An explosion shook the northwest Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela on Saturday, leaving glass shards scattered across a central plaza and prompting police to cordon off the area, a witness told CNN.

Officials in Santiago de Compostela, the political capital of Spain’s northwest region of Galicia, and at the Interior Ministry in Madrid, had no immediate comment.

Some Spanish news reports said there were no injuries and that one person had been detained, but officials could not immediately confirm those details to CNN.

An employee at the two-star Husa Universal Hotel, located on the Plaza de Galicia, said, “I heard the bomb. The police have blocked off the area.”

Read more..

Yahoo/AP

A powerful car bomb exploded in Madrid Wednesday after a warning call from the armed Basque separatist group ETA, police said, in the latest of a string of attacks since Spain's prime minister offered talks with the group if it renounces violence.

Eighteen people were slightly injured, said Beatriz Martin, the city's emergency medical department spokeswoman. The explosion occurred around 9:30 a.m. in a working-class district north of the Spanish capital.

Police cordoned off the area where the bomb went off after an anonymous caller to the Basque newspaper Gara, which often serves as a mouthpiece for ETA, said a bomb would explode inside a Renault van.

...

The blast was the sixth blamed on ETA since Zapatero announced earlier this month he was willing to hold talks with the separatist group if it renounced its decades-old campaign of violence.

Other Commentary:

Diggers Realm
Speed of Thought

Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from the global War on Terror that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday.

Today’s Winds of War briefing is brought to you by Bill Roggio of the fourth rail and evariste of Discarded Lies. Also have a look at Andrew and Joel’s Iraq Report.

Top Topics

Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from the global War on Terror that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday.

Today’s Winds of War briefing is brought to you by Bill Roggio of the fourth rail and evariste of Discarded Lies. Also have a look at Andrew and Joel’s Iraq Report.

Top Topics

• Chester has a visual chart of the suspicious circumstances around the 3/11 Madrid investigation. See also Barcepundit’s translations of the expose articles and Chrenkoff with the fast link roundup. This is looking really, really suspicious.

• Venezuela’s Chavez wants nukes?

• Japan a superpower in waiting? Austin Bay doesn’t see why not. And is China’s military spending 70% higher than reported? RAND Corporation thinks so. Other experts disagree - and say it’s 200-400% higher. See also Winds’ China roundup post.

• Islamists have taken control of a border town in Uzbekistan. Dan Darling has more. The Uzbek death toll may top 1000, says GatewayPundit, who has an excellent roundup. Glenn Reynolds has lots of stuff on Uzbekistan. Instapundit nemesis StrategyPage basically say, point blank, the bad guys won this one.

Other Topics Today Include:
no more incentives for Iran; Iran tries Russia enrichment ploy; Saudis repeal gravity, boil ocean, eradicate terrorism; Palestinian population numbers; port security; surprise Vegas terror drill; illegal immigrants in sensitive positions held; South Africa cracks down on mercenaries; Congo secessionists;US space ambitions; women in combat; Zarqawi poised to supercede Bin Laden; Bush asks IRA to disarm; Spain suing ETA for peace; Russian espionage in the UK and much more…

Read the Rest…

The Associated Press reports on Spain’s trial of accused 9/11 plotters:

The main suspect is Imad Yarkas, a 42-year-old father of six who, under the guise of being a used-car salesman, is alleged to have overseen a cell that provided logistical cover for Sept. 11 plotters like Mohamed Atta, believed to have piloted one of the two airliners that destroyed the World Trade Center

[. . .]

Two other suspects also are accused of planning the attacks. Moroccan Driss Chebli, 33, allegedly helped Yarkas arrange a July 2001 meeting in Spain attended by Atta and Sept. 11 coordinator Ramzi bin al-Shibh. Syrian-born Ghasoub al-Abrash Ghalyoun, 39, made detailed video footage of the World Trade Center and other landmarks while visiting the United States in 1997.

Those tapes were eventually passed on to “operative members of al-Qaida and would become the preliminary information on the attacks against the Twin Towers,” Garzon wrote in a September 2003 indictment against the three men and 32 other suspects, including Osama bin Laden himself and other key members of al-Qaida.

The other 21 on trial are charged with terrorism offenses but are not directly linked to the Sept. 11 attacks.

From California Yankee.

Muslim clerics in Spain have issued the world’s first fatwa, or Islamic edict, against Osama bin Laden. According to the Associated Press, the fatwa issued on the first anniversary of the Madrid train bombings, calls bin Laden an apostate and urging others to denounce the al-Qaida leader:

The ruling was issued by the Islamic Commission of Spain, the main body representing the country’s 1 million-member Muslim community. The commission represents 200 or so mostly Sunni mosques, or about 70 percent of all mosques in Spain.

[. . .]

The fatwa said that according to the Quran “the terrorist acts of Osama bin Laden and his organization al-Qaida … are totally banned and must be roundly condemned as part of Islam.”

It added: “Inasmuch as Osama bin Laden and his organization defend terrorism as legal and try to base it on the Quran … they are committing the crime of ‘istihlal’ and thus become apostates that should not be considered Muslims or treated as such.” The Arabic term ‘istihlal’ refers to the act of making up one’s own laws.

From California Yankee.

A car bomb has exploded outside a convention center on the outskirts of the Spanish capital, Madrid, injuring 31 people.

CNN’s Madrid Bureau Chief Al Goodman said there were no reported fatalities but police said 31 were hurt by the blast wave, with 21 of them taken to hospital.

Madrid Mayor Alberto Ruiz Gallardon told a reporter for CNN sister network CNN+ that most of injuries — many caused by flying glass — were light.

Members of the Spanish royal family were to inaugurate a major art show at the Ifema convention center later in the day, Goodman said.

A caller claiming to be with the Basque separatist group ETA warned of the bombing in phone call to the Basque newspaper Gara shortly before 9 a.m. (0800 GMT), the paper’s Web site reported. Gara then warned authorities. The bomb exploded at 9:30 a.m.

Read more…

A bomb exploded Sunday in a Mediterranean resort hotel in southeast Spain after a telephone warning from the Basque separatist group ETA , Interior Ministry officials said.

The ministry office in the southeast Alicante region said it did not know whether there were any casualties.

The bomb detonated in the Hotel Port Denia around 3:15 p.m., the news agency Efe reported. The town of Denia is located in the Spanish region of Alicante on the Costa Blanca and is popular with tourists.

Efe quoted police as saying the warning call was placed to police in the Basque region. The hotel was immediately evacuated and the bomb exploded about 30 minutes later.

More…

From the BBC:

A car bomb explosion has injured a police officer in a town near Bilbao, in the Basque region of northern Spain.

The blast rocked Getxo as police were sealing off the area, 10 minutes after a tip-off from a caller claiming to represent the Basque separatists Eta.

The explosion, at 1430 (1330 GMT) on Tuesday, shattered many windows, the Spanish TV station Telecinco reported.

It came amid growing speculation that Eta might call a ceasefire. Madrid has ruled out talks unless Eta disarms.

Posted by Franco Aleman at 11:32 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

MADRID, Spain — At least four explosive devices detonated Monday around Spain after telephone warnings from callers claiming to speak on behalf of the armed Basque separatist group ETA (search), news reports said.

Explosions were reported in Leon and Santillana del Mar in the north, and Avila and Ciudad Real in central Spain, the news agency Europa Press reported.

There was no immediate word on injuries or damage.

This follows two bomb incidents over the weekend in Spain.

Update:

Reports that seven bombs have gone off:

Seven explosions hit Spain on Monday, wounding at least two people, after the Basque separatist group ETA threatened to set off a series of bombs, Spanish officials and media said.

Officials said the people were wounded in a bomb in Santillana del Mar in northern Spain.

Another bomb exploded in Ciudad Real to the south of Madrid.

El Pais newspaper said on its website that explosions had also gone off in Leon in the north and Malaga in the south. El Mundo’s website said explosions were also reported in Avila, north-west of Madrid. Media also reported two more explosions.

None of the sites are within Spain’s Basque country, which is made up of three provinces in the north of Spain that Basque nationalists say are part of a greater Basque homeland including Navarra and three provinces in France.

Breaking News reported over at CNN:

No other details yet, including whether terrorism is suspected.

UPDATE: MSNBC says:

CNN is reporting explosions in Madrid, Spain.

Early reports list one at a gas station, phoned in by a Basque separatist group.

A telephone caller issued a warning in the name of the Basque group ETA, saying five bombs were set to explode at 1730 GMT, Basque newspaper Gara reported on its Web site, according to Reuters.

more as it comes in

Reuters reports that the FBI has established the clearest link yet between the March 11 Madrid train bombings and the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States:

The FBI has told Spanish investigators that one of three men believed to have planned the Sept. 11 attacks from Spain in the summer of 2001 also gave the order to carry out the Madrid blasts, the newspaper ABC reported.

[. . .]

Investigators have long concluded that the Sept. 11 attacks were partially planned in Spain in July 2001.

Hijacker Mohammed Atta, believed to have piloted one of the airliners that crashed into New York’s World Trade Center, visited Spain two months before the attacks and met two men.

One was Ramzi bin al-Shaibah, who is being held by U.S. authorities, while the other was unidentified.

ABC said investigators now believe that third man was the one who in December 2003 activated the Qaeda cell that carried out the March 11 attacks, which Spaniards call “our Sept. 11.”