Spain and Morocco have arrested 14
people in a joint operation targeting suspected recruiters for the
so-called Islamic State (IS) group. One arrest was made close to Madrid,
the others in various Moroccan cities. BBC reports:
Those arrested are suspected of involvement in a network to send fighters to areas of Syria and Iraq under IS control. On Friday a Moroccan who had lived in Spain was arrested following a foiled attack on a high-speed French train.
Ayoub El-Khazzani, 25, originally from Tetouan in northern Morocco, arrived in Spain in 2007 and lived there for seven years, in Madrid and Algeciras, before moving to France.
He is suspected of having had contact with radical Islamists and had been put on a list marked as “potentially dangerous” by Spanish authorities. They flagged this up to French counterparts in February 2014. Spanish counter-terrorism sources quoted on Monday by the Spanish Cadena Ser radio network said that some 800 people with a radical Islamist profile were in Europe and ready to strike, having returned from Syria and Iraq.
