French police have seized two arms dumps used by the Basque separatist group ETA in southwestern France.
Agents found 30 mortars, about 30 machine pistols, 20 assault rifles, 30 handguns, 48 anti-tank rocket launchers, 70,000 bullets and 48 anti-tank rocket launchers in Urrunge on Sunday evening.
In Saint-Pierre-d'Irrube, they found 25 kilos of dynamite and 30 detonators, an anti-tank rocket launcher, about 60 pistols and 20 assault rifles and around 23,000 bullets.
Police found the arms dumps by following up tips garnered from raids on October 3rd in which 23 people were interrogated. Eleven of them have been transferred to Paris and put under investigation.
Among them were the suspected political leader of ETA , Mikel Albisu Iriarte, and his companion Soledad Iparraguirre Genechea, who is suspected of managing the "revolutionary tax" the organisation demanded from Basque businesses.
ETA, which is classed as a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States, has killed more than 800 people since 1968 in a campaign to press for a Basque state carved out of northern Spain and southwestern France.