With help from Spanish authorities, French police have discovered five ETA arms caches between Wednesday and Friday, stocked with explosives, weapons, police uniforms and documents.

Three suspected ETA logistics officers were arrested in the French Alpine resort town of Le Corbier on Wednesday, two weeks after a deadly bombing in Majorca killed two police officers. Large amounts of bomb-making equipment were found the same day.

On Thursday police found two further caches, the largest in the Herault region of France, a few hours from the Spanish border, stocked with sufficient explosives to make "dozens of bombs", according to Madrid. Two more arms stashes were found on Friday.

Historically, ETA has used southern France to stage its attacks on Spanish targets.

"This is naturally a very positive sign in the struggle against ETA, and proof of the high quality of cooperation between French and Spanish authorities," France's Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux told AFP.

ETA is considered a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States, and the group is held responsible for the deaths of more than 820 people since 1968 in its bid for an independent Basque homeland.

sjt/AFP/dpa
Editor: Susan Houlton