By DPA,
Santona (Spain) : A car bomb attributed to Spain’s Basque separatist group ETA – its third in the past 24 hours – killed a soldier and seriously injured another overnight in Santona in the northern region of Cantabria, officials said Monday.
A road assistance service received a phone call in the name of ETA, warning that a bomb was about to explode at a military academy and residence within half an hour.
As the building was being evacuated, the bomb exploded, killing staff-sergeant Luis Conde de la Cruz, 46, who had been spending his holidays at the military residence.
Another military officer was seriously injured. At least five passers-by sustained slight injures or were treated for shock. The blast caused extensive material damage.
The attack was ETA’s third within 24 hours.
Eleven people were injured Sunday morning in a car bomb explosion at a police station in the Basque town of Ondarroa near Bilbao.
That attack came only hours after a car bomb exploded in the regional capital Vitoria, causing no injuries as an anonymous warning gave police time to clear the area.
Conde de la Cruz was the third person believed to have been killed this year by ETA, whose attacks have claimed more than 820 lives during its four-decade-long campaign for a sovereign Basque state.
Analysts said the most recent attacks may have been in response to the banning of the Basque Nationalist Action (ANV) and of the Communist Party of Basque Lands (PCTV) last week.