SPAIN:A SPANISH army sergeant was killed by a suspected Eta bomb in the early hours of yesterday morning. It was the third Eta car bomb attack in Spain in just over 24 hours.
Staff Sgt Luis Conde de la Cruz (46) died in the blast and another six were injured outside a military academy in the fishing port of Santona, Cantabria, northern Spain. The academy is used as a holiday residence for Spanish military. The dead man and his wife were on the last day of their summer holiday.
The explosion occurred at about 1am, less than half an hour after a warning was called in. The bomb exploded as Sgt Conde was helping to evacuate the building.
Shortly after midnight on Saturday, a 100kg car bomb exploded in the Basque capital of Vitoria. There were no injuries.
Four hours later, another large car bomb was detonated outside the barracks of the Basque police force in Ondárroa, near Bilbao. In this case no warning was received and 10 people were injured.
This is the third Eta killing so far this year, and the first since March, when Isaías Carrasco, a former socialist councillor of Mondragón, was shot outside his home.
Tension has risen in the Basque region since the Spanish supreme court declared two nationalist parties illegal because of their alleged links to Eta.