Basque group owns up to recent attacks

Published on Monday 15 June 2009 14:38

The armed Basque separatist group Eta today claimed responsibility for a series of recent attacks, including a car bomb in Madrid.

In a statement to the pro-Basque paper Gara, Eta said it carried out five attacks between January and May. The blasts caused damage but no injuries.

Separately, the Spanish Interior Ministry said an Eta weapons cache with around a dozen guns and 400lbs of chemicals for making bombs was found over the weekend in south-west France.

The group, which regularly claims its attacks in statements to the paper, has killed more than 825 people since the late 1960s in a campaign for an independent Basque homeland in northern Spain and south-western France.

The outlawed group said it set off a powerful car bomb outside the offices of the Ferrovial construction company at a business park on Madrid's outskirts February 9.

The group said it targeted Ferrovial because of the company's involvement in a high-speed train project in the northern Basque region. Eta opposes the project.

Eta also claimed responsibility for a February 23 attack on offices of Spain's Socialist party in the small Basque town of Lazkao as well as another car bomb outside the house of a Basque businessman in the town of Amorebieta on March 26.

The other two attacks it acknowledged were against telecommunications relay towers.

The Interior Ministry said French utility crews doing maintenance work found the arms cache Saturday in the town of Pinderes.

Besides the guns and chemicals, the hideout included a detonating chord and some 100 timers for explosive devices, the ministry said.