Bomb Blast in Madrid Injures 52

The armed Basque separatist group Eta exploded a bomb in Madrid yesterday, injuring 52 people and dashing hopes that it was on the point of renouncing violence.

Police received a telephone call three-quarters of an hour before the bomb exploded outside a car dealership in north-west Madrid.

"The explosion was really a big one," the interior minister, José Antonio Alonso, told reporters. Police estimated the bomb contained 18 to 20 kg (40 to 44 lbs) of explosives.

The blast sent up a large column of black smoke and damaged about 20 buildings, shattering windows and scarring facades.

The bomb attack provoked further confusion among Spaniards about how Eta, which has not killed for two years, plans to respond to an offer of peace talks from the Spanish government.

Prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's socialist government has offered the group talks that, officials insist, would only discuss the prison conditions of several hundred jailed Eta members. "The only destiny of the terrorist group Eta is to abandon arms and disband," Mr Zapatero said after the attack.

"This does not seem a sign that Eta wants to negotiate," said Pio Garcia Escudero, leader of the opposition conservative People's party in the senate.

Mr Alonso warned that Eta remained "alive, active and operative," despite the arrest of three suspected members a week over the past year.

Spain is rife with speculation that the government has already made contact with Eta.

The government has denied that formal contacts exist. Mr Alonso, however, yesterday called for politicians and journalists to "lower this level of noise".

Analysts said the blast was a show of force from Eta as it geared up for the possibility of negotiations.

The blast was the sixth blamed on Eta since Mr Zapatero last month received the go-ahead from parliament to open talks if the group showed clear signs that it was ready to end its decades old campaign of violence. None of the bombs has killed or caused major injuries. Eta is blamed for more than 800 deaths since the late 1960s.