Two separate terrorist attacks in less than 24 hours have cost the life of a local town councillor in a shooting in Malaga and injured the wife of a civil guard in a carbomb attack in Soria. Police have little doubt that both were the work of ETA, the Basque terrorist movement.
Mr Jose Maria Carpena (50) was shot as he was getting into his car outside his home in a residential area of Malaga on Saturday evening to drive to the inauguration of a local fiesta.
Eyewitnesses reported that a man, aged about 30, had been waiting in the vicinity, joking with children in the street. As Mr Carpena left his home the gunman approached and shot him once in the leg. He tried to escape from his killer but was shot five more times. His wife, teenage daughter and official driver were with him, but he died almost instantly. Six 9mm cartridges, of the kind most frequently used by ETA, were found beside the body.
Politicians have been almost unanimous in their condemnation of the killing, and demonstrations are taking place, not only in Malaga and the Basque country, but in all major cities in Spain.
Mr Juan Jose Ibarretxe, lehendakari or president of the Basque government, condemned Mr Carpena's murder and was unusually outspoken in his criticism of ETA. He called on them to abandon their campaign of terror. "It is essential that they respect the wishes of the Basque people who are calling on them to end their violence. They are destroying families and they are destroying the good name of the Basque people," he said.
Mr Carpena is the sixth ETA victim since the terrorists ended their 14-month ceasefire in January, and he is the ninth Popular Party politician to be murdered by ETA since 1995 when they shot another PP local councillor and his wife in Seville.
The weekend's second attack occurred yesterday afternoon in the village of Agreda, 50 km from Soria, when a car bomb exploded outside the local Civil Guard barracks. The wife of one of the guards was injured in the blast although her condition is not thought to be serious.
Police say the car had been left outside the barracks less than half an hour before it was detonated. Damage to the barracks and nearby buildings was considerable and the car was so badly damaged that police were forced to search among the wreckage to try to find fragments of the number plates and other traces of the terrorists.
The car had been parked alongside the local infant school, which was empty at the time.
Madrid was the scene of another car-bomb attack last Wednesday when 20 kg of dynamite, packed into a stolen car, exploded in a busy commercial area.
Police and the fire brigade received phone calls warning of a bomb, planted in a pedestrian street near the Plaza Callao, timed to explode in 30 minutes. In the event the bomb went off after 20 minutes, causing injuries to 10 people, three of them policemen clearing the area.