After months of investigation and surveillance, Spanish police made 13 arrests this week in one of the largest anti-terror operations in recent years.
On Tuesday, Spanish National Police, working with their Moroccan counterparts, dismantled a terror recruitment cell by arresting nine in the North African exclave of Melilla and another person in the city of Nador, just across the Moroccan border, El Mundo reports.
The General Directorate for the Surveillance of Moroccan Territory (DGSN) said that the suspects were attempting to recruit new jihadists. Among those arrested was one suspect who is believed to be a member of a terrorist group operating in the African Sahel region.
“This joint security operation is part of a continuous and distinguished security coordination between the Moroccan security services and their Spanish counterparts, which confirms once again the importance of the security partnership between the two countries,” the DGSN said in a statement.
The national police also carried out coordinated arrests of three “highly radicalised” teens in Barcelona and Madrid. The public prosecutor’s office juvenile section accused the trio of conspiracy to murder, terrorist self-training, and criminal indoctrination.
The three teenagers came to the attention of investigators online as they had allegedly professed their belief in a radical form of Islam and even went as far as saying they believed in the use of violence to defend Islam and identified possible targets for attacks.
Prosecutors said the three were “highly radicalised and with an ideology entirely compatible with the jihadist viewpoints defended by the terrorist organisation [Islamic State].”
The three minors had allegedly been searching for terrorist manuals that would lead them to create the highly powerful explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP), also known as the ‘Mother of Satan.’
TATP has been used in several major terrorist attacks in Europe in recent years and is a preferred explosive of terrorist groups such as the Islamic State largely because its ingredients—such as acetone, commonly found in nail polish remover—are readily available.
The explosive was used in the November 2015 Paris attacks, the 2016 Brussels airport attacks, and the Manchester concert bombing in 2017 among others, leading to the deaths of large numbers of innocent civilians.
The arrest of the three minors in Barcelona and Madrid was also followed by a search of three residences and led to the seizure of various electronic devices and other documents said to be in the hands of specialist investigators.
Radical Islamic jihadism continues to be a major threat in Europe, with French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin claiming earlier this year in May that jihadism was the greatest security threat in Europe.
Darmanin stated that Europe faced internal threats from those who may simply take a knife and carry out a mass stabbing in the name of radical Islam, to outside threats from more organised groups like the Islamic State.