SPAIN: For the second time in less than four months, Spanish police have foiled a potential massacre by detaining terrorists as they were transporting explosives to the capital, writes Jane Walker
On Christmas Eve, they arrested two men carrying explosives to blow up a a train travelling from San Sebastian to Madrid.
In the early hours of yesterday morning, they stopped two men as they were driving in convoy through the small town of Canaveras, some 200kms north-east of Madrid.
Suspicion had been aroused when Civil Guards noticed that the licence plates did not correspond to the make of their two vehicles.
The cars were later found to have been stolen in France at the end of last year.
When he was stopped, the driver of one vehicle warned the officers that he was carrying a large quantity of explosives. The second vehicle was halted a few kilometres away and both men were arrested.
Police say neither has a terrorist record.
The second van in the convoy contained 536 kilos of plastic explosive and dynamite packed into a large metal container, with 90 metres of explosive fuse connected to a detonator.
The 500 residents of the Canaveras area were evacuated from their homes shortly after 5 a.m. but were able to return four hours later after the explosives experts had defused the bomb.
Interior Minister Angel Acebes claimed that the bomb was so powerful it would have created a 35-metre crater, caused total destruction to buildings within a 60-metre radius, serious damage within a further 100 metres and a blast affecting more than 1 ½ kms.
Officials believe that the offices of the right-wing newspaper La Razon were the target for attack.
The discovery of the potentially devastating bomb comes only two weeks after ETA created a political storm in Spain by announcing a truce in Catalunya, while the rest of Spain remained a "legitimate" target.
The partial ceasefire was the result of controversial and secret talks between ETA leaders and Josep Lluis Carod-Rovira, leader of the pro-independence Republican Left Party of Catalunya (ERC), the junior partner in the regional government.
"I hope Mr Carod is satisfied that the bomb was going to Madrid where it would have killed and maimed Madrilenos and not to Catalunya," Mr Acebes said yesterday, in a pointed reference to the controversial partial-ceasfire agreement.
ETA has been severely weakened after a series of arrests of its leaders and their henchmen in France and Spain in recent months.
Some sources say there are moves within ETA itself to call a ceasefire, although this seems unlikely at least until after the general elections, which will be held on March 14th.