Nine ETA suspects arrested, cell dismantled

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish police on Tuesday arrested nine suspected members of Basque separatist group ETA, dismantling its most active cell blamed for a string of bomb attacks and killing a civil guard, the interior minister said.

Paramilitary police broke into the apartment of suspected cell leader Arkaitz Goikoetxea, 28, early on Tuesday in the northern city of Bilbao, seizing two handguns and false documents, Interior Minister Alfredo Rubalcaba said.

Goikoetxea was one of the most wanted men in Spain.

The eight others arrested, most in their early twenties, had no criminal record and were working secretly for ETA while leading apparently normal lives, Rubalcaba said.

"We can't say this is the only ETA cell, but it was the most active, the most daring and the most wanted," Rubalcaba told a news conference.

Goikoetxea's group is thought to have killed civil guard officer Juan Manuel Pinuel-Villalon in a May 14 barracks bombing and staged most of ETA's major attacks since the Basque guerrillas called off a unilateral ceasefire last June, Rubalcaba said.

Spanish police have arrested 306 people accused of links to ETA since January 2007.

"The time between an ETA member exploding a bomb and being locked up is getting less and less," he said.

MORE FREEDOM

Spain's Socialist government says the guerrillas, considered a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States, have been severely weakened by a string of high profile arrests.

That has not stopped ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna, or Basque Homeland and Freedom) staging over a dozen attacks and two killings this year.

Tuesday's arrests follow the explosion of four small bombs in Cantabrian holiday resorts in northern Spain on Sunday, which caused no injuries and marked the beginning of ETA's traditional summer bombing campaign against Spanish tourist areas.

"This is a special morning because today we feel a little bit more free, because several terrorists have been arrested," said Rodolfo Ares, a leader of the Basque Socialist Party.

The operation was supervised by judge Baltasar Garzon, known for handling Spain's highest profile ETA and civil rights cases.

Most arrests took place in Bilbao and nearby towns Elorrio, Getxo. One member of the cell was captured in Malaga, southern Spain, and another in Pontevedra, Galicia, to the northwest.

The investigation of the group remains open, Rubalcaba said.

ETA declared a ceasefire in March 2006, raising hopes for an end to the group's four-decade campaign for an independent Basque state that has killed more than 800 people in shootings and bombings.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero broke off peace talks after the group killed two people in an attack on Madrid airport in December 2006. ETA officially ended its ceasefire in June last year.

Zapatero has ruled out further peace talks and says the guerrillas' only option is a unilateral surrender.

ETA leader Francisco Javier Lopez Pena was captured in southern France on May 21 and three other ETA chiefs in a raid in Bordeaux.

"Not a single ETA member is going to be spared, all of them will face justice," said Rubalcaba.

(Editing by Janet Lawrence)