A suspected member of the Eta separatist group fled to Portugal in a stolen police car after he was intercepted driving a van containing explosives, the Spanish Interior Ministry said today.
The man, whose van contained 10kg of explosives, was arrested by police in Portugal after he linked up there with a second vehicle, whose occupant also was detained, a press statement said.
The arrests brought to four the total of Eta suspects apprehended over the weekend, after French and Spanish police last night arrested near Clermont-Ferrand, central France, a man and a woman suspected of being members of the separatist group.
The couple arrested in France were attempting to have access to an arms stash which was being monitored by the police, Spain's Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba.
"When (Eta members) go to their arms caches, we will be waiting for them, when they travel by road, we will follow them, until all this ends," he said at a press conference today.
Spain raised its anti-terror alert level to 2, the second highest warning, over Christmas to reflect the increased risk of possible attacks during the country's six-month European Union Presidency, starting on January 1st.
Eta, which has killed more than 850 people in the last four decades in bombings and shootings, frequently uses car bombs to carry out its attacks.
Reuters