Basque terrorists blamed for deadly blast in Madrid

A series of explosions during the rush hour this morning killed at least 186 people in Madrid, renewing world attention on Spain's Basque separatist movement. The following news sources are among those that are prominently featuring regularly updated coverage in Spanish:

• ABC
• Agencia EFE
• El Mundo
• El País

As might be expected, the news coverage in Spain is similar in intensity to what the United States experienced on Sept. 11, 2001. The Basque conflict is nothing new to Spaniards, however. Before today, some 800 people had been killed in the violence that has plagued Spain since 1968.

One Spanish word you may not be familiar with that appears in numerous stories is etarra, which refers to a member or supporter of ETA, the Basque separatist organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna ("Basque Homeland and Liberty" in Euskara, the Basque language). For information on the Basque movement and culture, see these sources:

• Euskal Herria y la libertad (trilingual site sympathetic to the Basque separatist movement; see its Spanish-language dictionary of related terms)
• Euskadi (the official Basque government site, multilingual)
• Basque Conflict: Violence in Spain (CNN/Time backgrounder, in English)