Spain and Portugal to join forces against ETA

MADRID, Aug 26 (Reuters) Spanish and Portuguese authorities will join forces to crack down on ETA activists who could be using Portugal as a base from which to attack Spain, Spain's interior minister said today.

Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said his Portuguese counterpart had agreed to combine resources to form a joint investigative team of police, judges and prosecutors, specifically to fight the violent Basque separatist group.

''This goes further than police cooperation, which already exists,'' Rubalcaba told Spanish state radio.

ETA activists have traditionally holed up in southern France in their 40-year campaign of shootings and bombings to push for an independent Basque state in northern Spain.

Increasing pressure from French police and frequent arrests have made this more difficult in recent years, and now the government suspects the radicals could be using Portugal as a base.

Spanish police suspect ETA was behind a car bombing last week of a civil guard barracks in the Basque town of Durango and say a second vehicle, which they think was used as a getaway car, had Portuguese licence plates. Two police were slightly injured.

In June Spanish police found a car packed with explosives in Ayamonte, a town 2 km from the Portuguese border, which they think was abandoned by ETA members planning an attack. The vehicle had been rented in Portugal.

The guerrilla group said on June 5 it was calling off a 15-month-old ceasefire, which it had already effectively broken by bombing Madrid's main airport in December.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero attempted peace talks with ETA last year but called them off after the airport bombing, which killed two people.

Reuters KK GC1855