A Spanish army officer, Lieut-Col Pedro Antonio Blanco, was killed in a car bomb explosion in central Madrid yesterday morning in the first terrorist killing in Spain since June 1998.
A second bomb, almost certainly planted in the terrorists' getaway vehicle, exploded 20 minutes later in a nearby street causing damage to property but no loss of life. The cars used by the terrorists, both Renault Clios, had been stolen in Madrid - one as long ago as last May.
Col Blanco (47), an economist attached to army headquarters with no known involvement with the Basque troubles, died instantly shortly after 8 a.m. when a parked car exploded on the street corner where he regularly waited for his official car. Several people were injured in the two blasts, none of them seriously.
The area contains several apartment blocks housing military families and has previously been a target for terrorist activity. It is the first terrorist attack in the Spanish capital for almost three years.
No one doubts that the bombs were the work of the Basque separatist movement ETA, which last November announced it was calling off a 14-month ceasefire. The government had shown little inclination to give in to one of ETA's main short-term demands to bring prisoners back to serve their sentences in jails nearer their homes. Police crackdowns on suspected terrorists, in both Spain and France, continued throughout the unilateral truce. Security forces have been on full alert since December. Two potentially deadly blasts were aborted shortly before Christmas when police intercepted two vans containing almost two tons of explosives on the motorway between the Basque country and Madrid.
A third car bomb was intercepted near Bilbao when a Civil Guard convoy changed its route. Other seizures of arms and explosives have been made over the last few months, but ETA is known to have large amounts remaining from almost 20 tons stolen from a mine in Brittany early last year.
The Prime Minister, Mr Jose Maria Aznar, cancelled a scheduled visit to the Canary Islands in order to remain in Madrid to offer his condolences to the Colonel's family. Although the general elections he announced at the beginning of the week are not until March 12th, he has already begun his pre-campaigning.
His spokesman, Mr Josep Pique, has made it clear that following yesterday's attack in Madrid any possibility of further contacts with ETA has been completely abandoned. "The government's only reply to ETA is that they should halt their terrorists and our response to them will be the arrest of the murderers," said Mr Pique.
The attack has been condemned by politicians of all parties, with the exception of Euskal Herritarrok (EH), the party closely allied to ETA. Mr Nicolas Redondo Terreros, leader of the Basque Socialist Party, called for a "demonstration against ETA and in defence of peace".
Mr Juan Jose Ibarretxe, the lehendakari or president of the autonomous Basque government, described yesterday as the saddest day since he took office. He announced that the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) was immediately suspending the pact it had signed with EH last May, and would not resume any contact with them until they explicitly condemned the killing of Col Blanco.
But Mr Arnaldo Otegi, the EH leader, refused to condemn the killing. He said he "regretted" the loss of life in Madrid, but blamed the attitude of other political parties which had not advanced the path to peace during the ceasefire.