Two ETA leaders captured in France

Mar 11, 2011, 13:22 GMT

Madrid - The military leader of the armed Basque separatist group ETA and its logistics chief have been captured in northern France, the Spanish Interior Ministry reported Friday.

Alejandro Zobaran Arriola, alias Xarla, 29, the alleged military leader, was detained in Willencourt near the Belgian border on Thursday evening.

Police also held three other ETA suspects, including Mikel Oroz Torrea, whom police believe to have headed a logistics network supplying the group with explosives.

The four were staying at a country house whose owner began suspecting that their identity documents were false, media reported. The house owner informed police, who kept watch over the suspects for several days before arresting them.

Police searched their lodgings and two cars with fake registration plates.

Zobaran was the sixth ETA military leader captured since May 2008.

The constant crackdowns on the group have decimated it, contributing to its decision to declare a ceasefire in September. ETA then reinforced the ceasefire in January, making it 'permanent.'

The Spanish government, however, distrusts ETA, refusing to enter talks with it and insisting on the group's unconditional surrender.

The Spanish judiciary has also clamped down on ETA's political wing, banning the radical separatist party Batasuna in 2003.

Politicians linked to Batasuna recently launched a new party, Sortu, which took the unprecedented step of distancing itself from ETA's violent tactics.

On Thursday, Sortu criticized ETA's alleged plans to kill Basque regional Prime Minister Patxi Lopez in 2010. However, that failed to convince the government that the party should be legalized.

Sortu would 'have difficulties' as long as ETA 'stayed alive,' Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said.

ETA has not carried out significant attacks in Spain since August 2009. The group, which has killed about 850 people since 1968, is listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union and by the United States.

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