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| Europe |
| Spanish policeman killed by Basques in southern France |
| 2007-12-03 |
| An undercover Spanish policeman was shot dead Saturday and another was wounded after they were attacked by a suspected Basque terrorist commando group in a small town in southwestern France, the Interior Ministry reported. The attack, which took place earlier Saturday in the town of Capbreton, took place as the Spanish officers were involved in a surveillance operation in liaison with French intelligence. Basque separatists from the "ETA" group, which has been banned as a terrorist organization, have been fighting a decades-old war with Spain to obtain independence for their region in the northwest of the country. The Basque territory also extends into a smaller portion of southern France where militants often find support and refuge. But the group rarely carries out acts of this type of violence inside France, preferring instead to attack Spanish targets. French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie "condemned in the firmest terms this odious act," a statement from her office said. The Minister said that she was overseeing the resources put in place to arrest the assassins who are already being actively hunted. Alliot-Marie indicated that she was immediately heading to southern France to the scene of the killing, accompanied by her Spanish counterpart with whom she is already attending a meeting in Berlin this day. |
| Posted by:Seafarious |