Spain Marks a Year Without Eta Killings

Spain yesterday marked its first full year for more than three decades - barring truces - without a killing by the armed Basque separatist group Eta, as one of Europe's oldest and bloodiest terrorist groups was confirmed to be in serious decline.

Not since the early 1970s, when the group was starting out during the Franco dictatorship, have its attempts to plant bombs or carry out attacks failed so consistently.

The only previous year-long gap in the killing came when Eta called a unilateral, but temporary, ceasefire in 1998.

At its height, in the late 1970s and mid-1980s, it killed between 30 and 90 people a year.

There has been growing speculation that the group might call a fresh ceasefire in the hope that the non-violent Basque Nationalist party, which governs the semi-autonomous Basque region, would move closer to out-and-out separatism.

The general verdict yesterday, however, was that Eta, whose command, training and logistics structures are all based in France, would keep trying to carry out attacks in the northern Basque country and elsewhere in Spain.