ETA continue killing campaign

A Spanish army officer has been shot dead in the northern city Pamplona on Wednesday in the second assassination in two days amid a surge of attacks blamed on the Basque separatist group ETA.

A Spanish army officer has been shot dead in the northern city Pamplona on Wednesday in the second assassination in two days amid a surge of attacks blamed on the Basque separatist group ETA.

A gunman shot the officer several times in the head as he sat in a car in the garage of his house during the mid afternoon.

A Defence Ministry spokeswoman in Madrid identified the victim as Francisco Casanova, a sub-lieutenant in his 40s.

His was the ninth killing either claimed by or linked to ETA this year and the fourth since July 15.

ETA, the most active guerrilla group in Western Europe, has increased the intensity of its drive for independence with more than a dozen attacks over the past month.

Three explosions in less than 24 hours earlier this week killed five people. Four suspected ETA guerrillas died when explosives blew up their car in Bilbao on Monday.

Basque separatists hailed the four men - one of them a top ETA commander - as patriots and comrades and planned to honour them with marches and calls for strikes.