ETA claims responsibility for 17 attacks

ETA says it regrets the death of a bus driver killed in an October attack on a judge

MADRID, Spain -- Basque separatist group ETA has claimed responsibility for 17 attacks since July that killed eight people.

In a statement sent to a Basque language newspaper, the group also said it regretted the death of a Madrid bus driver killed in a car bomb attack on a judge.

With the communique sent to the Gara newspaper, ETA has now claimed responsibility for all 20 assassinations that the government had pinned on the group this year.

ETA is blamed for some 800 deaths since 1968 in its drive for an independent Basque state in northern Spain and southwestern France.

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The group resumed killing this year after its 14-month unilateral ceasefire was called off last December.

On October 30 this year, ETA set off a car bomb during morning rush hour in Madrid that killed a Supreme Court judge, his driver and his bodyguard.

The blast also injured more than 60 people on a nearby bus including the driver, who died nine days later of head injuries.

"ETA regretted that as a result of the action the citizen Jesus Sanchez (the driver) died," Gara said in a Spanish language report of the communique.

The four other assassinations in various parts of Spain claimed by ETA were of a ruling party politician, a prosecutor, a military doctor and a prison guard.

Among the other actions ETA claimed was the November 11 grenade launcher attack on a Civil Guard barracks and subsequent booby trap bomb that injured what ETA called "11 agents of the police and military forces that oppress Basque people."

This year is ETA's deadliest since 1992, when 26 people were killed.

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Spanish Government
Spanish Interior Ministry
Basque Autonomous Region
Terrorism Research Center: ETA

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