Spanish police arrest woman traveling to join IS

A 22-year-old woman was arrested by Spanish Civil Guards at Madrid's Adolfo Suarez-Barajas airport in the early hours of Tuesday morning, the Spanish Ministry of the Interior has confirmed.

The woman, who is from the town of Almonte in the province of Huelva in southwest Spain, was attempting to travel to Turkey in order to cross into Syria to join the Islamic State (IS), the ministry said. She has been confirmed as a Spanish citizen, who had become converted to radical Islam after maintaining contact with "pro-jihadists" over the internet.

The operation which led to her arrest is said to be ongoing, with security forces searching her residence in Huelva in order to find information over her recruitment.

"The Civil Guard is carrying out different operations of this nature which have so far led to the prevention of several Spanish residents from joining DAESH, including some minors," added the ministry.

The ministry added the Civil Guards had been able to make the detention as a result of investigations into the communications which IS maintains with residents in Spain, highlighting that this kind of monitoring was "vital in the fight against Jihadist terrorism," and that several lines of this kind of investigation remained open.

This is the second young woman to be arrested in the last month as they were on the verge of leaving Spain to travel to Syria.

In September, an 18-year-old Moroccan woman was detained as she was about to leave, while a "Jihadist" recruitment network which spread over Spain and Morocco was broken up on Oct. 4 in a joint security operation which saw people detained in Toledo and in towns close to Barcelona and Valencia, as well as in Casablanca.

It is estimated that around 100 Spanish nationals have slipped through the net to join IS in the ongoing conflict in Syria and Iraq. Endit