Car Bombing in Madrid Injures Dozens
"Features"02/09/2005
MADRID, Spain (AP) - Basque separatists detonated a powerful car bomb in Madrid on Wednesday, a week after Spain’s Parliament overwhelmingly rejected a plan giving the region virtual independence. Dozens of people were injured.
The explosion came hours after the arrest of at least 14 suspected members of the armed ETA, among 200 rounded up in the last two years in a push to wipe out the separatist group.
The bomb went off around 9:30 a.m. near the convention center Ifema, shattering thick panes of glass in buildings and damaging cars. Authorities anticipated the blast, having received a warning pointing them to the bomb’s general location.
Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso said the bomb packed an estimated 45-65 pounds of explosives. Thirty-nine people were injured, none seriously, said Javier Ayuso, a spokesman for the Madrid emergency medical service.
King Juan Carlos had been scheduled to open an art show at the convention center later in the day, accompanied by President Vicente Fox of Mexico. Authorities said the ceremony was still on.
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero denounced the bombing. “ETA and those who support it have no place in political or civil life. Bombs lead only to jail,” he said during a visit to Poland.
Madrid has been jittery since the March 11 bombings of commuter trains, which killed 191 and wounded more than 1,500. The attack was blamed on Islamic militants.
ETA detonated a small bomb in a Mediterranean resort hotel on Jan. 30, two days before the vote against broader autonomy. One person was slightly injured.
The plan, proposed by the Basque regional parliament, called for virtual independence and was contingent on the absence of ETA violence.
Juan Jose Ibarretxe, the region’s president, responded to the vote by calling early elections for April 17, hoping to capitalize on Basque nationalist anger.
The ETA’s political wing, Batasuna, was outlawed in 2003 and is not allowed to field candidates.
ETA is blamed for more than 800 deaths since the late 1960s in a campaign of bombings and shootings aimed at creating an independent Basque homeland in land straddling northern Spain and southwest France.
ETA carried out a string of small bombings in northern resort towns over the summer. It also detonated seven bombs around Spain on Dec. 6 - the anniversary of Spain’s 1978 constitution that set up the system of regional autonomy that ETA abhors as insufficient.