The Islamic State’s Amaq News Agency claims that the attack in Barcelona, Spain today was carried out by the group’s “soldiers.” The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a string of operations in which terrorists drove a van or truck into a crowd.
A former Guantanamo detainee named Hamed Abderrahaman Ahmed was arrested on Feb. 23 in Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in North Africa, for allegedly running a jihadist recruiting cell for the Islamic State. Spanish authorities also claim that he and others were willing to carry out a terrorist attack on Spanish soil. According to a leaked Joint Task Force Guantanamo threat assessment, Ahmed traveled through Iran to Afghanistan to receive training in al Qaeda’s camps in 2001.
Spain arrests four in swoop of suspected militant cell in north Africa
Charlie Hebdo suspect ‘mentored’ by Abu Hamza disciple
Authorities raised the security threat level to three on a scale of four after suspicious packages were delivered to the offices of several Spanish media organizations. Offices were evacuated and the packages were examined before workers were allowed back into the buildings. The US is seeking to station an elite Marine group permanently at an […]
Madrid’s Atocha train station reopens after false bomb alert
During raids in Barcelona, Ceuta, Melilla, and the Moroccan municipality of Castillejos, Spanish and Moroccan police arrested seven people, including four women and a minor, suspected of links to an lslamic State recruitment network that sent women to Iraq and Syria. Two of the female suspects were allegedly about to join the Islamic State. Authorities […]
A High Court prosecution of 15 members of an Islamic State recruiting group in Madrid revealed that it was headed by former Guantanamo detainee Lahcen Ikassrien, who used Madrid’s largest mosque as a recruitment center. The group, which called itself the Al Andalus Brigade, also operated a jihadist training camp on property it owned in […]
Europe Tries to Stop Flow of Citizens Joining Jihad
A court remanded in custody Mohamed Said Mohamed, thought to be the leader of an Islamic State recruiting cell based in Melilla and in the Moroccan city of Nador. Spanish and Moroccan authorities arrested nine members of the cell, all Moroccan except for the leader, a Spaniard, in raids on Sept. 26. Spain has conducted […]
Who’s who in coalition to defeat Islamic State
A closer look at recent developments in a number of countries should dispel any illusions that the Islamic State’s aspirations and activities are only regional.
Morocco, Spain combat terror threat
Spanish security forces say that Mohamed Almedi Khalou, a former Moroccan army officer, is now leading some 1,200 Moroccans who have joined Islamic State forces in Syria in a group called the Harakat al Sham, or Sham al Islam. Khalou reportedly replaced Brahim Benchekroun, a former Guantanamo detainee who was killed in Syria in April. […]
Spanish authorities arrested two Spanish girls, one 19 years old and the other 14, as they tried to cross over from Melilla into Morocco to join a cell of the Islamic State. The Interior Ministry said the girls’ “radicalization, recruitment and later dispatch … were perfectly planned … by a network that operates across north […]
UK extremists linked to Qatar World Cup bid
ISIS militants outline chilling 5-year plan for global domination
Jihadist returnees stir concern in the Maghreb
Lahcen Ikassrien, an ex-Guantanamo detainee, was arrested earlier this month in Spain. Leaked State Department cables and a threat assessment authored by Joint Task Force Guantanamo link Ikassrien to an al Qaeda cell run by one of Osama bin Laden’s most trusted operatives in pre-9/11 Europe.
Spanish authorities arrested nine members of a jihadist cell in Madrid yesterday that recruited fighters for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham in Syria and Iraq. The cell is led by Moroccan national Lahcen Ikassrien, 47, a former Guantanamo detainee who was handed over in 2005 to Spain, where he was released after […]
In Europe, no plans for military involvement in Iraq
In well over a dozen countries, evidence has emerged that jihadists who trained or fought in Syria are engaging in terrorist activities in their home countries and elsewhere.
Security forces in Melilla arrested six jihadists involved in a network that sends fighters to al Qaeda camps in Syria, Mali, and Libya. Cell leader Benaissa Laghmouchi Baghdadi, 42, who had spent eight months in Syria, has ties to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa […]
Belgium, Allies Try to Halt Flow of Young Islamist Fighters to Syria
Spanish security forces, working with French police, arrested Abdelmalek Tanem, an Algerian national who also has French citizenship, in Almeria on April 30. He had recently returned from Syria, where he worked as a facilitator along the Turkish border, integrating European jihadists into the Al Nusrah Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the […]
Authorities arrested four people in Barcelona, Tarragona, and Palma de Mallorca who are suspected of trying to sell missile equipment to Iran. Three are Spanish nationals from the same family, and the fourth is an Iranian. During the raids, authorities confiscated cash, industrial equipment, and documents relating to defense information.
Foreign jihadists recruit Maghreb youth
In a joint operation, Spanish and Moroccan authorities targeting an al Qaeda recruiting network arrested four suspected members in Spain and three in Morocco. The network, whose activities extend to Morocco, Belgium, France, Tunisia, Turkey, Libya, Mali, Indonesia, and Syria, is headed by Melilla resident Mustafa Maya Amaya, who funneled recruits to the Islamic State […]
US military boosting its presence in Spain
Spain on Islamist alert, decade after train bombings