ETA hunt: Explosives found

A cache of explosives allegedly belonging to the outlawed Basque separatist group ETA and ready for immediate use was found near the French border with Spain, Spain's interior minister said today.

French police made the discovery after the capture yesterday of two important ETA members in south-western France.

A third, less senior, ETA member also was arrested in yesterday's police raid, part of a French-Spanish collaboration, Interior Minister Angel Acebes told reporters in Madrid.

He said police discovered two backpacks with explosives and two booby-trap bombs in an apartment in the southern French city of Bagneres de Bigorre.

"Inside of the backpacks there were two explosive devices … possibly ready to be handed over (to other people), as well as two booby-trap bombs also prepared for immediate use" Acebes said.

The ETA captives include elusive former ETA leader Felix Alberto Lopez de la Calle, alias Mobutu, and the separatist group's logistics chief, Felix Ignacio Esparza. The third captive is a woman identified as Maria Mercedes Chivite Berango.

"It's one of the heaviest blows to ETA in recent years because of the importance of the members detained," Acebes said.

ETA, which stands for Basque Homeland and Freedom, has been fighting since the late 1960s to carve an independent Basque homeland out of a region straddling northern Spain and south-west France.

In the northern city of Bilbao, one of the main Basque cities, thousands of people today marched peacefully to call for the independence of the troubled region.