THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS: ETA's number 1, and nearly 20 other important members of the terrorist group, have been arrested in an anti-terror swoop by French and Spanish police this morning.

A MAJOR police operation today in France and Spain netted at least 18 suspected members of the armed Basque separatist group ETA and large stocks of weapons, authorities said.

Seventeen suspects were captured in towns in south-west France, and another was arrested in the northern Spanish city of Burgos, French police authorities said.

Spain's Interior Ministry put the number of suspects in custody at 21. The discrepancy with the French figure could not immediately be explained.

Spanish authorities said those detained included two well-known ETA leaders, Mikel Albizu Iriarte - alias Mikel Antza - and Soledad Iparraguirre, who uses the alias "Amboto." They are a couple, have a son and have been on the run since 1993.

Iparraguirre is considered one of the leading female members of the armed group. Mikel Albizu is thought to have been a top ETA leader for the last 12 years, since police devastated the organisation by arresting most of its senior members. [picture here -- F.A.]

Albizu managed to escape a police raid last April that netted an ETA logistics chief, Feliz Ignacio Esparza. The other suspects' identities and nationalities were not immediately released.

A bit of good news from the expanded Axis of Weasels, at last!