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Bomb kills police officer in Spain's Basque region (2nd Lead)

May 14, 2008, 5:59 GMT

Madrid/Vitoria, Spain - A car bomb blast killed a police officer and injured four other people at a barracks of Spain's paramilitary Civil Guard in the northern Basque region early Wednesday, police said. Basque officials attributed the attack to the militant Basque separatist group ETA. A van containing explosives was parked at the entry to the barracks in Legutiano 15 kilometres north of the regional capital Vitoria. The explosion caused part of the building to collapse, killing Juan Manuel Pinuel Villalon, 41, married with one child. Three men and one woman were injured. One of the injured victims was in a serious condition. About 40 people were inside the barracks when the bomb exploded, tearing a several-metre-wide crater in the ground and destroying the van completely. The attackers did not give a warning before the blast, as ETA often does, an indication that they intended to kill. Police located an abandoned car which the attackers were believed to have used to flee. Pinuel Villalon was ETA's sixth suspected victim since Socialist Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero became prime minister in 2004. Four of the victims were killed after Zapatero's attempt at a peace process with ETA collapsed in 2006. The most recent victim before Pinuel, former Socialist councillor Isaias Carrasco, was shot dead two days before the March 9 elections, after which Zapatero formed a new government. The bombing of the police barracks followed three minor attacks earlier this month. ETA has killed more than 800 people in its 40-year armed campaign for an independent Basque country carved out of northern Spain and southern France.

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