Reuters: Spain reacts to killing 08 March

Carrasco was shot five times outside his house in the town of Mondragon. The government has blamed Basque separatist group ETA for the killing and promised the killers will be brought to justice. Zapatero broke off peace talks with ETA in December 2006 after the group killed two people with a car bomb.

Isaias Carrasco, 42, was shot in the back of the neck in a style typical of Basque separatist rebels ETA, newspaper El Pais said on its Web site. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but ETA has killed more than 800 people in four decades of struggle for the independence of the Basque Country in northern Spain.

Spaniards are voting in elections Sunday expected to hand the Socialist prime minister a new mandate to pursue sweeping social reforms. But the country is still reeling from a political assassination blamed by the government on Basque separatists. Both the ruling party of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and the conservatives led by Mariano Rajoy came together on Friday to urge voters to turn out massively.

Police say there had been a warning call from someone claiming to be from ETA before the blast at the city of Calahorra in the Rioja wine region. ETA last struck on March 7th, two days before a general election, when a former Socialist Party councillor was shot dead in the Basque town of Mondragon.

Pakistan's opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was buried Friday at her family's mausoleum in the southern province of Sindh surrounded by hundreds of thousands of mourners. The vast crowds let out a huge roar as Bhutto's body arrived at the family burial ground in the village of Ghari Khuda Baksh. Inside the imposing domed mausoleum a mullah led funeral prayers while the crowds raised their hands in front of their faces and chanted "Allahu Akhbar" (God is Greater) three times. Images of the ceremony, courtesy of Geo TV

A former councillor from Spain's ruling Socialist Party was shot and killed in the northern Basque region Friday in an attack blamed by the government on the armed Basque separatist group ETA. Both main parties immediately announced an end to their election campaign. The shooting comes two weeks after the government raised its terror alert level to maximum, fearing an ETA attack could coincide with Sunday's parliamentary vote. Images of the site of teh shooting, in the Basque town of Mondragon, courtesy of TVE.

Spain's ruling Socialists won a second term in general elections Sunday but fell short of an absolute majority after a campaign that focused on a slowing economy and soaring immigration was marred by the murder of a former politician in the Basque region. Images of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero meeting his supporters in Madrid after the results.

The blast came after a warning call saying Basque separatist group ETA had planted a bomb. There were no reports of casualties of damage.

Turkish military officials said the warplanes had attacked targets of the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), which uses northern Iraq as a springboard to launch attacks on security forces inside Turkey. But officials in northern Iraq said the air strikes struck villages, killing one woman and forcing hundreds of people to flee their homes.