Basque separatists bomb office in northern Spain

Madrid: A powerful bomb exploded on Thursday in a working-class neighbourhood of Bilbao after a warning call from the Basque separatist group ETA, injuring seven police officers, shattering windows and damaging cars, officials said.

The early morning blast targeted an office of Spain's governing Socialist Party on the outskirts of the Basque region's main city.

A caller claiming to speak for ETA telephoned a regional traffic department a half-hour earlier saying where and when the blast would occur, a police official said.

Seven officers who were helping to evacuate people and cordon off the zone were slightly injured in the blast, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with police regulations.

It caused heavy damage to the party office, apartment buildings and cars in La Pena, a crowded, blue-collar district.

'The explosion was deafening. I live in one of the buildings and we are all terrified," said Rosa Zunzunegi, a 68-year-old retiree. "We are working-class people. Why does ETA attack us with bombs?"

Evacuation

"We had to evacuate old people, children, people who were in their houses sleeping at this time," Basque Interior Department chief Javier Balza said.

"The houses are badly damaged. In the end, it's the people who suffer the madness of the terrorists."

Dealing with ETA is one of the main challenges facing Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero as he begins his second term in office.

ETA has killed more than 825 people since the late 1960s in its campaign for an independent Basque country in northern Spain and southwestern France.

The group declared a ceasefire in March 2006, but reverted to violence after failing to win concessions toward independence in negotiations with Zapatero's government.

ETA ended the ceasefire in December 2006 with a powerful car bomb that killed two people in Madrid. Besides more than a dozen non-lethal bombings since then, it has also killed two Spanish police in southern France, and a former town councilor in the Basque region on the eve of the March 9 vote that saw Zapatero re-elected.

The Interior Ministry has said Spain is in now for a "long cycle" of ETA violence.

Zapatero appealed last week to opposition conservatives to join him in a united front against ETA. The conservatives said they wanted guarantees that Zapatero would not try to negotiate again.

The houses are badly damaged. In the end, it's the people who suffer the madness of the terrorists."