Blast outside Basque police station in Spain

MADRID, Sep 25 (Reuters) An explosive device damaged a police station and nearby houses in Spain's Basque country today but nobody was injured, police said.

The device went off against the perimeter wall of the Basque regional police station in Zarautz at around 1:30 a.m. (0500 ist today), wrecking garages and rooms inside the compound and blowing in windows and doors of houses, police said in a statement.

There was no warning of the attack, Spanish media reported.

The explosion followed the arrest of 13 suspects yesterday in an investigation by French police over a suspected attack last year by Basque separatist guerrillas ETA on a hotel run by renowned chef Alain Ducasse in France's Basque country.

ETA this month vowed to keep up bomb attacks on the Spanish state after the failure of peace efforts with the Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

The guerrillas have killed more than 800 people in four decades of armed struggle to create an independent Basque state in areas of northern Spain southwestern France.

REUTERS ARB KP1156