Women and kids escape huge ETA barracks bombing
Dozens of women and children escaped a massive bomb attack by Spanish separatists ETA which destroyed a police barracks yesterday.
The no warning attack by Eta left no time for the 14-storey family building in Burgos to be evacuate where around 120 people were sleeping, 40 of them children. Most of the injuries were from flying glass, and 38 of the wounded were treated in hospital.
Officials said they were amazed no-one was killed in the 4am car bomb blast, which blew off much of the barracks’ facade. Nearby homes had their windows and some walls blown in by the force of the explosion.
It was ETA’s eighth attack this year, further proof the militant group is still an active force despite major police crackdowns in Spain and France.
Spain’s government claims after each ETA arrest, including those of many leaders, that the group has been decapitated, but the attacks have continued.
Members of Spain’s paramilitary Civil Guard police force often live in barracks with their spouses and children. The force is chiefly in charge of policing rural areas and guarding official buildings.
Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba condemned the bombing.
“The attack aimed to cause deaths,” he told reporters. “Forty-one girls and boys were sleeping and could simply have been killed in what was a major car bomb.
“This wasn’t just directed at those that work in the Civil Guard, which is detestable in itself, but it was aimed at hurting their families, giving it an added repulsive aspect.”
He said all of the injured had been discharged from the hospital by midday.
The minister said the van containing the bomb had used false number plates and had probably been stolen in France.
He said that no warning call was received.
Mr Rubalcaba said it was too early to give details on the exact size of the bomb.
Police sources said that it may have contained up to 440lbs of explosives.
Spain has vowed to crush ETA since it ended what it had said was a permanent ceasefire with a massive bombing at Madrid airport in 2006.
Mr Rubalcaba said the “horrendous attack” showed that ETA was not only group of “murderers and savages but also crazed people. This does not make them stronger, but it does make them more dangerous”.
The last attack blamed on the group was on July 10 when a bomb exploded outside an office of the Spanish prime minister’s party in the Basque town of Durango, causing significant damage but no injuries.
The group’s last fatal attack took place on June 19, when a car bomb killed a Spanish police detective who investigated ETA.
In an attack on May 14, 2008, ETA killed a Civil Guard officer in a car bomb outside a barracks in the Basque town of Legutiano.
