FRENCH AND Spanish authorities claimed to have dealt a severe blow against Eta yesterday when the suspected military leader of the Basque separatist movement was arrested in southern France.
Spanish national Mikel Kabikoitz Karrera Sarobe (37), known as Ata, was detained along with another man and a woman during a raid on an apartment in the southwestern city of Bayonne at daybreak, French police said.
Weapons were also found in the apartment.
Mr Karrera Sarobe has allegedly been the military leader of Eta since French police arrested his predecessor, Ibon Gogeascotxea, in February. In Madrid yesterday, Spanish interior minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba said Mr Karrera Sarobe was “currently the most senior leader of the terrorist group, the head of its military operations, the one who gives orders to Eta commandos”.
Eta has used France as a staging post for years, taking advantage of the open border to evade the Spanish police and plan attacks. In recent months there has been a dramatic escalation of Franco-Spanish efforts to crack down on the Basque group, with high-profile raids and arrests believed to have left it badly weakened.
The organisation is suspected of being behind the murder of French policeman Jean-Serge Nérin near Paris in March – the first member of the French security services to be killed by Eta.
Nérin was shot when his patrol was attacked after it stopped speeding cars in Dammarie-lès-Lys, a quiet suburb about 50km (31 miles) southeast of Paris. After the killing, French president Nicolas Sarkozy vowed to “eradicate” all Eta bases and dismantle its support networks.
Yesterday’s arrests were made after a joint investigation by the French security services with the Spanish Guardia Civil and Spanish intelligence. Mr Rubalcaba said the detainees included the two most senior members of Eta and hailed their capture as a “magnificent example of police co-operation”.
French authorities said the second man arrested was Arkaitz Aguirregabiria del Barrio (27), who they described as a high-ranking Eta member. Police suspect he was present when the French policeman was killed.
A fourth suspected militant, of French nationality, was arrested yesterday in the village of Urrugne, close to the coastal town of Saint-Jean-de-Luz in the French Basque country.
Classified as a terrorist organisation by the EU and the US, Eta is blamed for more than 850 deaths in its half-century campaign for an independent Basque homeland. It claims both the French and Spanish Basque provinces should form part of an independent state.
The group announced a “permanent ceasefire” in March 2006 but months later reversed course and in December 2006 set off a bomb in a car park at Madrid’s international airport.
After it formally called off the ceasefire and tentative peace talks in June 2007, the Spanish government redoubled its efforts against Eta. According to Spain’s interior ministry, Spanish and French police have arrested 50 Eta members this year alone.