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French police discover new ETA arms cache
Aug 22, 2009, 9:56 GMT
Madrid - French police have discovered a new cache of arms used by the militant Basque separatist group ETA, the newspaper El Pais reported on Saturday.
The report said the discovery, made in the French Pyrenees near the border with Spain, was a major blow to ETA's campaign of bombing.
Investigators found 330 kilograms of explosives in the hideout, bringing to seven the number of arms dumps discovered in the past week.
In all, police have found almost half a ton of explosives in a crackdown launched after a recent spate of bombings by the group to press its demand for an independent Basque homeland.
The discoveries followed the arrest in the French Alps of three ETA suspects who were believed to have supplied the group with weapons and explosives.
One of the caches, located in Camplong, held materials to make more than 100 bombs which could be attached to the underside of vehicles, according to El Pais.
That method was used to kill three Spanish police officers in the Basque region and Majorca this summer.
Separatist demonstrators in the Spanish Basque city of Bilbao went on the rampage overnight, setting fire to cars and buses after authorities banned two rallies by ETA supporters. No one was injured.
ETA has killed more than 820 people since 1968. The group is regarded as a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States.
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