1987 Hipercor bombing

1987 Hipercor bombing
Part of the Basque conflict
Avinguda Meridiana, where the attack occurred
Location	Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Date	19 June 1987 16:12 (UTC+2)
Target	Hipercor shopping center
Attack type	Car bomb
Deaths	21
Non-fatal injuries	45
Perpetrators	ETA
Number of participants	4

The 1987 Hipercor bombing was a car bomb attack by the Basque separatist organisation ETA which occurred on 19 June 1987 at the Hipercor shopping centre on Avinguda Meridiana, Barcelona, Spain. The bombing killed 21 people and injured 45. This represents the deadliest attack in ETA's history. Controversy surrounded the timing of telephone warnings made before the attack and the authorities' response to them.

In the two years before the attack, ETA detonated six car bombs in Barcelona that killed three people. Up to this point, Spain's deadliest terrorist attack had been the 1985 El Descanso bombing by suspected Islamic militants which had killed 18 Spaniards and injured 82 others, including 11 American servicemen, who were believed to be the target of the attack. The ETA attack which had caused the most fatalities had occurred on 14 July 1986 when a car bomb on República Dominicana Square in Madrid had killed 12 civil guards and injured 50 people. On 10 June 1987, 10 days before the bombing, ETA's political wing Herri Batasuna had received its highest vote share in the European Parliament elections, becoming the most voted for party in the three Basque provinces.

Acting on orders received from the ETA leader Santiago Arrospide Sarasola, "Santi Potros", three members of ETA's 'Barcelona Commando' Josefa Ernaga, Domingo Troitiño and Rafael Caride Simón, decided to place an incendiary bomb inside a Hipercor store.

The three visited various commercial centres and selected one where a car could be parked. They then met in a flat in Calle Casteldefels, Barcelona and assembled a bomb containing 30 kilos of ammonal and 100 litres of gasoline together with a timer device and an indeterminate quantity of glue and flakes of soap to create a bomb weighing up to 200 kilograms. This was then placed in a stolen Ford Sierra.