World Notes SPAIN

His face obscured by a helmet, a dark figure climbed off his motorcycle and strode toward a house in a village outside Bayonne in southwest France. Before he reached the door, gunfire erupted, and within minutes French authorities captured the notorious leader of the Basque hard-liners, Jose Antonio Urrutikoetxea (alias: Josu Ternera), 38. The arrest last week of the ETA (Basque Homeland and Liberty) terrorist was hailed as a major breakthrough in a three-year Franco-Spanish offensive against Basque extremists fighting for independence in Spain.

Josu Ternera is thought to have been responsible for the assassination of the Spanish Prime Minister in 1973. Police believe the arrests will seriously curtail the terrorist activities of ETA.