SOVIET TERROR LINKS FOUND IN LEBANON (1982) - (Early links between ETA and muslim terrorism) - "(Claire Sterling) points out that in the spring of 1980, Dutch police arrested four Spanish terrorists who were heading home after receiving terrorist training in South Yemen, a Soviet satellite. They confessed that they were part of a group of 13 that had been sent for training by the Basque terrorist group, ETA."
In Spain: ETA and Al-Qaeda Forge New Anti-EU Alliance (2001)
Report: at least one ETA member was thought to have joined al-Qaida in recent years
One Coin, Two Sides (<<- contains info on ETA and Muslim/other Terrorist meeting in South America!)
An ETA delegation has visited Tehran every year since 1985 to participate in an annual gathering of "anti-Imperialist" movements that is held annually from Feb. 1 to Feb. 11. (The Tehran terror-fest, known as "The Ten Days of Dawn," celebrates the victory of the 1979 Islamist Revolution). Indeed, the list of ETA and Islamist-terrorist links is long and well-documented:
• In 1986, the French police identified one Vahid Gorji, an attaché at the Iranian Embassy in Paris, as the mullahs' liaison officer with European terror groups, including ETA. (Gorji was subsequently allowed to fly home under escort as Iran and France severed diplomatic ties.)
• In 1993, ETA -- along with a dozen other Western terrorist organizations -- had observers in the largest ever gathering of Islamist groups held in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. The conference elected a nine-member "steering committee" that included Osama bin Laden.
• In 1998, Spanish police arrested another Iranian agent, Rahman Dezfouli, on charges of contacts with ETA. He, too, was subsequently expelled because he was the holder of an Iranian "service passport."
ETA's literature, as disseminated over the past three decades, is replete with expressions of sympathy for various Islamist causes including "wiping Israel off the map" and "driving the American Imperialists out of the world." In exchange, al Qaeda literature has paid tribute to ETA's "heroic struggle" for Basque independence. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al Qaeda second-in-command, has spoken of his dream of "liberating Andalusia," the part of Spain once ruled by Muslims, presumably letting ETA rule its own neck of the wood in the Basque country."