SPAIN: In a fresh blow to hopes of peace, police in Spain's Basque region found a car packed with explosives Thursday, five days after a bomb blast at Madrid airport claimed by the separatist group ETA.

The vehicle contained some 90 kilos of explosive which was "not primed to go off," a regional government spokesman told AFP.

He said the vehicle had probably been abandoned by ETA members following the December 23 discovery of a cache of detonators and explosives at Amorebieta in the north.

The discovery came just hours after Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who has made resolving four decades of conflict in the strife-torn Basque region his top priority, vowed to stamp out violence in the wake of Saturday's airport attack.

The huge blast in a carpark left one Ecuadoran man dead and a compatriot missing, presumed dead. Both men were sleeping in their cars when the bomb went off following three telephone warnings, one of which claimed responsibility in ETA's name.

It was the first fatality in an ETA operation since 2003. The armed Basque separatist group has been blamed for more than 850 deaths in a violent campaign for independence stretching back to 1968.

By Thursday afternoon the organisation had still to issue a statement explaining the motives behind the airport blast.

"I am more determined than ever to devote my energy to seeing an end to violence and achieving peace", Zapatero said as he visited the blast site. All citizens "have a right to a life without bombs or violence," Zapatero said while his office said he would soon inform lawmakers of plans for revamping his anti-terror strategy.

Saturday's bomb broke a nine-month ceasefire which ETA had said would be permanent.

Madrid observed a day of mourning for the only confirmed victim of Saturday's attack, Ecuadoran Carlos Alonso Palate. A small group of people rallied outside the town hall to pay silent tribute.

There were similar small rallies in the Basque country and regional president Juan Jose Ibarretxe attended one in the administrative capital Vitoria.

Zapatero's spokesman said he would address parliament - though "not imminently" - in response to demands from the main conservative opposition Popular Party (PP) to explain how his anti-terrorist policy will now evolve.

Madrid, Friday, AFP