A brief history of Eta

• Eta (Euskadi ta Askatasuna, or Basque Country and Freedom) was formed in 1959 to fight for an independent Basque state in northern Spain and south-western France. • It was launched during the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, who cracked down on the use of the Basque language. • The group has killed 829 people since 1968, typically using car bombs or shootings. • Spain, the United States and the European Union have listed Eta as a terrorist organisation. The Socialist government broke off peace talks after the rebels killed two people with a car bomb at Madrid airport in December 2006, breaking a ceasefire declared nine months earlier. • The last fatality was the murder of a French policeman near Paris in March 2010 in a shootout – the first French security officer to be killed by the group. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, vowed to hunt down its supporters. • Eta is believed to have been severely weakened by hundreds of arrests in recent years. Spain's interior ministry has said 62 members were arrested in Spain, France and other countries in the first six months of the year. • Police have also repeated skimmed off the group's leadership, with the most recent arrest coming in northern France in February this year. Ibon Gogeascoechea, who was held with two other senior Eta members, was the fifth suspected Eta leader to be arrested since November 2008. • The suspected military leader of Eta was arrested in France in May.