A bit of good news in the counter-terror world. A joint Spanish-French operation has dealt a severe blow to ETA the Basque terrorist organization. At least 18 people were arrested in southern France, including ETA's top leader Mike Albisu Iriarte (aka Mikel Antza) and his companion Soledad Iparraguirre (aka Anboto) who was wanted for her role in 14 murders and was in charge of ETA's "tax collection" - i.e. extortion - program.

Explosives, fake identification, and weapons were also seized.

This operation was apparently the culmination of four years of work and numerous other arrests. For decades France gave Basque terrorists a pass since they primarily targeted Spain. But in the last few years counter-terror cooperation was expanded. France is actually very effective at counter-terror and its operations are, in part, shielded from political pressure because they are directed by members of the judiciary.

ETA's campaign of terror killed over 800 people, including numerous prominent politicians (particularly moderate Basques). Their prominence in Spanish politics was highlighted by the quick official Spanish statement that the 3/11 attack was an ETA operation even though it was a vast departure from previous ETA attacks. But, ETA has been on the decline for some time and since 3/11 they have been utterly eclipsed by Islamist terror against Spain.

The hope is that the French-Spanish cooperation will quickly extend to efforts against radical Islam. Spain reportedly did not have a single Arabic speaker working on internal security issues and while Spanish security knew that several of the 3/11 operatives were linked to Islamist groups they were not being monitored. Meanwhile, Spain's withdrawal from Iraq and status, as a former Muslim territory, in Islamic theology make it a likely future target of Islamist terror. Hopefully the recent cooperation against the old terror threat of ETA will build trust across the Pyrennes against the new threat as well.