Spain detains 4 alleged jihadists in joint operation with Morocco

MADRID, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- Spanish Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido confirmed Tuesday that four Moroccan nationals had been arrested for their alleged relationship with the Islamic State (IS).

The joint operation between Spanish National Police and their Moroccan counterpart resulted in two arrests made in the city of Figueras in the far north-east of Spain, one in the Madrid satellite town of Parla, and another in the Moroccan city of Tangiers.

The four detainees were suspected of spreading jihadist propaganda over the internet and of inciting a terrorist attack on the Spanish mainland.

The Spanish interior ministry has issued a statement that the man arrested in Tangiers was "a dangerous and known", member of the Islamic State and a member of their "direction of propaganda", who has over 300 profiles on social networking sites, containing highly violent images.

Meanwhile, the two men arrested in Figueras are brothers aged 30 and 31 and described as "direct students", of the detainee in Tangiers. They are accused of spreading materials over the "manufacture of homemade explosive devices, the stabbing of civilians, or in the training of mujahideens".

The man detained in Parla is a 44-year-old who the Spanish interior ministry said "was in an advanced state of radicalization which had led him to try and find accomplices on the internet in order to carry out a possible attack".

A total of 262 suspected jihadists have been arrested in Spain since the start of 2015. Enditem