A Spanish navy cook was killed when a bomb exploded inside his car today in the Basque city of San Sebastian in an attack that was immediately blamed on the armed separatist group ETA.
Police identified the victim a civilian employee of the armed forces working as a cook for the navy.
"It was a loud blast in the area of a barracks and army residences," a police spokesman said. Two passers-by were slightly injured.
Politicians immediately attributed the attack to ETA.
Television pictures showed a white car blown apart by the blast and surrounded by debris in the middle of a street in a suburb of San Sebastian.
In 2000, ETA admitted to 23 killings, its bloodiest year since 1992.
Today's attack marks its first assassination this year.
Already this week two car bomb attempts, suspected to be the work of ETA, have failed to go off in northern Spain.
The group called off a 14-month ceasefire in December 1999.
Reuters