Spain: Islamic State Member Arrested In Madrid

By

Officers from Spain’s General Commissariat of Intelligence of the National Police arrested a 32-year old Moroccan national, resident in Madrid. The man is a member of the terrorist group Islamic State and was found to be at an advanced stage of radicalization, according to the Spanish government.

Together with the principle detainee, two other Moroccan nationals aged 38 and 33 were also arrested, living at the same address, who were possibly beginning with these terrorist practices.

The detainee had an extremely dangerous profile of a similar nature to those terrorists involved in the recent attacks in the United Kingdom and France and was considered to pose a clear threat to the security of our country.

The detainee had carried out intense work in studying and searching for official training material of Islamic State. Specifically, he had accumulated a large number of manuals dealing precisely with terrorism within the Jihadi framework, including a manual on suicide bombings and another on electronic Jihad. The contents of these documents range from the most radical preparation to martyrdom. Apart from these manuals the National Police are also analysing other documents.

During the course of this investigation it was possible to individually identify several bookmarks on social networks linking the detainee with members of Islamic State located in the Syria-Iraq combat zone.

Furthermore, he also attempted to recruit people from within his immediate environment who he sought to convince to carry out Jihad violence in our country. The Islamic State material that was seized from him was used both to prepare his chosen candidates in radical religious aspects and theoretical and practical training in operational techniques. During the investigation and surveillance carried out it was possible to observe behaviour and attitudes of the detainee which called for extreme precaution on behalf of the police officers involved.

This new operation falls within the action lines designed by the General Commissariat of Intelligence in terms of the fight against Jihadi terrorism, focused on rapid detection and neutralisation of individuals whose level of radicalisation is dangerously advanced, prior to them being able to carry out terrorist acts.

The operation, which is ongoing, was carried out by Central Investigation Court Number 2, in coordination with the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the National High Court

Since 26 June 2015, the year in which the Ministry of Home Affairs raised the Counter-Terrorism Alert Level to level 4 (Spanish acronym: NAA-4), the law enforcement agencies have arrested a total of 172 Jihadist terrorists in operations carried out in Spain and abroad and a total of 217 since the start of 2015.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *