The Basque separatist group ETA threatened today to attack tourist resorts, warning foreign holiday-makers to stay away from Spain after setting off two bombs at beach towns earlier this month.
In a statement to Basque newspapers, ETA warned tourists of undesirable consequences if they came to Spain and included Spanish touristic-economic interests among its targets.
Spain's interior minister described ETA's statement as an ode to murder. Officials and representatives of Spain's huge tourism industry played down the threat as scaremongering.
"They've repeated this kind of thing several times," a government spokesman said. Their attacks have never had a noticeable impact on tourism.
The British Embassy in Madrid said UK visitors were being advised that tourist areas might be targeted, although the risk of danger was considered small.
ETA has targeted tourism before. In 1996, a bomb exploded in Reus airport, a resort town in northeastern Spain, injuring 35 mostly British tourists.
"Spain is a safe country...and offers first-class tourism. I don't think anyone is going to take any notice of this," Interior Minister Mr Mariano Rajoy told reporters. Our security forces will do all in their power to avoid any kind of action.
Mr Rajoy said two suspected ETA members had been arrested on Friday, one in France and another in Spain, as part of an ongoing crackdown by police on both sides of the border.