Explosives–packed car found as Spanish PM vows to end violence

MADRID (AFP) — In a fresh blow to hopes of peace, police in Spain's Basque region found a car packed with explosives, five days after a bomb blast at Madrid airport claimed by the separatist group ETA. The vehicle contained some 90 kilos (200 pounds) of explosive which was "not primed to go off," a regional government spokesman told AFP.

He said the vehicle had probably been abandoned by ETA members following the December 23 discovery of a cache of detonators and explosives at Amorebieta in the north. The discovery came just hours after Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who has made resolving four decades of conflict in the strife-torn Basque region his top priority, vowed to stamp out violence in the wake of Saturday's airport attack. The huge blast in a carpark left one Ecuadoran man dead and a compatriot missing, presumed dead. Both men were sleeping ...