A car bomb exploded outside a Civil Guard barracks in the northern Spanish city of Burgos early yesterday, injuring 46 people in an attack authorities blamed on Basque separatist rebels ETA.
The blast at around 4am ripped away most of the outer wall of the 14-story barracks in of the biggest attacks for some time by ETA, whose ranks have been decimated by arrests
“It’s almost a miracle no one was hurt more seriously,” an emergency services spokesman said, adding that the barracks had been evacuated and fire fighters were going through the building.
PHOTO: AP
Most of the injuries from the blast were from flying glass, and 38 of the wounded were treated in hospitals, regional ministry representative Miguel Alejo said.
Many of the injured were Civil Guard police officers and family members.
The car packed with explosives had been parked outside the barracks, home to members of Spain’s paramilitary police force and their families.
The bomb left a crater that had filled with water from broken underground pipes, Alejo said.
“The car used to cause the explosion has been displaced some 70 meters, so that gives you an idea of the power of the blast,” he said
Police and emergency services did not receive any warning that a bomb had been planted, but the explosion had the hallmarks of an ETA attack, Alejo said.
It was not immediately clear how many people were in the building at the time.
“Those who do this sort of thing will end up in jail,” Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Manuel Chaves said.
Authorities believe ETA is under pressure to show it can still mount attacks despite having been weakened by a series of arrests including that of its suspected top commander, Jurdan Martitegi, in April.
His capture brought to four the number of commanders caught in less than a year.
ETA is held responsible for killing more than 800 people in the past 40 years in a campaign to carve out an independent Basque homeland in northern Spain and southern France.
It typically employs shootings and car bombs, often targeted at police and army barracks.
Polls indicate most Basques in Spain would favor some sort of independence, although support for ETA violence is confined to a diminishing minority.
The most recent killing blamed on the group was on June 19, when a police inspector died in a booby-trapped car in the northern city of Bilbao.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s Socialist government broke off peace talks with ETA after the rebels killed two people with a car bomb at Madrid airport in December 2006.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS