MADRID (AFP) — A small bomb placed by the separatist group ETA went off overnight at a highway building site in Spain's northern Basque region, a Basque interior ministry spokeswoman said Monday.
The explosion on the A-8 highway near the town of Orio caused no injuries but damaged four vehicles and six shacks used by work crews, she added.
The damage was discovered Monday morning when workers arrived at the site.
The attack targeted two construction firms, Acciona and Fonorte, which are building a high-speed railway linking three Basque cities, the Basque news agency Vasco Press reported.
It is the third time that ETA has set off small bombs on property belonging to firms involved in the construction of the high-speed line linking Bilbao, San Sebastian and Vitoria, the news agency added.
The bombing follows the arrest last week of several members of ETA's most active cell which the government blames for most of the attacks carried out by the outfit since it called off its ceasefire in June 2007.
Anti-terrorism judge Baltasar Garzon on Sunday ordered the detention of seven people on charges of belonging to the cell, including its suspected leader Arkaitz Goikoetxea, and released three others, two without conditions and one on bail.
In France, a man and a woman arrested on Friday near the city of Dijon are now being transferred to Paris where they will go before an anti-terrorist judge.
French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie named the arrested man as Asier Eceiza Ayerra, one of six ETA suspects featured on wanted posters distributed earlier this year and an alleged senior military commander.
ETA set off four weak bombs at two seaside resorts in northern Spain, Laredo and Noja, on July 20 which slightly injured a woman who was struck by a rock that was sent flying by one of the blasts.
The group is blamed for the deaths of 823 people in its 40-year campaign of bombings and shootings to carve a Basque homeland out of northern Spain and southwestern France.
It declared a "permanent" ceasefire in March 2006, raising hopes for an end to the violence.
But an ETA bombing at Madrid's airport in December 2006 that killed two men put an end to tentative peace talks with the government and in June 2007 the outfit formally called off its ceasefire.
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