Basque terrorist? When did this start happening? Am i the only one who know who the Basques are?

this article is really long so heres the link ; http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1919110,00.html

"Experience has shown it's foolish to ever consider a terrorist group
definitively beaten. Still, it must be getting hard for officials in Spain and
France not to strut a tiny bit following the recent blows they've dealt the
separatist Basque organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA). In the past week
alone, authorities have unearthed 13 ETA weapons caches in France, and arrested
three alleged members suspected of staging two recent bombings in Spain.
Nevertheless, officials describe the group as just as dangerous as ever. "

The 13 French raids across southern France turned up no less than 48.5 lbs (22 kg) of PETN explosives, guns and ammunition, fuses, detonators, and a total of 352 lbs (160 kg) of ammonium nitrate, which can be used to make bombs. The PETN explosives matched those used in the July 29 ETA bombing of a police barracks in Burgos in northern Spain that injured around 40 people. Investigators say they believe materials in the caches can also be traced to the ETA car bomb that exploded on July 30 on the tourist-packed island of Majorca, killing two Spanish police officers.
The French raids — executed on information provided by Spain — came in the wake of the Aug. 19 arrest of three suspected ETA members at an Alpine ski resort. Aitzol Etxaburu Arteche, 30, Andoni Sarasola, 36, and Alberto Machain Beraza, 28, are now being held as French investigators assemble a case against them for belonging to an outlawed organization and suspected involvement in terrorist activity. Not only have these police coups struck a staggering blow to ETA's potential to carry out attacks, they also represent a symbolic slap in the face coming as they do less than a month after the organization marked its 50th anniversary of armed struggle for an independent Basque homeland with the bombings in Burgos and Majorca.

Today, 172 suspected or convicted ETA members are serving time in French prisons, 157 of them Spanish nationals. In Spain itself, there are close to 750 currently in jail. Increased coordination between Paris and Madrid, meanwhile, made things so hot for ETA that its networks started searching for other places to plot strikes. "They tried Portugal, they even tested Morocco, but authorities in those countries saw the results of our cooperation and slammed the door on ETA before it could set up shop," the French official says. "We're all sharing information on ETA and moving to smoke it out. Times are very hard for the organization."
Perhaps, but as Interior Minister Hortefeux noted on Wednesday, each time authorities deal a blow to ETA they also uncover further proof that whatever is left of the organization is still busy preparing more of the attacks that have killed around 800 people over the years. Meanwhile, officials say that with the group now under unprecedented pressure, the only — usually young — people willing to enter ETA these days are almost all driven by an extremism that knows no fear of failure.