01/08/09, 15:43:57 UTC

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Police thwart Eta plot to blow up British tourist ship

scotsman.com

A PLOT by terrorists to blow up a ferry carrying thousands of British tourists has been foiled by police in Spain.

Members of Basque separatist group Eta were targeting a ship operated by Brittany Ferries which sails twice a week between Plymouth and the Spanish port of Santander, according to reports.

But police swooped on one of the suspected terrorists, Aritz Arginzoniz Zubiarre, 22, at a bus station in Santander as he waited for the arrival of explosives and a car.

The authorities believe the ferry, the Pont-Aven, which carries up to 2400 passengers and 183 crew, was one of three possible targets.

Eta is also thought to have had a law court in Santander and a popular plaza in its sights.

The organisation has killed more than 800 people since 1968 in its campaign for an independent Basque state.

And since the end of an Eta ceasefire just over a month ago, the Spanish authorities have warned of an "imminent major attack".

Spanish interior minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said the arrested man had been planning a car bomb attack against a public building within the next few days.

Arginzoniz Zubiarre - whom the ministry said was carrying a pistol, a timer and false identity documents when he was arrested - had drawn attention to himself because of a backpack he was carrying.

When officers moved in to identify him, it was said he told them he was a member of Eta.

Mr Perez Rubalcaba said: "Eta is going to keep on trying to attack, but we are going to keep on trying to make sure they don't succeed."

Newspaper El Mundo said Arginzoniz Zubiarre may have been planning to carry out the attacks along with his girlfriend, named as Saioa Sanchez Iturregi.

The couple are said to have been staying at a camp site 27 miles from Santander, where police found details of the targets among their belongings.

On July 4, Mr Perez Rubalcaba had said Eta intended to cause casualties in a bomb attack it had planned for the end of last week.

The attack was thwarted when authorities in France intercepted a van packed with explosives.

He had said the group was planning the attack during Spain's state of the nation parliamentary debate last week. The location and target of the planned attack were unknown, he said.

Another vehicle bomb was intercepted on its way to Spain from Portugal.

Eta - which wants an independent Basque region taking in parts of northern Spain and southern France - has planned ferry attacks before.

In one case, the group intended to detonate a van bomb on a ferry from Valencia to the Balearic Islands, but the van broke down and the attempt was abandoned.

Meanwhile, French police co-operating with Spanish investigators have detained two suspected Eta members in Angouleme, 74 miles north east of Bordeaux, the interior ministry said.

The suspects, both men, were armed, the ministry said. Reports said one of the weapons was of the same type as 300 stolen in October in a raid blamed on Eta.

This article: http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1086422007

 Printable Version  | published Jul 13, 2007