Spanish police detained four suspected members of the militant Basque separatist group ETA on December 16, police sources said. The two men and two women were held in their homes in San Sebastian and Pasaia in the Basque region.

They were suspected of supplying ETA with information about people who could be targeted by attacks inside and outside the Basque region, and with generally backing up the group's infrastructure. Police searched the detainees' homes. Around a dozen ETA suspects have been detained within a month.

The arrest of ETA's suspected military leader Mikel Garikoitz Aspiazu alias Txeroki on November 17 was followed by that of his successor Aitzol Iriondo a week ago. Both men were captured in France, where ETA has a large part of its infrastructure. The December 16 arrests came two weeks after suspected ETA members shot and killed businessman Ignacio Uria in Azpeitia in the Basque region. ETA, which is listed as a terrorist organisation by the European Union and United States, has killed more than 820 people in its four- decade campaign for a sovereign Basque state.