ETA has carried out a car bomb attack in the town of Calahorra, la Rioja, the target being the Guardia Civil barracks in the town.
Police received a telephone warning from the separatist organisation ETA some thirty minutes before the blast and were able to cordon off the area and evacuate local residents. No-one was injured in the blast, but material damage was substantial.
The telephone call, made in the name of ETA, was received at 13:28. The caller stated that a bomb was set to explode in thirty minutes and gave the police the details of the car being used, including the model and colour. However, the police only located the vehicle ten minutes before it was due to detonate and there was insufficient time to defuse it.
The force of the blast from the explosion blew the car from one side of the road to the other and many houses in the area suffered broken windows and other damage. It is thought that the bomb contained 60 to 80 kilos of explosives. After the explosion, the police, with the aid of sniffer dogs, searched the area throughly as there was a suspicion that there could have been a second car bomb, but none was found.
Four ETA members are believed to have been involved in the attack, some of their movements being caught on CCTV cameras in the area. It is also thought that the attack was carried out in rather a hurry and, as a result, the bombers were not too prepared for the operation.
It was a mere two hours between the reported theft of the vehicle and the placing of the car bomb outside the barracks, and the vehicle was left adjacent to the wall of a high-rise block near the barracks and this lessened the impact of the explosion on the barracks itself.