MADRID, Spain — Police found a large explosive in the Basque region Thursday, five days after a car bombing in Madrid that was blamed on the separatist group ETA shattered a nine-month cease-fire.
The discovery came after Prime Minister Jose Luis Rod-riguez Zapatero visited the wreckage of Saturday's car bombing and vowed Spain would not be intimidated. The blast at the parking lot of Madrid's international airport killed one man, left another missing and feared dead and wounded at least 26 people.
"It will achieve nothing. It is not going to intimidate anyone," Zapatero told reporters.
Outside the Basque town of Amorebieta, nearly 220 pounds of explosives were found in a drum near an abandoned car, and they had been rigged to be used in an attack, Basque police said. Bomb disposal experts removed the device from the site .
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Zapatero said Saturday's attack made him more determined to end ETA's nearly four-decade-long campaign of violence, aimed at achieving an independent Basque homeland. But he announced no new strategy or even a hint of his next move.
The attack was a political setback for Zapatero, who made ETA's dissolution a centerpiece of his agenda. When he announced in June he would negotiate with the group, he infuriated conservatives who opposed talks with what they consider an active terrorist organization.
The blast killed a 35-year-old Ecuadorean immigrant. Rescuers were still looking for the missing man, also Ecuadorean, but held out little hope of finding him alive. The death marked the first fatality in an attack blamed on ETA in more than three years.
In a rare gesture Thursday, ETA's outlawed political wing, Batasuna, expressed its "deepest sorrow" for the death of the Ecuadorean.
The blast shattered a cease-fire that ETA declared in March and said was permanent. ETA and its political supporters have complained that the government refused to make preliminary concessions.
