Spain's ETA crackdown continues

MADRID, Spain -- Spanish police have arrested three more people in a crackdown against Basque separatist group ETA in the northern region.

"I can confirm that there have been searches and arrests," a local government official in the Basque region told Reuters.

The Interior Ministry was due to give details at a news conference.

Friday's arrests came 48 hours after police arrested seven other people believed to belong to the group.

Arms and more than 60 kg (132 lb) of explosives were also seized in a series of raids on Wednesday.

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Among those arrested was a town councillor for Batasuna, widely considered ETA's political wing.

Another man was believed to have formed part of an ETA command cell that killed a leading regional Socialist politician and his bodyguard last year.

ETA has claimed 35 killings since ending a year-long ceasefire in late 1999 and has been linked to about 800 deaths since 1968 in its campaign for an independent Basque state.

Last Friday a car bomb went off in central Madrid, causing slight injuries to more than a dozen people.

The government says this year has been its most successful against ETA.

Earlier this month, two suspected senior members of the Basque separatist group ETA were arrested in France.

Bixente Goikoetchea-Barrandarian, named by Spain's Interior Ministry as ETA's deputy political leader, was arrested with an unidentified woman also suspected of ETA membership.

The pair were apprehended in a village in the Pyrenees-Atlantique region of south-western France.

French police said Goikoetchea-Barrandarian, 42, was carrying a gun at the time of the arrest, as well as ETA documents.

France launched an international warrant against Goikoetchea-Barrandarian in 1995 on suspicion of terrorist links.