Spain breaks up ‘Islamic State jihadist cell’ posing as NGO

Spanish police have arrested seven people with suspected links to the Islamic State and other jihadist groups, the country’s interior ministry said.

Spain Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz said the suspects, who were detained during raids in Valencia, Alicante and Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta, were detained as they belonged to a jihadist cell which provided logistical support for terrorist activities in Iraq and Syria.

Four of those arrested are Spanish nationals of Jordanian, Moroccan and Syrian origin. Another two are Syrian and Moroccan citizens. The authorities did not provide details about the seventh suspect.

Five of the detainees hold Spanish citizenship.

The Interior Minister said those arrested formed part of a jihadist cell that posed as an NGO which sent humanitarian aid to conflict areas in Iraq and Syria. However, investigations revealed that the suspects were in reality sending military and technological equipment, money, weapons, and materials to build explosives to Islamist organisations, local media reported.

El Mundo reported that the detainees used different Spanish ports and one of those arrested had “close relations with the Islamic State and even supplied women for militants in Syria and Iraq.”

The organisation is suspected to have also embarked on a social media campaign to recruit individuals across Europe.

Spain newspaper El Pais reported that those arrested are also suspected of money laundering and of financing terrorist groups.

The arrests are part of an investigation which was launched in 2014 into what police describe as “foreign structures” of Islamic State on Spanish soil. The arrests were made in the context of an investigation launched in 2014 into “foreign structures” of ISIS and the Al-Nusra Front, an Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, police said.

Spain’s interior minister said the arrest of the seven suspects did not bring an end to the police’s investigation. The latest arrests bring the total of people arrested in connection with terrorism up to 82, the ministry said.