French police deal blow to Basque separatists

PAU, France -- French anti-terrorism police delivered a powerful -- perhaps decapitating -- blow Tuesday to the Basque separatist group ETA, arresting its military and logistics chiefs. Spanish authorities said the arrests marked "one of the most important days" in the decades-long fight against the organization. ETA, which in the Basque language stands for Basque Homeland and Freedom, is blamed for more than 800 killings since the late 1960s in its campaign to carve out a homeland from territory straddling northern Spain and southwest France. The Basque region of France, which is peaceful, has served as a haven for ETA members.

Gorka Palacios Alday, the military boss, and Juan Luis Rubenach, in charge of planning, were arrested in the village of Lons, near Pau in southwestern France, officials said. Pau is about 35 miles from the Spanish frontier.

Also arrested were Inigo Vallejo, who allegedly prepared attacks meant to coincide with a European summit last year, and another less senior alleged ETA member identified by the Spanish national news agency as Jose Miguel Almendoz Erviti.

False identity papers and weapons also were seized in the operation -- the second major blow to ETA in less than a week.

Fernandez de Iradi, 32, who had allegedly shared leadership with Palacios Alday, was captured in southwestern France on Thursday, a year after escaping from a police station in Bayonne, in the heart of the French Basque region.

Spanish Interior Minister Angel Acebes said Tuesday's arrests were "magnificent news for all democrats, for all women and men of good will."

"We are witnessing one of the most important days in the fight against the terrorist organization ETA," he said.

Palacios Alday became ETA's military chief in September, Spain's Interior Ministry said.

The United States and the European Union last year included Palacios Alday on a list of people and organizations supporting ETA -- designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.

"It calms me to know that more absurd deaths will be avoided" by the arrests, said Rosario de La Torre, the widow of prosecutor Luis Portero, whose killing in 2000 is blamed on Palacios Alday. She was quoted by the Spanish news agency Europa Press.

The prosecutor of Spain's National Court, which deals with terrorism cases, was to issue an extradition request for Palacios Alday, charged with the 2001 killing of a national police officer who was clearing people from an area where ETA had placed a car bomb, a court official told The Associated Press. Other cases pending against him include two slayings in 2000 in southern Spain -- a city councilor in Malaga and the prosecutor in Granada.

Palacios Alday, 29, from the Spanish Basque town of Baracaldo, joined ETA in 1996, becoming part of its "Madrid commando" unit, one of the separatist group's bloodiest wings, Spain's Interior Ministry said.

Acebes, the Spanish interior minister, telephoned his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy, to congratulate him, Sarkozy's office said. But Acebes also warned against overconfidence.

"So long as ETA exists, so long as it is not completely defeated, nobody is safe from an attack," Acebes told reporters in Marrakech, Morocco, where he was attending a Spanish-Moroccan summit.

The arrests came a day after an ETA communique warned of more attacks and claimed responsibility for a bombing that severely damaged a Spanish trucking company based near the border with France. No one was injured.

Rubenach, the 41-year-old suspected logistics chief, has been a member of the "Madrid," "Donosti" and "Nafarroa" commando units, the Spanish ministry said.

Vallejo, 27, of Bilbao, had been on the run since 2002, when he was preparing attacks that were to have coincided with a European Union summit in Seville, Spain. He has a pending 17-year prison sentence for setting fire to a public bus. French police said he is thought to have been in charge of training new ETA recruits. ------

Associated Press writers John Leicester in Paris and Mar Roman in Madrid contributed to this report.