A car bomb exploded Tuesday in the Basque city of Bilbao,
injuring at least one person, local media reported.
The bomb went off under the car of a bodyguard, seriously
injuring him. A local radio station earlier said the bodyguard had
been killed, but the interior ministry later confirmed that he was
seriously injured and is now receiving medical treatment.
The bodyguard was assigned to a Socialist member of the council
of the Basque village of Galdakao, near Bilbao. The bomb went off
at about 1135 GMT in a neighborhood of La Pena, burning the man's
face and injuring other parts of his body.
Though there was no immediate announcement of responsibility,
police suspected Basque separatist group ETA, which has renewed
terrorist attacks in recent months following a government crackdown
against it and its political wing Batasuna.
ETA formally called off a March 2006 peace deal with the
government in June amid accusations that both sides had failed to
implement the agreement. The situation has become particularly
tense recently following the arrests of 23 senior members of
Batasuna, ETA's political wing, Thursday. Seventeen of them have
been jailed.
The most senior Batasuna official still at liberty, Pernando
Barrena, has termed the arrests a "declaration of war" and warned
of a "new cycle of violence" in Spain.
Just hours before the bombing, Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo
Perez Rubalcaba tightened security measures throughout the country,
to prevent possible ETA attacks before or on the National Day
holiday Friday.
ETA is listed as a terrorist group by the European Union and the
United States. During its four-decade fight for independence of the
Basque region, it has killed more than 800 people.
(Xinhua News Agency October 10, 2007)
