Police Raids Target Basque Separatists

Masked police arrested 20 people in raids on political party offices and private homes in a sweep that officials said all but uprooted the fund-raising wing of the armed Basque separatist group ETA, or Basque Homeland and Freedom. Throughout the Basque region of northern Spain and in Madrid, police officers, many with faces covered to prevent retaliation, seized documents and other belongings in the move against EKIN, believed to be ETA’s clandestine strategy unit. The raids reflected Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar’s crackdown on the separatists after a string of bombings.