/ 25 July 2007

Small blasts hit Tour de France route

Two small explosions hit part of the Spanish section of Wednesday’s Tour de France cycle race after a telephone bomb threat from a caller claiming to represent Basque separatist rebels ETA, newspaper website El Pais said.

No one was hurt and the race was not called off after the explosions, which came after the caller told a highway authority that ETA had planted several bombs along the route of the Tour de France through the Spanish region of Navarre, El Pais said.

The race had already passed through the area when the blasts occurred, it said.

No police or government officials were immediately available for comment. ETA, which has killed more than 800 people in four decades of armed struggle for traditional Basque lands in northern Spain and southern France, called off a ceasefire in June. — Reuters