CNN: Spain beefs up security measures after receiving series of letters containing explosive devices

Spain said Thursday it was boosting security measures after a series of letter bombs was discovered in the country, including one that was sent to Spain’s prime minister last week.

The latest such bomb, sent to an air force base near Madrid, was discovered before dawn Thursday, after one exploded at the Ukrainian embassy in the capital Madrid Wednesday and another was deactivated at an arms manufacturer.

The letter bomb addressed to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez arrived in the post at his official Moncloa compound on November 24 and his security detail singled it out as suspicious. After establishing a security perimeter, they conducted a “controlled explosion” of the envelope, an interior ministry statement said.

The letter bomb “would be similar, for its features and content” to those received on Wednesday at the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid and at the arms manufacturer Instalaza in Zaragoza, and on Thursday at Spain’s Torrejon air force base near Madrid, the statement said.

That envelope, addressed to the Ukrainian ambassador to Spain, exploded after being handled by a Ukrainian worker at the embassy, Spain’s foreign ministry said in a statement. Later, in the evening, police deactivated a letter bomb at a weapons manufacturer in northern Spain, a senior Spanish official said.

The envelope sent to the arms maker had the same return address as the envelope that exploded at the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid, said the official, Rosa Serrano, in an interview with Spain’s radio station SER late Wednesday.

“The return address on the envelope is an email that is the same” on both envelopes, said Serrano, who is the top Spanish government official in the Aragon region where the second letter bomb arrived.

Police notified Spain’s National Court, which investigates terrorism, about each of the letter bombs, the statement said.

The interior ministry has ordered increased security measures at all embassies and consulates in Spain, as well as other sites that require special protection.

Source: CNN