text: ETA VIII, after a brief period of independent activity, eventually integrated into ETA(m). With no factions existing anymore, ETA(m) reclaimed the original name of .
  GAL
  During the 1980s, a "dirty war" ensued using the Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL, "Antiterrorist Liberation Groups"), a paramilitary group which billed themselves as counter-terrorist, active between 1983 and 1987. The GAL's stated mission was to avenge every ETA killing with another killing of ETA exiles in the French department of Pyrénées Atlantiques. GAL committed 27 assassinations (all but one in France), plus several kidnappings and torture, not only of ETA members but of civilians supposedly related to those, some of whom turned out to have nothing to do with ETA. GAL activities were a follow-up of similar dirty war actions by death squads, actively supported by members of Spanish security forces and secret services, using names such as  active from 1975 to 1981. They were responsible for the killing of about 48 people.
  One consequence of GAL's activities in France was the decision in 1984 by interior minister Pierre Joxe to permit the extradition of ETA suspects to Spain. Reaching this decision had taken 25 years and was critical in curbing ETA's capabilities by denial of previously safe territory in France.