Spanish explosives experts blew up a suspicious object found on an electricity pylon near the French border on Saturday after Basque separatist guerrillas ETA warned they had planted two bombs, police said. A caller claiming to speak for ETA earlier telephoned a Basque newspaper warning that the group had placed bombs on two high-tension electricity pylons belonging to grid operator Red Electrica, police said. The caller did not say what time the bombs were set to go off. Specialists carried out a controlled explosion on a suspicious object found on one pylon near the border with France and were now analysing its contents, police said. Police in the northern region of Aragon were searching with a helicopter and on foot for a second bomb, a central government representative said. Targetting Spain's electricity infrastructure appears to mark a change of tactics by ETA. Last week a bomb in a Red Electrica pylon reduced cross-border electricity flow between Spain and France for a week. No one claimed the attack but it bore the hallmarks of an ETA operation. The group has traditionally carried out a summer bombing campaign aimed at Spain's key tourism industry and planted a series of bombs along the northern coast in August, which caused only a few minor injuries. ETA has killed nearly 850 people since 1968 in a bombing and shooting campaign for an independent Basque state in northern Spain and southwestern France. Spain, the United States and the European Union consider ETA a terrorist organisation.
