SPAIN:Spanish police bomb disposal experts have successfully defused a car bomb outside a defence ministry office in Logroño, La Rioja. The device, described as "very sophisticated" contained some 65 kilos of explosives attached to a five-litre can of petrol.
A warning from a caller, identifying himself as a member of Eta, was received by the Basque newspaper Gara at 11pm on Sunday night and the area in the centre of the city was cordoned off.
Shortly afterwards a small explosion was heard inside the car, but no damage was caused. This was believed to be the detonator which failed to ignite the device.
Two bomb disposal squads worked throughout the night to defuse the bomb, but it was not until after 7.30am yesterday that they finally declared it safe and lifted the cordon.
The bomb had been left in a green Ford Fiesta car stolen a week ago in France, but equipped with false licence plates belonging to a similar car registered in Fuengirola, Malaga.
Since Eta called off a ceasefire last June, French and Spanish police have stepped up their joint operations against the terrorist organisation.
They have arrested some 25 suspects on both sides of the frontier and seized large quantities of arms, ammunition, explosives, fuses and detonators, as well as valuable documentary information on their operations.
Security forces have successfully aborted at least three attacks during the summer, and last week four men were arrested in Cahors, France in a house which was equipped as a bomb-making factory containing several bombs ready for use.
Spanish interior minister Alfredo Rubalcaba described the four as the leaders of Eta's military wing. "They were the hard core of the organisation," he said, adding that they were almost certainly responsible for the attack on Madrid airport last December in which two men died, a bomb attack on a Civil Guard barracks in Durango two weeks ago and half a dozen other aborted attacks.
The thwarted car bomb attack in Logroño yesterday comes less than 24 hours after Eta issued a communique - also published in Gara - warning that they were about to step up their campaign of violence.
They blamed the government for the failure of the peace talks which the Zapatero government had tried to initiate. The communique concluded that the government's aim had never been to further the peace process through dialogue, "but to force us into a total surrender". Eta will continue to attack the structures of the [ Spanish] state on all fronts," it warned.