MADRID, Oct. 24 — The Spanish authorities on Wednesday arrested six people of North African origin on suspicion of belonging to an international network that promotes militancy on the Internet and recruits fighters, the Interior Ministry said.
The Civil Guard, Spain’s rural police force, said it had detained five men and a woman in the province of Burgos, in northern Spain. The authorities were searching six houses and a butcher’s shop run by the suspects and confiscated documents and computer hard drives, the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry said it was the first time Spanish authorities had broken up a suspected recruiting and propaganda network operating chiefly on the Internet. The group was using private chat rooms and Internet forums to disseminate radical propaganda, the authorities said, and was recruiting people to fight in various locations, particularly Iraq.
It was also collecting money for Islamist prisoners, including some of those jailed in Morocco in connection with the May 2003 bombings in Casablanca that killed dozens of people and wounded more than 100.
The group arrested in Burgos forms part of a “more complex and extensive” international group, the Interior Ministry said. Security agencies from Switzerland, the United States and Denmark took part in the investigation, the ministry said.
The authorities said the two main suspects were Abdelkader Ayachine, an Algerian, and Wissan Lotfi, a Moroccan. The others were identified as Mohamed Mouas, Smaine Kadoucio and Yahia Drif, all Algerians, and Fatima Zahrae Raissouni, a Moroccan.
The Interior Ministry said Mr. Ayachine had for years collected “zakat,” the charitable donations that are a strong tradition in Islam, at his shop and then funneled them to the Moroccan prisoners. The ministry said he had a criminal record, including convictions for homicide and domestic violence, and had served time in jail. Mr. Ayachine had become more religiously radicalized over the past few years and changed the way he dressed, the statement said.
Spain has arrested hundreds of suspected militants in numerous operations over the past few years and has broken up networks linked to groups like the one formerly known as the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat — now Al Qaeda in the Maghreb — as well as the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group.
Security officials say sweeps are often intended to disrupt possible plots and break up extremist networks even if there is too little evidence to charge suspects.
Thirty men are currently on trial in Madrid on charges related to a suspected plot to blow up the Spanish high court and political landmarks, and 28 more await sentencing next week for their role in the March 11, 2004, bombings that killed 191 people in Madrid.
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