MADRID (Reuters) - Two small bombs targeting a regional train network under construction in Spain's troubled Basque Country exploded on Monday, an attack claimed by regional separatist guerrilla group ETA, police said.
Nobody was hurt in the pre-dawn attack by bombs hidden onbulldozers near Hernani that TARGET(TGT.NY)d building work on the newhigh-speed train network that will link the Basque Country'sthree biggest cities Bilbao, San Sebastian and regional capitalVitoria.
Late on Monday, a third bomb exploded in a car used bypolice dog handlers, the regional interior ministry toldReuters. A dog which was inside the vehicle when the explosionhappened in a car park in Barakaldo, near Bilbao, was foundalive.
ETA phoned traffic authorities to claim responsibility forMonday's train attack.
ETA said last November the "Basque Y" train project was astrategic target. In the 1980s, ETA declared the Lemoniznuclear power plant in the Basque Country a strategic target,and kidnapped and killed its chief engineer. The plant neveropened.
On Friday ETA claimed responsibility for four bomb attacksover the past two months.
The rebels, who have killed more than 800 people in 4decades of armed struggle for independence for the BasqueCountry in northern Spain and southwestern France.
The last fatal attack the rebels claimed was theassassination of a former local politician on March 7, two daysbefore a Spanish national election.
It had declared a ceasefire in March 2006 but efforts tofind peace broke down after it planted a car bomb in a Madridairport car park that killed two people.
(Reporting by Arantza Goyoaga; Writing by Ben Harding;editing by Sami Aboudi)
