Spanish guards capture eight ETA suspects

MADRID, July 22 (UPI) -- Spanish military personnel arrested eight suspected members of a Basque separatist group thought to be behind a May fatal bombing, a Spanish official said.

Elite agents of Spain's Civil Guard used explosives to open the apartment door of the suspected cell leader Arkaitz Goikoetxea in Bilbao in northern Spain, CNN reported. Also arrested were seven other suspects who allegedly worked secretly for the ETA separatists.

ETA is blamed for more than 800 deaths in its fight for Basque independence from Spain and is listed as a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States, CNN said.

In May, a car bomb explosion at a Civil Guard barracks in Alava province killed a guardsman and injured four others.

Goikoetxea has been on the run for five years, Spanish media reported. He has been linked to attacks against three Civil Guard barracks, including the one in May, plus attacks on a Basque regional police station and several offices of the ruling Socialist Party in Vizcaya province.