Basque terrorist group Eta has confirmed its strategy, announced when it ended its moribund ceasefire last June, to "strike on all fronts". The words of the new communiqué, released last weekend, were underlined by a large car bomb attack on the city of Logroño the same day. Most observers agree that a single death in this new campaign will postpone the prospects of any meaningful Basque peace process for years.
The reference in the Eta statement to "all fronts" is especially disturbing. In the 1990s and the first years of this century, Eta steadily extended its list of so-called legitimate targets, including judges, village politicians, academics and journalists - anyone, it seemed, who disagreed with the organisation in public. Of course, civilians had often been the "accidental" victims of Eta's attacks, but the targeting of so many people outside the security forces created grim new fears and ruined lives.
However, since the deaths of two policemen in May 2003, Eta has not killed anyone directly, with the significant exception of two "collateral" victims, Ecuadorian immigrants who died in the bombing of Madrid airport last December. Bizarrely, Eta claimed that this attack did not violate its ceasefire, then nine months old and already stagnating.
A year ago, a peaceful resolution of this conflict seemed possible, despite the irresponsible opposition of the Spanish conservatives to any talks. Indeed, the collapse of mutual trust on counter-terrorist policy between the right-wing Partido Popular (PP) and the Socialist Party PSOE government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was and is a great disservice to democracy.
The resumption of violence by Eta leaves Zapatero very little room to manoeuvre. Several of Madrid's policies - the dispersal of Eta prisoners far from their families, the banning of Batasuna and other political and civic groups sympathetic to Eta - arguably stoke the fires of the conflict. But responsibility for the return to violence rests solely with Eta and its supporters.
In any case, the prime minister, with a minority government hemmed in between an active terrorist campaign and the strident Spanish nationalist rhetoric of the PP, is hardly in a position to take a softer line now than he did during the ceasefire.
The best hope - and it is a very slim one - is that those Batasuna and Eta leaders who realise that terrorism is a futile strategy can prevail on more militant colleagues to put no further lives at risk. If Zapatero were then to be re-elected, with an increased vote in the forthcoming elections, the pieces might finally fall into place to bring this anachronistic conflict to a close.