ETA linked to airport car park blast

A CAR BOMB exploded in an airport car park in the northern Spanish city of Santander yesterday, the latest in a string of explosions believed to be the work of Basque separatists, police said.

No one was injured in the attack, which came after an anonymous caller claiming to speak for the Basque separatist organisation ETA warned of an explosive device at the parking lot, police said. Police had time to fully evacuate the car park and airport terminal, before the blast went off at around 5pm (1500 GMT).

Several cars parked nearby were damaged and window panes in the airport terminal were shattered in the explosion, according to police.

The pro-independence Basque newspaper Gara confirmed to AFP that it had received an anonymous tip-off at about 1400 GMT, from a caller claiming to speak for armed ETA separatists, and had immediately alerted police. The attack came after an explosion outside a courthouse in the northern Spanish town of Estella on Friday that injured two people and twin blasts in the popular Mediterranean resorts of Alicante and Benidorm last Tuesday. ETA, which is fighting for an independent state in northern Spain, is waging a campaign of summer violence to disrupt the country’s lucrative tourist industry.

All planned flights were suspended following the explosion, with incoming flights diverted to Bilbao, in the neighbouring Basque country province.