🇧🇷

Corina Rodriguez and Emma Pinedo

MADRID (Reuters) – Bomb disposal experts defused a fifth-letter bomb on Thursday as Spain stepped up security to deal with a series of IEDs aimed at high-profile targets, including Ukraine’s prime minister and ambassador in Madrid.

According to preliminary data, all five parcels were sent from Spain, the country’s deputy interior minister told reporters.

Rafael Perez, the junior minister in charge of security, said the makeshift devices were shipped in brown packages containing flammable powder and a trigger that caused “sudden flames” rather than an explosion.

The parcels were addressed to the responsible persons of the institutions to which they were sent.

The US Embassy in Madrid has received a letter that looks like a letter with five bombs, La Sexta reported this Thursday.

Perez said one of the devices detonated, injuring a security officer at the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid, three others were blown up by security forces in controlled explosions, and one remained intact for investigative purposes.

“It looks like they were all sent out of the country, but we are basing that on initial checks, but don’t have a detailed technical report yet,” he said.

Pérez said it still does not seem necessary to convene a security committee that will assess the growing terrorist threat in Spain, which is already second only to Islamist attacks in Europe over the past decade.

The interior ministry said in a statement that it had ordered police to increase security on public buildings and, in particular, to scrutinize mail.

A source close to the investigation said that while the devices were homemade, “nobody could have made them” and investigators are now trying to trace their contents back to the source.

Spain’s Supreme Court, which specializes in terrorism, has launched an investigation, a court source said.

tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEIB01XZ-BASEIMAGE