TW
0

Civil guards in northern Spain yesterday blew up a car packed with 100 kg (220 pounds) of explosives, believed to have been intended for use in an attack by the Basque separatist group ETA, local authorities said. Specialists carried out a controlled explosion, avoiding what might have been another fatal attack as part of a renewed wave of ETA violence. The Renault 19 was found on Monday after a tip-off from a passing driver. It was abandoned on the side of a motorway near the town of Benabarre in the northern Huesca province and had a false number plate. Police blocked off a 20-km (12-mile) stretch of the road on Monday night. “On the evidence of a duplicated number plate, the area was cordoned off and...an examination was made, testing positive for explosive material,” a local government statement said. A senior politician congratulated the civil guards, saying they had averted what could have been another fatal ETA attack. “This car of death...could have caused a massacre, a slaughter somewhere in Spain,” Carlos Iturgaiz, head of the centre-right Popular Party (PP) in the Basque region, said.