Madrid - A powerful car bomb rocked Madrid's Barajas Airport yesterday morning causing no injuries but considerable damage to the building, Jane Walker reports. Almost 100 cars were destroyed in the blaze which followed the blast. Security forces, who have feared a terrorist attack in the Spanish capital for some weeks, believe that it was the work of the Basque terrorist organisation group ETA. An inaccurate warning was phoned to a motoring organisation.
Mr Juan Cotino, the director general of the National Police, said he believed the caller deliberately gave misleading information as a trap hoping to lure explosives experts to the scene of the bomb, which contained around 50 kilos of explosives. Two important anti-ETA operations at the weekend in the Basque Country and near Barcelona have resulted in 13 detentions and the seizure of a large amount of ammunition and explosives, including a fully primed car bomb and valuable information on future plans and targets.