News, July 2005

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New ETA arrests, new bombs

Early June. As you can read in the news resumé, hopes that ETA's activity have not been well founded. Despite the many recent arrests and words of willingness to negotiate coming from the government, hard liners on both sides of the ETA war continue their intransigence.On the 10th, as demonstrations were being called by the Association for Victims of Terrorism (AVT) against government plans for 'peace talks', another attack came with grenades launched against the airport at Zaragoza.

29th April. Yesterday two more presumed ETA members were arrested in Caussade, France, adding to other recent arrests over the past months. On this occasion police work was more a question of luck than hard work, as the terrorists forgot a bag of laundry, including an ETA engraved pistol at the launderette! Peio Eskisabel Urtuzaga (alias 'Xerpa') is considered the leader of ETA's international operations and likely successor to Mikel Antxa, arrested late last year.

The bag was taken to 'lost property', and the office handed it on to police. as well as the pistol was a false ID card with Xerpa's photo. When the terrorists returned to the launderette for their forgotten bag, they found a police escort waiting. Antxa was ETA's leader, so it is possible that 'luck' has allowed his successor to be arrested in this short time.

During March a number of presumed ETA terrorists were arrested, both in Spain and France. This is good news for the police and for the 'pro-democracy' parties (the majority), who long to see an end to terrorism in Spain.

More recent news of ETA: Go ETA
More about the background to the Basque problem: http://www.prayforspain.com/comment/index3.html