PHOTO: Suspected ETA Bomb Explodes In Madrid

The bomb broke nearby windows and sent palls of black smoke into the wintry sky when it went off at about 9 a.m. (0800 GMT).

A car bomb exploded near a building occupied by a major Spanish company in Madrid on Monday following a telephone warning claiming to be from Basque rebels ETA and no one was hurt, police and emergency services said.

The bomb, near infrastructure group Ferrovial offices in the Campo de las Naciones neighbourhood, broke nearby windows and sent palls of black smoke into the wintry sky when it went off at about 9 a.m. (0800 GMT), a police spokesman said.

The blast came after Spain's Supreme Court late on Sunday banned Basque nationalist parties, Democracia 3 Millones and Askatasuna, from participating in March's regional elections in the Basque Country because of ETA links.

"What ETA has done this morning shows that the Supreme Court did the right thing," Interior Minister Alfredo Rubalcaba told reporters at the scene of the blast.

Police had cordoned off the area after receiving a warning call claiming to be from the Basque separatist rebels roughly an hour before the blast.

The explosion was the first suspected ETA attack in Madrid since a bomb at Madrid airport which killed two people in December 2006 and which led the government to break off peace talks with the rebels.

Authorities closed off part of Madrid's M40 highway and halted traffic on one line of the city's underground railway after the attack.

Ferrovial, whose building is a short walk from Madrid's main conference centre IFEMA, is involved in a high-speed train project in the Basque Country which has been repeatedly threatened by ETA. Ferrovial also owns BAA, which operates Britain's airports.

ETA has been fighting for independence for the Basque Country, in northern Spain and southwestern France, since the 1960s, and has killed more than 800 people.

In the past, parties linked to ETA have obtained around 15 percent of the vote in Basque elections.

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