SPAIN: The fear that ETA would seize the opportunity of the European Union summit in Seville to carry out terrorist attacks proved founded yesterday when two car bombs exploded in tourist resorts as the ministers were beginning their meetings. Jane Walker reports from Madrid
The first blast occurred shortly after 7 a.m. when a car bomb was detonated outside the four-star Piramides Hotel near the seafront in the popular resort of Fuengirola on the Costa del Sol.
A 33-year-old British man, who was on his way to watch the England-Brazil World Cup quarter-final match, was seriously injured with shrapnel wounds to the chest.
Two other passers-by were admitted to hospital, although their condition was not serious, and three more people were treated on the scene for minor injuries.
A warning telephone call from someone claiming to represent ETA was received by a motoring organisation in San Sebastian 30 minutes before the blast.
Police cordoned off the area and evacuated a crowded café. The bomb, which contained around 35 kg of explosives, had been set in a Peugeot 206 car stolen two days ago in Malaga.
Bomb disposal experts later detonated three other suspicious cars, although none were found to contain explosives.
Six hours later a second car bomb exploded in Marbella, 25 km away. Police again evacuated the area and there were no injuries, but at least six cars were destroyed and there was considerable damage to a hotel, two restaurants an apartment block and an office building.
The Interior Minister, Mr Mariano Rajoy, told journalists that he had no doubt that the bombs were the work of ETA, which had warned of its plans to disrupt the EU summit.
Officials believe the terrorists were members of a mobile ETA unit sent to the area to begin a campaign of bombing in coastal resorts, similar to ones carried out in previous summers and which were aimed at hitting Spain's vital tourist industry.
Five years ago, 35 British and Irish tourists were injured in an ETA bomb blast at Reus airport.
Last year a police officer was killed and several other people were injured in two bombings in Roses, on the Costa Brava, and in Gandia on the Costa Blanca.
It is only one week since police believed they had foiled plans by ETA to detonate bombs in tourist areas after discovering 131 kg of explosives, along with detonators and fuses, hidden in three isolated hideouts in mountains some 80 km south-west of Valencia.
The Interior Minister, Mr Rajoy, said there were sufficient explosives to manufacture at least six car bombs.
The discovery of the explosives came after the arrest in Algemesi, near Valencia, of Aitzol Maurtua, a suspected Basque terrorist who was armed with a 9mm pistol.
Neighbours had alerted the police after noticing that his Renault 19 had licence plates of a far older car - a Seat 127 scrapped some time ago.
A second terrorist - believed to be Inigo Vallejo - escaped and police in both Spain and France are searching for him.
Mr Rajoy said that Mr Maurtua (21) had been recruited to the ETA active service unit a month only a earlier after French police arrested the five men originally designated to carry out the anti-tourism campaign.