Quiet village is centre of swoop on suspected head of Basque terrorists

The suspected leader of the Basque separatist group Eta's armed cells and three other alleged members of the organisation were arrested in France, Spanish and French officials revealed last night..

The arrests came in a joint raid on Thursday night by French and Spanish police in Willencourt, in northern France's Pas-de-Calais region, officials said.

Spain-based Eta members often hide out in France, which co-operates closely with Madrid in hunting down suspects.

Eta declared a cease-fire in September and went further in January by calling it permanent, raising hopes for an end to Europe's last armed political militancy.

However, the Spanish government has insisted that Eta dissolve outright and has ruled out talks. It has said it will not let up against Eta and continues to make arrests regularly.

One of the four arrested has been idfentified as Alejandro Zobaran Arriola, 29, whom an interior ministry statement described as the head of Eta's "military apparatus".

Another is the alleged logistics chief, Mikel Oroz Torrea, 31, the statement said.

Many Eta-watchers in Spain say the group is divided between a hard core that does not want to give up violence as a way to press for Basque independence and other members more willing to abandon the armed struggle and work peacefully toward that goal.

Government spokesman Ramon Jauregui yesterday said the arrests "weaken Eta even more and bring us closer to the end of the violence".

Eta has been decimated by arrests in recent years and also by dwindling support at the grass roots levels.

Over the past two and half years, no fewer than five Eta leaders have been arrested.

It was not immediately clear whether the Spanish government considers Zobaran Arriola to have been the group's overall chief or just very senior within the organisation.

The group has killed more than 825 people since launching its campaign for an independent Basque homeland in northern Spain and south-west France in the late 1960s.

The arrests come as Spain's supreme court is assessing the police documents that will lead to decision to legalise or ban the new Basque party Sortu, a pro-independence organisation that officially rejected Eta's terrorism on 7 January.

Sortu stepped up moves to clearly distance itself from Eta and its outlawed political wing, Batasuna, when it issued a statement this week saying that it condemned any alleged plans for Eta attacks and recent episodes of street vandalism.

The arrest of Eta's leaders follows capture of a cell near Bilbao last week, which is alleged to have cited Basque premier Patxi Lopez as a target.

It is thought, however, that the Eta leadership had ordered the cell to stop activity during the ceasefire.