Arrests as Spain blast dead buried

MADRID, Spain -- Police have detained 15 alleged supporters of the armed Basque separatist group ETA.

The arrests came a day after the detention of the suspected military leader of ETA, and a fatal car bombing blamed on the group.

Thursday's attack, the second linked to ETA this year, brings to 26 the number of killings it has been accused of carrying out since it called off a 14-month cease-fire in December 1999.

Thousands of people across Spain on Friday observed five minutes' silence -- a homage that follows each attack -- to mark the deaths of Jose Angel Santos Larranaga and Josu Leonet Azkona, in the San Sebastian blast.

The two men were on their way to work at an electrical components company when the bomb, in a parked car, was apparently detonated by remote control.

A Socialist Party town councillor, Inaki Dubreuil, the supposed target of the attack, suffered serious injuries. His bodyguard and two other people were also hurt.

Friday's arrests were made before dawn in the Basque towns of Ordizia and Goierri, some 450 kilometres (280 miles) from Madrid, said the Basque region's most senior security official, Javier Balza.

Among those detained was Inigo Gurregui Lasa, an alleged member of ETA's Donosti Commando, one of the group's deadliest units, radio station Radio Nacional reported.

Balza declined to give more details on the police operation, which he said was continuing.

It is not known if the arrests are linked to the detention of Francisco Xavier Garcia Gaztelu, one of Spain's most wanted men, in France on Thursday.

Spain's Interior Ministry has identified Gaztelu as a member of ETA's collective leadership and head of the group's military command chain.

He is suspected of ordering or participating in a series of killings, including the 1997 assassination of Basque town councilor Miguel Angel Blanco, which sparked massive nationwide protests.

Judicial sources says Spain will shortly request Gaztelu's extradition.

On Friday Basque police also reported extensive damage to a youth detention centre in the northern Basque town of Zumarraga after an explosion.

Police said three armed men entered the centre and handcuffed three security guards before placing the explosives. No one was hurt.

ETA, whose initials stand for "Basque Homeland and Freedom" in the Basque language, is blamed for about 800 assassinations since 1968 in its campaign for an independent Basque homeland in northern Spain and south-western France.

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.

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Basque Government
Spanish Ministry of Interior

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