| Those guys never seem to get enough of that, do they? |
Five explosions hit Madrid at Friday evening rush hour -- three of them at petrol stations -- after a warning from the Basque separatist group ETA, police said. There were no immediate reports of injuries. The blasts went off in the northern and western sides of the city, not in the city center. Police described the bombs as low-potency. They went off just as millions of Spaniards were heading out of town for a long holiday weekend. A caller to the Basque newspaper Gara issued a warning on behalf of ETA, saying five explosive devices had been placed at gas stations along major highways leading out of Madrid, The Associated Press reported. The caller said the bombs were set to explode at 1730 GMT, Gara reported on its Web site, according to Reuters.
The gas stations were evacuated before the blasts, the news agency Efe said, AP reported. Spain's traffic department said four major roads out of Madrid were blocked. "We recommend not leaving Madrid for now if it is not strictly necessary," Reuters quoted a spokesman for the department as saying. ETA, which has been blamed for hundreds of deaths in Spain over the past several decades, is considered a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union. Authorities recently arrested top ETA leaders in France and seized large amounts of weapons and ammunition in raids. Because of the crackdown, the Spanish government had led the public to believe that ETA was weakening. |