Spain: Four Jihadis To Serve Sentences

In Madrid, on Wednesday morning, officers of the General Commissariat of Intelligence of the Spanish National Police Force arrested four Jihadis – three Moroccans and one Argentinean – under instructions from Section One of the Criminal Division of the Spanish National High Court, which issued the arrest warrant.

After they were initially arrested in June 2014, the four arrested individuals had been conditionally released while awaiting a court ruling. It was determined that the dismantled cell they formed part of sent 11 Jihadi fighters from Morocco and Spain to conflict zones to join the ranks of Al Qaeda in Syria and Iraq.

The four individuals, who had been conditionally released while awaiting a court ruling, were previously arrested within the framework of an operation by the General Commissariat of Intelligence conducted on June 16, 2014.

That operation dismantled a network of international connections aimed at financing, recruiting, radicalizing, indoctrinating and sending combatants to join the ranks of Jihadi terrorist organizations associated with Al Qaeda. Their organization was perfectly structured, developed and consolidated, and was referred to by the terrorist cell members themselves as the “Al-Andalus Brigade”.

It was revealed that this terrorist group had sent at least 11 Jihadi fighters to conflict zones from Morocco and Spain.

Furthermore, it was verified that these Jihadi fighters joined factions of Al Qaeda in Syria and Iraq, there being evidence to show that their final destination was the terrorist organization Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), into which these combatants would have been fully integrated to carry out any activity assigned to them by the organization, mainly aimed at taking part in terrorist attacks and operations.