[2] Velasco may have come to power in 799 in the uprising that overthrew the Umayyad rule in Pamplona,[3][4] when Muṭarrif ibn Mūsa, probably of the Banu Qasi, was assassinated there.
[2] The contemporary Annales Regni Francorum record that "the Navarri and the Pamplonans, who had defected to the Saracens in recent years, were received back into allegiance" in 806.
[2] According to the 11th-century Muqtabis of Ibn Ḥayyān, in the year 816 (AH 200) the Córdoban ḥājib ʿAbd al-Karīm led an expedition against Velasco, whom he describes as the "lord of Pamplona" (Arabic: صاحب بنبلونة, ṣāḥib) and the "enemy of God".
After thirteen days of fighting "without truce" along the river Arum, Velasco was defeated and the Álavan leader, García López (Garsiya ibn Lubb), was killed.
Following their defeat, the Basques blocked the rivers and mountain passes, frustrating any further Umayyad advance.