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A Blow against Basque Terror Group

Will ETA Now Become Even More Violent?

By Helene Zuber

On Monday morning, French police arrested the man thought to be head of operations for the Basque separatist group ETA. He has long favored violence as a tool to gain Basque independence. But his successors may be even more savage.

They were asleep in a house near Cauterets, a ski area in the French part of the Basque region. They had only rented the domicile last Thursday, but already the authorities had tracked them down. At 3:30 a.m., a specialist commando broke down the door and stormed in, arresting the pair: the 35-year-old head of operations for the Basque terrorist group ETA Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina (aka Txeroki), and Leire Lopez Zurutuza, 31, who were wanted for having participated in a number of attacks.

The arrest was coordinated from Paris, with Spanish officials from the Guardia Civil having tipped off their French counterparts as to the whereabouts of the ETA leader. "With this arrest, ETA has suffered a severe blow in its organization and capability," Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said in Madrid on Monday. "Today, ETA is weaker."

The feeling of relief in Madrid at the capture of Txeroki is widespread. Only recently had Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Rubalcaba announced that it was Txeroki who had shot and killed two Guardia Civil officers in the southwestern French town of Capbreton a year ago. The information came from two members of ETA's "Navarra Commando" who were arrested in Valencia at the end of October. They said that Txeroki had been their trainer and had told them that he himself was responsible for the deed.

It was a crime that said a lot about ETA's renewed willingness to spill blood in its decades-long fight for independence -- a fight that has resulted in at least 800 deaths. And it was an attack that broke with the group's previous aversion to staging attacks in France. The country had long been a convenient place to go into hiding when Spanish authorities got too close.

Txeroki is also thought to have been behind a bomb that exploded in a car parked at the Madrid-Barajas airport at the end of December 2006. The attack killed two people and also marked the end of the cease-fire declared at the beginning of that year. ETA, though, didn't officially announce the end of the truce until the summer of 2007. The intervening months saw bitter infighting within the Basque group pitting the pragmatists, who were worried about waning support for violence from the Basque population, against a group of younger fanatics.

One of those fanatics is Txeroki, a tall young man who wears his hair long and his beard short. Originally from Bilbao, he -- like many Basque youth -- cut his teeth in street battles. The so-called "kale borroka" provide a kind of training to young radicals -- throwing Molotov Cocktails, vandalizing busses or cash machines, and generally tormenting the populace -- on the path to becoming members of ETA. Txeroki was recruited in 1999, just after ETA had broken a truce with the government of former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.

It didn't take long for him to advance, helped along by a series of attacks he and his commando carried out in the Basque province of Biscay. Soon, he found himself part of the ETA leadership with access to the group's hideout in France. The partner of then ETA leader Mikel Antza is said to have been personally responsible for Txeroki's further training. Soon, Txeroki himself took over the training of new, young recruits in weapons and explosives.

Once Antza was captured in October 2004, Txeroki, as an inexperienced 30-year-old, began putting together commandos and coordinating their operations himself. Since then, Txeroki has been responsible for most ETA terrorist attacks, say investigators.

Txeroki was also passionately opposed to 2006 efforts by ETA's political leadership to negotiate with the Zapatero government, talks which included elements aimed at the disarming of the Basque group. The young militant even wrote a letter criticizing the talks, saying they veered away from the hard-line position the group had agreed on. In March 2006, though, it appeared that Txeroki had lost his battle. ETA, already weakened by numerous arrests, agreed to a permanent cease-fire. Pressure from the 800 ETA members imprisoned in Spain was likely a factor in the decision.

It seemed that ETA was finally ready to cease using violence in their efforts to create an independent Basque Country. The political arm of ETA was finally prepared to pursue a peaceful solution with other parties represented in the autonomous Basque region's parliament.

ETA's negotiations with the Zapatero government were led by Josu Ternera (aka, Josu the Calf). But it didn't take long before it became apparent that he was losing influence within the Basque separatist group. In the last two negotiating sessions, he was represented by Francisco Javier Lopez Pena (alias, Thierry), known to investigators as an ETA logistics expert. When the bomb went off at the Madrid airport -- the work of Txeroki as officials only recently learned -- the talks came to an abrupt end.

Law enforcement officials once again gained the upper hand in the cat-and-mouse game last May, when they were able to raid an ETA leadership meeting in the center of Bordeaux, capturing Thierry. Spanish Interior Minister Rubalcaba at the time called Thierry "the person with the most political and military influence within the terrorist group." That, though, was incorrect.

Since then, Thierry no longer plays a role in ETA leadership, and Txeroki's more militant faction has gained influence. The group carried out seven attacks in 2007, killing three people. And just before this year's spring parliamentary elections, an ETA commando executed former Socialist Party councillor Isaias Carrasco. A policeman was killed shortly thereafter in May.

Then, at the beginning of this month, the group took responsibility for 10 attacks that have been committed since July, including a murder and the explosion of a car bomb on the campus of the University of Navarra in Pamplona, which injured 27. "The resistance will continue as long as the rights of the Basque people are not recognized," the group announced in the Basque newspaper Gara.

The renewed offensive under the leadership of Txeroki clearly shows that, two years after the cease-fire, the hardliners in ETA have solidified their control. By doing so, however, they have very likely hurt the chances of more moderate, pro-ETA political groups in regional elections set for next spring.

That, though, might have been one of the goals. In recent months, the ETA leadership has carried out a survey among members and among those serving time in Spanish prisons. Police were able to intercept some 115 responses. They show that there is an influential minority in favor of going after the moderate Basque police force, the Ertzaintza, and the moderate Basque Nationalist Party, which goes by the initials PNV. The PNV has governed the Basque Country for the last 30 years and shares ETA's separatist goals, though it has distanced itself from violence.

The arrest of Txeroki, a man Zapatero calls ETA's "highest operative leader," is thus an important blow in Spain's efforts to drive the group to the fringes. But it is still too early to speak of the end of ETA. In the past, the group has always proven able to bounce back, even when influential leaders were arrested. They still seem capable of recruiting enough young supporters to continue the fight -- people like Txeroki himself.

Txeroki's right hand in recent years was Aitzol Iriondo Yarza, known as Gurbita. Responsible for securing explosives, he is thought to have been at Txeroki's side during the Capbreton shootout a year ago. Anti-terror specialists in Spain consider him to be even more relentless and bloodthirsty than his boss.