Basque bomb hits TV station

A Basque separatist car bomb wrecked a television station in the northern Spanish city of Bilbao today.

No injuries were reported in the explosion which came after a warning from the terrorist group ETA.

The bomb went off outside the offices of the EITB regional television station which had been evacuated.

Spanish television broadcast footage showing the moment the bomb exploded. The force of the blast blew out the windows of the glass facade and then a large plume of thick smoke rose up and partially covered the six-storey circular building.

It was not clear why ETA chose the target. Several other media outlets are housed in the building, including a bureau of El Mundo newspaper.

ETA has killed more than 825 people since 1968 in its campaign for Basque independence. The group declared a cease-fire in March 2006 that led to peace talks. But that truce ended in December 2006 when ETA detonated a car bomb that killed two people at Madrid's Barajas airport.

ETA's suspected leader was arrested in southern France on December 8. French and Spanish police detained Aitzol Iriondo three weeks after his alleged predecessor, Mikel de Garikoitz Aspiazu, alias Txeroki, was caught.