ETA bombing in Madrid
E.T.A. the Basque separatist organization, set off a car bomb in the northeast of Madrid this morning. Spanish police report that the car bomb contained between 18-20 kilos of explosives (40-45 pounds). As is the rule with all ETA bombings since the 1970s, an anonymous caller alerted police with sufficient time, such that all buildings near the location were fully evacuated 15-20 minutes before the bomb went off resulting in only 8 minor injuries, none of which required hospitalization.
Though clearly a terrorist organization, ETA has always been very careful to avoid injuries to civilians. It was this fact which raised so much suspicion in Spain after the March 11th train bombings in 2004. The then right-wing government of Jos?© Mar??a Aznar immediately claimed, and maintained for days, that the train bombings were tied to ETA, though there had been no advance warnings of the attack. Ultimately the March 11th attacks were proven to be the responsibility of Al Qaeda, and the obfuscation of the Aznar government led to the election of the liberal government of Jos?© Luis Zapatero.
ETA, an organization dedicated to the independence of the Basque provinces in the northeast of Spain, first appeared on the world stage in 1973 when they assassinated the hand-picked Fascist successor to General Francisco Franco (who had been a brutal dictator for 40 years). This assassination led to the democratization of Spain under the guidance of the re-established monarch, King Juan Carlos. Had ETA ceased to operate at that time, or become an exclusively political organization, they might have gone down in history as saviors of Spanish democracy. Instead, the radical elements within the organization have continued to use violence in an attempt to achieve full independence from Spain and are widely villified by the majority of Spanish citizens.