SPAIN:The fears that Eta was planning a new attack were heightened yesterday after Spanish police found a car containing 130kg of explosives, detonators, fuses and a bomb-making manual written in the Basque language. They also took away a laptop computer, which is being studied for information.
The seizure occurred on the highway near the Portuguese border when a group of road workers noticed an apparently abandoned car near a roundabout.
Before they had time to report what they believed to be a stolen car, they saw a man on a motorbike smash one of the windows, remove several packets from the back seat and speed away in the direction of Seville.
It is believed that the Ford Focus car was being driven in convoy with a second car when the two arrived at a routine traffic checkpoint and the drivers decided to abandon their dangerous cargo and make their escape in the lead vehicle.
The car, with Portuguese plates, had been rented in Lisbon two days previously by a man giving an address in the Basque Country.
Police are now inspecting the car to determine how far it had been driven and where it might have picked up the explosives.
There have been signs in recent months that police pressure in their traditional hiding places in France are forcing the terrorists to move their operations to countries further afield.
Earlier this year, two men and a woman were arrested in England as they were about to board a ferry to Spain.
A fortnight ago, two Basques were detained in Canada - where Eta is believed to have links with the Quebec Liberation Movement - and a third in Mexico.
Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, the Spanish interior minister, praised international police co-operation, which he said meant that since the ceasefire ended three weeks ago there were now three fewer terrorists on the loose.
He confirmed that police forces on both sides of the frontier were searching for the men who abandoned the car and for the rest of the group, who could be hiding in a safe house in southern Portugal. Mr Rubalcaba said the police suspected that although Eta had an infrastructure in Andalucia and in the Algarve, they did not believe it had terrorist operatives living in the area.
Security has been tightened in possible target areas across Spain, particularly in Valencia, where the America's Cup regatta is taking place. Police with dogs combed the port facilities, car parks and other buildings in a search for explosives and any other suspicious objects, while coastguard frogmen in speedboats patrolled the area.