Bomb defused at Malaga airport

Damage caused by an explosion on Tuesday from an ETA bombing

MADRID, Spain -- Spanish police have deactivated a massive car bomb at Malaga airport after an anonymous warning, reports have said.

Reuters quoted state radio as saying that bomb specialists, who have been on alert for possible attacks on tourists, found 60 kg (132 lb) of explosives in a vehicle which had been left in a car park at the airport.

A spokesman for Spain's interior ministry said no one could immediately confirm the information.

The move came as the armed Basque separatist group ETA claimed responsibility for 15 attacks, including five killings, between March and mid-July this year.

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The pro-independence Basque daily Gara newspaper was quoted by state radio as saying it had received a communique from a group speaking in the name of ETA, in which the group detailed the attacks such as one on July 14 in which a policeman and anti-separatist town councillor died.

The group said politicians and police were the targets of its attacks because they were "responsible for the oppression of the Basque country," The Associated Press quoted.

The group, which calls for an independent Basque homeland, has now claimed responsibility for all 34 of the killings attributed to it since the group ended a 14-month-old cease-fire in January 2000.

It is not unusual for ETA to claim responsibility for violent acts through a newspaper several weeks after the event.

The Malaga airport bomb -- suspected to be the work of ETA -- follows a warning earlier this year from the group in which it said it would target tourist sites. Malaga airport serves the busy tourist resorts of southern Spain.

On Tuesday a suspected member of the group was killed in the coastal town of Torrevieja, near Alicante, when explosives she was handling blew up.

State radio said traffic stretched back about two kilometres from Malaga airport as a result of the police action.

A government spokesman said: "What we know so far is that this morning a warning call was received in San Sebastian warning about the presence of a car with Madrid plates and carrying explosives in the car park at Malaga airport."

ETA has targeted tourist destinations in previous years in the knowledge that it would damage a lucrative industry for the government.

About 800 people have been killed since ETA launched its violent campaign for Basque independence in 1968.