March.
- (Reuters)