The head of military recruitment for ETA, Oroitz Gurruchaga Gogorza, and his deputy, Javier Aramburu Sagarminaga, were arrested in France on Sunday. Both men were armed.
The two suspected terrorists were driving through Cauna, a small town in southwestern France, in a stolen car with false licence plates and both were armed.
Oroitz Gurruchaga, born in Rentería in 1981, joined ETA in 2008 and quickly rose through the ranks to become head of the military and recruitment. It is thought that the two men were in the process of recruiting new members to bolster the ranks of ETA.
These two arrests bring the total number of detentions for alleged links to ETA to 15 since the organisation announced a cessation of violence on October 20th 2011. Eleven of the arrests have been in France, two in Belgium and two in Spain.