Spanish police have foiled an attempt by suspected Basque separatists to blow up a train in a main Madrid station today, one of the busiest travel days of the year, the interior minister said.
Minister Angel Acebes said police detained a suspected ETA member after he loaded a suitcase packed with more than 20 kg of explosives on a train heading from the northern city of San Sebastian to Madrid. A second man who planned to place another explosives-laden suitcase on the same train in San Sebastian was also detained.
Police stopped and evacuated the train about 100 kms from San Sebastian. The explosives were set to go off at 3.55 p.m. (2.55 Irish time), about half an hour after the train arrived in the Spanish capital, he said.
"This is ETA's way of making itself known: on the day of Christmas Eve at four in the afternoon, 50 kilos of explosives in a station full of people who are travelling home to spend...Christmas with their families," Mr Acebes told a news conference.
ETA, which has killed nearly 850 people in its campaign for an independent Basque state since 1968, has attempted to stage Christmas bomb attacks in the capital before.
In 1999 civil guards stopped two vans, each carrying about a tonne of explosive, which police said were destined for Madrid.
Last December two suspected ETA members were arrested as they drove 130 kg (286 pounds) of explosives towards Madrid.
Security forces in Spain and France have arrested almost 180 suspected ETA members this year, while the French earlier this month seized a man described as the top military commander.