Arrested jihadists were planning “massacres” in Spain and Morocco

Spanish and Moroccan police believe that a network of 14 alleged jihadist terrorists dismantled in a joint operation carried out in Madrid and a number of cities in Morocco on Tuesday were planning Islamic State-style attacks in the two countries.

“They were aiming to mimic in Spain and Morocco the massacres carried out by Islamic State members with the intention of creating a climate of mass panic and instability,” the Spanish Interior Ministry said in a statement.

This is the third major joint operation carried out by Spanish and Moroccan authorities in the last year and a half

All those arrested – 13 in the Moroccan cities of Nador, Fez, Casablanca, Alhucemas and Driouch and one in the southern Madrid town of San Martín de la Vega – have been accused of recruiting and training people to join the ranks of Islamic State (IS) fighting in Syria and Iraq.

According to anti-terrorism sources, the man arrested in Madrid is Abdeladim Achriia, a 30-year-old Moroccan national, who manages a phone call store in San Martín de la Vega. Originally from Temsamane in Morocco’s Driuch province, he has been living legally in Spain for the last seven years with his wife and children.

Authorities believe he used the phone call center, which was owned by the former leader of the town’s Muslim community, Aissa Benrahmoun, to recruit and train potential IS combantants. Police searched the premises for several hours on Tuesday.

Neither the police nor the Interior Ministry supplied information about the number of people who may have been recruited by the network, which was first detected in Melilla during a previous investigation. The head of the cell is believed to have important “employment and social” links in the Spanish north African exclave.

This is the third major joint operation carried out by Spanish and Moroccan authorities in the last year-and-a-half. Morocco is one of the main sources of recruits for Islamic State. The Spanish Interior Ministry said on Tuesday that one of those arrested had been sentenced for terrorist activities, adding that the aim of recruiting Moroccan and foreign combatants was “to mobilize them into perpetrating attacks in their countries of origin and residence.”

With today’s operation, 54 people have now been arrested for Islamist terrorism in Spain. Intelligence services say 125 people have now left the country to join IS in Syria and Iraq, the majority recruited by networks such as the one broken up on Tuesday.

English version by Nick Funnell