Eta kills Bilbao anti-terror chief Eduardo Puelles García in car bomb attack Police officers investigate the scene of a car bomb in Bilbao
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June 19, 2009
Source: Timesonline
(Vincent West/Reuters)
Chief Inspector Eduardo Puelles García died when a limpet mine attached to his vehicle exploded in a car park close to his home
Graham Keeley, in Barcelona
The head of a Spanish anti-terrorist unit has been murdered in an Eta a car-bomb attack.
Chief Inspector Eduardo Puelles García died instantly when a limpet mine attached to his car exploded at 9.05am. The attack took place in car park near his home in Arrigarriga, near Bilbao.
A neighbour who heard the blast said it was so strong that his bed moved. Four other vehicles were damaged but no one else was hurt. Television pictures showed flames shooting out of the vehicle.
The murder of Mr Puelles, 49, comes exactly 22 years since Eta’s worst terrorist attack, the bombing of the Hipercor supermarket in Barcelona in which 21 people died and 40 were injured.
José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister, who is in Brussels for a meeting with other European Union leaders, expressed his “condemnation of the attack”, said an aide.
The murder of comes seven months after Eta shot dead Inaxio Uria, a businessman, in the village of Azpeitia near San Sebastian, because of this involvement in the construction of a high-speed train line through the Basque Country. Eta regards the "Y Vasca" line as a symbol of "Spanish colonialism".
The murder of an anti-terrorist officer represents the most serious strike by Eta against the security forces since it shot dead two officers working undercover in France in 2007 and comes after it was seriously depleted by the arrest of four leaders in just over a year.
Security sources told The Times that Eta represents an equal threat to Spanish security as Islamic extremists.
Memories ares still raw of the Madrid train bombings five years ago, in which 191 people died in an attack carried out by an al Qaeda-inspired terrorist cell.
Eta has killed more than 825 people in its a 40-year campaign for an independent Basque state in northwest Spain and southwest France.
Chief Inspector Eduardo Puelles García died instantly when a limpet mine attached to his car exploded at 9.05am. The attack took place in car park near his home in Arrigarriga, near Bilbao.
A neighbour who heard the blast said it was so strong that his bed moved. Four other vehicles were damaged but no one else was hurt. Television pictures showed flames shooting out of the vehicle.
The murder of Mr Puelles, 49, comes exactly 22 years since Eta’s worst terrorist attack, the bombing of the Hipercor supermarket in Barcelona in which 21 people died and 40 were injured.
José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister, who is in Brussels for a meeting with other European Union leaders, expressed his “condemnation of the attack”, said an aide.
The murder of comes seven months after Eta shot dead Inaxio Uria, a businessman, in the village of Azpeitia near San Sebastian, because of this involvement in the construction of a high-speed train line through the Basque Country. Eta regards the "Y Vasca" line as a symbol of "Spanish colonialism".
The murder of an anti-terrorist officer represents the most serious strike by Eta against the security forces since it shot dead two officers working undercover in France in 2007 and comes after it was seriously depleted by the arrest of four leaders in just over a year.
Security sources told The Times that Eta represents an equal threat to Spanish security as Islamic extremists.
Memories ares still raw of the Madrid train bombings five years ago, in which 191 people died in an attack carried out by an al Qaeda-inspired terrorist cell.
Eta has killed more than 825 people in its a 40-year campaign for an independent Basque state in northwest Spain and southwest France.
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