SPAIN: A powerful car bomb rocked the centre of Madrid yesterday afternoon destroying 12 parked cars and damaging a nearby office building but causing only minor injuries to six passers-by.
Two phone calls to a newspaper and a motoring organisation in the Basque country, claiming to be from the Basque terrorist movement ETA, warned that a white Renault 19 would explode half an hour later at 5 p.m.
The bomb had been placed in a car parked opposite the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium where Real Madrid was due to play an important European Champions League semi-final against their old rivals Barcelona less than four hours later.
As the area was already crowded with fans waiting for the game the police were out in force and were able to evacuate the area immediately.
The noise of the explosion could be heard many miles away and clouds of black smoke enveloped the 30-floor Torre de Europa building which contained only skeleton staff and security guards yesterday as most offices were closed for the May 1st bank holiday. A second car exploded 20 minutes later, some three miles away and close to the M-30 main road out of Madrid. Police believe this was the getaway car used by the terrorists who detonated it to destroy any fingerprints or other clues.
Anti-terrorist police had warned of an ETA attack in Madrid for several months.
It is believed ETA decided to act yesterday when an attack outside the stadium before an important game would attract maximum media attention .
They do not believe it was ETA's reply to the arrest in the Basque country this week of eleven members of Batasuna, their political wing and the discovery by French police of an arsenal of arms and ammunition in an apartment near Toulouse.
The Spanish interior minister, Mr Mariano Rajoy, told journalists that the Batasuna arrests had dealt a critical blow against ETA's financial wing.
He said police had gained valuable information on how the terrorists collected their money, how and where they laundered it and how it was spent.
Police have been following members of ETA on both sides of the Atlantic for almost four years. They discovered a vital clue in the chain of 104 herriko tabernas - people's café bars in towns and villages across the Basque country.
They believe these bars were used to recruit new members for ETA and to collect the revolutionary taxes extorted from local businesses.
The tabernas were organised and managed by Banaka S.A., a company whose chairman Mr Jóse Luis Franco Suarez was one of those arrested as also was the treasurer Mr Jon Gorrotxategi.
Mr Gorrotxategi had been detained earlier this year while carrying €200,000 from the Batasuna MEP Mr Koldo Gorostiaga.
Mr Rajoy said that Banaka channelled the money collected from the tabernas to outlets in Mexico, Venezuela, Urugay and Cuba where it was laundered and used to support ETA members living in exile or returned to Europe to finance operations.
The raid by French police was on an apartment in the town of Castres, 70 kms from Toulouse.
It had been empty since last December after two ETA suspects were arrested. When police broke into the building this week they found 20 rockets and launchers, pistols, detonators and a large quantity of explosives.