MADRID — A powerful truck bomb detonated outside a barracks housing police officers and their families in northern Spain on Wednesday, tearing through the building and killing a policeman. The authorities immediately blamed Basque militant group ETA, though nobody claimed responsibility.The blast on the outskirts of Legutiano, a small town near the Basque capital of Vitoria, struck the barracks without warning in the middle of the night, as some 30 members of the Spanish civil guard and their families slept. It blew out windows and shattered part of the roof, trapping people inside and spraying debris and car parts over a wide area, according to witnesses’ accounts. Juan Manuel Piñuel Villalón, 41, was killed and four others wounded, none seriously, police said.
Prime Minister José Luis RodrÃguez Zapatero, who flew to Vitoria to pay his respects to the dead officer, called the bombing “cowardly, ignoble and criminal” and vowed the killers would feel “the full weight of the law.”
| Until the next time he cuts a deal with ETA ... |