Spanish govt fears as ETA campaign against resorts

The Spanish government said yesterday it feared the Basque separatist group ETA was preparing bomb attacks in the country's busy beach resorts after a suspected ETA member accidentally blew herself up. The blast on Tuesday in the Mediterranean coastal town of Torrevieja sent rubble flying into a pool shared by several apartment blocks and slightly injured six people -- four Spanish children and two Eastern Europeans. Officials said it looked as if the victim, identified as Olaia Castresana, 22, was trying to spread ETA's campaign of violence to tourist areas in a bid to disrupt one of Spain's biggest industries. Police were searching for another suspected ETA member who fled the scene of the explosion. “It looks as if this could be an itinerant command cell that had travelled to the Levante coastal region to start a campaign of terrorist attacks against tourist interests,” Interior Minister Mariano Rajoy said. Torrevieja is near the southeastern city of Alicante and is popular with British and German tourists as well as Spaniards and increasing numbers of visitors from Eastern Europe.