Car bomb in Spanish capital injures 52

MADRID - A car bomb has injured at least 52 people in the Spanish capital in an apparent rebuff by Basque separatist guerrillas ETA to government peace overtures.

The bomb, in a stolen van, blew up in an industrial zone in northeastern Madrid 45 minutes after a Basque newspaper received a warning in the name of ETA, officials said.

The warning gave police time to seal off the area, but dozens were hurt by flying glass or the force of the blast.

The bomb, estimated to contain up to 20kg of explosive, turned the van into a mangled lump of metal, wrecked about 10 parked cars and smashed windows in nearby buildings, including an Opel car showroom, witnesses and news reports said.

Emergency services treated 52 people at the scene, five of whom had to be taken to hospital, a spokeswoman said.

"The terrorist organisation ETA continues to be alive, active and operational and we are fighting it with all our determination," Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso said.

He urged Spaniards to "lower the noise level" after an unprecedented parliamentary vote last week raised speculation over a possible ETA truce to a new pitch

The blast appeared to be a ETA's defiant response to the vote that granted the government permission to open peace talks with the group if it laid down its arms.

The bomb came two days after French police detained three suspected ETA members and hours before two leaders of Batasuna, banned as the political wing of ETA, were due to appear in a Madrid court to answer charges of belonging to ETA.

Leaders of the opposition Popular Party (PP) attacked Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's policy towards ETA, saying it was a mistake to make concessions to the group.

"We must call on everyone to remove any blinkers which might make them think that ETA is something different to what it is. ETA is a terrorist group," said Madrid Mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon, a leading member of the conservative PP.

Pio Garcia Escudero, PP spokesman in Spain's Senate, was quoted by Europa Press news agency as saying the attack did not seem to show "a desire for negotiation by the terrorist group, but rather an attempt at pressure".

Zapatero condemned the bombing as an "act of terror". "The terrorist group ETA's only fate is to give up its arms and disband," he told the Senate.

ETA has killed nearly 850 people since 1968 in a bombing and shooting campaign for an independent Basque state in northern Spain and southwestern France. Spain, the United States and the European Union consider it a terrorist organisation.

A local bar owner told state radio that police told him to close the shutters and take shelter. "Ten minutes later, there was a pretty strong explosion. It broke my windows and my car which was parked there must have been destroyed," he said.

"Perhaps it was a good thing to offer to negotiate, but you can't negotiate with anyone who kills, who places bombs," Paulino Martinez, 35, a bus company employee who was at the scene, told Reuters.

Hundreds of ETA members have been arrested in France and Spain in recent years.

The group last hit in Madrid on February 9 when 43 people were injured in a car bomb near a convention centre. Its last fatal attack was in May 2003 when a bomb killed two police officers and seriously injured a third in northern Spain.

Spain's former government initially blamed ETA for the Madrid train bombings which killed 191 people on March 11 last year before radical Islamists claimed responsibility.

- REUTERS