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Car bomb explodes at Madrid's new airport terminal

A car bomb exploded in a parking lot at Madrid's new airport terminal yesterday after a warning call from the Basque separatist group ETA, officials said. Three people were slightly injured.

The blast halted all air traffic on one of the year's busiest travel days and brought a fiery end to a nine-month-old ETA ceasefire that had spurred the greatest hopes in a decade of a peaceful end to the conflict.

Two warning calls were received in the Basque region just before the explosion. In the second call, a man claimed responsibility on behalf of the separatists, the Basque Interior Department's emergency rescue services said.

The bomb exploded at about 9:30am at the airport's new Terminal 4, said Javier Ayuso, a spokesman for the emergency rescue services of the Madrid city government.

A column of thick smoke rose from the blast site more than an hour after the explosion and the building housing the parking lot appeared to be on fire.

The terminal was evacuated and the airport was closed, said Iberia, the Spanish flagship carrier that runs most flights out of the terminal.

The Civil Guard -- a paramilitary police agency under Interior Ministry command -- said the blast was from a car bomb.

Among the injured were a policeman with cuts from flying glass and two other people with light injuries, Ayuso said.

The explosion came a few hours after the execution in Baghdad of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, leading to some initial fears that Islamic militants might be involved.

The bombing seemed sure to be the nail in the coffin of a nascent peace effort championed by Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

ETA has not killed anyone since May 2003, but continued a series of low-level bombings until just before the ceasefire.

More than 800 people have died since the group took up arms in the late 1960s.
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