New Basque-are violence puts Spanish on alert

With 10 persons killed for political reasons over the weekend, Spanish authorities are bracing themselves for what they predicted would be a difficult period of increased sectarian violence among the Basques.

Six civil guards weke killed by gunmen thought to belong to ETA, a nationalist group fighting for the establishment of a Marxist Basque state, and two of the attackers were later found dead nead the site of the attack. Two other people, left-wing Basques thought to be ETA sympathizers, were later found dead, and the neofascist "Spanish Basque Battalion" has claimed responsibility, saying the deaths were in retaliation for the attacks on the civil guards. This group has vowed to avenge all killing of police or soldiers by killing Basque leftists and nationalists.