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| Europe |
| Spain on maximum terror alert ahead of election campaign |
| 2008-02-22 |
| Spain went on maximum terror alert on Thursday ahead of the start of official campaigning for what is shaping up to be the most fiercely contested legislative election in decades. Campaigning for the March 9 general election was set to kick off at midnight. The Interior Ministry said the alert would provide for a “total mobilisation of forces and state security corps” to monitor and protect party headquarters, election meetings, public transport, shopping centres and sporting events. Spain, which has three security levels, had previously been on level two “medium” alert, over fears of a possible attack by the armed separatist group ETA, which called off a 15-month ceasefire in June 2006. “We believe ETA will try to kill before the elections,” Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba told public television TVE on Wednesday night. Spanish authorities have detained scores of suspected ETA members and say they have foiled a series of attacks by the outfit in recent months. The outcome of the last general election held on March 14, 2004, was altered by the early morning bombing of packed commuter trains in Madrid three days earlier by militants, which killed 191 people and wounded 1,800 others. A surprise Socialist victory was partly attributed to anger on the part of leftist voters over the perception that the conservative government in power had tried to cover up evidence that Islamic militants were behind the bombings. |
| Posted by:Fred |