Basque bomb injures two

BILBAO, Spain -- A booby-trapped banner with a slogan urging Basque separatists to kill police exploded as officers tried to remove it from a park in Bilbao.

Two police officers were injured.

The two, both members of the regional police force, were taken to hospital but their lives were not in danger, the Basque Interior Ministry said.

One was hit by shrapnel and the other suffered damage to an ear drum, a spokesman said.

EXTRA INFORMATION In-Depth: Basque conflict - violence in Spain

The blast occurred shortly after 9:00 p.m. on Tuesday in a park in the port city in the Basque region. The banner read "Police are murderers. ETA, kill them," the ministry said.

ETA -- which stands for Basque Homeland and Freedom -- has been blamed for the deaths of some 800 people since 1968 in its campaign for an independent Basque region in northern Spain and southwest France.

Earlier this month police revealed how ETA had planned to target Madrid's tallest building as part of a foiled 1999 "Christmas massacre" attack.

Police had thwarted the December 1999 attempt to blow up the Picasso Tower after discovering two vans packed with explosives, but it remained unclear until ten days ago what the target had been.

The Picasso Tower, a 44-storey glass and steel building, home to 5,000 office workers, was designed by Minoru Yamasaki, the man behind New York's World Trade Center.