French police last night arrested the suspected military chief of the militant Basque separatist group Eta in an operation in the Pas-de-Calais region.
Alejandro Zobaran Arriola was among four Eta suspects held in a raid on a house near the city of Arras, according to Spanish media reports.
Quoting anti-terror sources, Spanish national radio described Mr Arriola as the “new military chief of Eta”.
The newspaper El Pais said on its website that the arrests had taken place in the small town of Willencourt, west of Arras. The four were reportedly detained in a house where firearms and documents were seized during an overnight operation.
El Pais said the four men had been followed by police for several days before they were arrested at around 9pm (8pm GMT) yesterday. They had arrived at the house in two cars and had asked to stay, saying they were students.
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However, the owner became suspicious and called police who determined that one of the cars had false registration plates. Spanish police had also discovered that they had false identity documents.
If the arrests are confirmed, Mr Arriola would be the sixth Eta leader arrested since 2008.
According to Spanish media, he has led the Eta military apparatus since last May, when Mikel Karrera Sarobe, then its most senior commander still at large, was seized in the southwestern French town of Bayonne.
He was reportedly part of the Eta “Donosti” commando cell which targeted Spanish buildings such as offices, post offices and banks.
Eta is blamed for the deaths of 829 people in its four-decade campaign of bombings and shootings to force the creation of a Basque homeland in northern Spain and southwestern France.
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Traditionally, the group used France as a safe rear-base for attacks on Spain, but in recent years the two countries have strengthened cross-border police cooperation and cracked down on the group.
The organisaton declared on January 10 a “permanent and general ceasefire” to be verified by the international community, its first unilateral declaration of a permanent ceasefire.
Spain’s Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero rejected the ceasefire declaration, saying he wanted nothing less than Eta’s dissolution, and the authorities have vowed to hunt down its members.
Since then, according to Spanish media reports, 33 Eta suspects have been detained. Four of them were held in Spain’s Basque Country on March 1 by police who also seized about 200kg (441lb) of explosives.
Eta had announced a ceasefire in March 2006 within the framework of negotiations with Madrid. But nine months later it set off a bomb in the car park of Madrid’s airport, killing two men.