SPANISH TERROR

Basque separatists bombed a village police barracks housing officers and their families on Wednesday, killing one and wounding four. Spain's government described it as an attempted massacre.

In the first fatal attack blamed on the militant separatist group ETA in more than two months, the pre-dawn car bombing in the Basque village of Legutiano in northern Spain blew off part of the building's roof, raining down debris and trapping people inside.

The assailants used a large amount of explosives at the building with 29 people inside, including five children, some of them babies, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said.

The group "has failed in its attack because it had planned to cause a massacre, although it did not fail completely because it killed an innocent person who was just doing his job," he said after visiting the barracks in Legutiano, a village of 1,500 near the regional capital, Vitoria.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero called the attack "cowardly, despicable and criminal."

ETA declared a permanent cease-fire in March 2006, but reverted to violence in a matter of months when peace talks with government stalled. Since then it has staged more than 20 attacks, including several in recent weeks in the Basque region and neighboring Navarra.

At least two people were trapped in the rubble, including the dead Civil Guard officer. Another officer was pulled out with injuries. Three other Civil Guards also were wounded.

Zapatero traveled later to Vitoria to attend the slain officer's wake. Town halls across Spain planned to observe five minutes of silence at noon Thursday.

"I can assure you that democracy will defeat terror," Zapatero told parliament before leaving Madrid. "Freedom will defeat murderous fanaticism."



The dead officer was identified as Juan Manuel Pinuel Villalon, 41, who was married and had a 6-year-old son. He had been posted at the barracks for only two months.

Before Wednesday's car bombing, the last fatal attack by ETA was the shooting of a former town councilor in the Basque town of Mondragon on March 7, two days before Spain's general election.

The Basque group, which is fighting to carve out an independent homeland in lands straddling Spain and France, ended its cease-fire in December 2006 after failing to win concessions in peace talks with the Socialist government.

The death toll since then stands at six, including Wednesday's fatality. ETA has killed more than 820 people since launching its campaign of bombings and shootings in the late 1960s.

The government, which was caught off guard by the 2006 blast, launched an intense crackdown on ETA members, arresting dozens and suspending two pro-ETA nationalist parties.

Lawmakers from all parties put aside their bitter differences over how to deal with ETA and issued a joint statement condemning the attack.

King Juan Carlos described the bombing as “repulsive” and observed a minute’s silence during a military ceremony.



Javier Balza, the Basque region’s interior minister, said Wednesday’s blast “harkened back to images of attacks in the old days of this terrorist group,” a reference to the 1980s, when ETA carried out large-scale attacks that killed many civilians. One bombing at a police barracks in Zaragoza in 1987 killed 11 people, including 5 children.

The group broke off a nine-month cease-fire 17 months ago with a huge car bomb that killed two men at Madrid’s Barajas airport, effectively ending a flailing peace process launched by Mr. Zapatero, the prime minister. Since then, the group has carried out a series of small bombings — most of which caused little damage — and in December killed two Spanish policemen in a confrontation in France.

ETA cast a grim shadow over Spain’s March 9 parliamentary election when, 48 hours before the vote, it shot dead a former Socialist councilman in the Basque town of Arrasate.