(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Spain and Morocco arrested 14 people on Tuesday suspected of planning attacks and recruiting fighters to join Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, the Spanish government said. All the arrests were made in Morocco apart from one man detained in the small town of San Martin de la Vega, near Madrid, where hooded anti-terrorist police brought the suspect out from his home with his head covered, according to Reuters television journalists at the scene.
Police then took the suspect to a nearby mobile phone business which was also searched, they said. Those arrested were part of a group sending fighters to Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Spain's Interior Ministry said. They were also planning attacks in Morocco and Spain, it said, without giving details. "They wanted to replicate in Morocco and Spain the massacres carried out by DAESH members with the aim of creating a climate of psychosis and instability," the ministry said in a statement, referring to the group by one of its Arabic names, DAESH. The joint operation was launched after Spanish police spotted that one suspect, the leader of the group, had strong work and social links with Melilla, a Spanish enclave in Morocco, Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz told reporters. The operation was still under way, he said. The arrests come days after a heavily armed 26-year-old Moroccan man who used to live in Spain was accused of attacking passengers on a train in France.
An interior ministry source said there was no link between the French attack and Tuesday's arrests. Spain and other countries in Europe and North Africa are having to tackle radicalised citizens joining militants in Syria and returning to launch attacks at home. Before Tuesday's operation, Spain had been involved in 67 arrests of suspected Islamist militants so far this year, 48 in Spain and 19 abroad, according to Interior Ministry figures. Elsewhere, French President Francois Hollande says his country should be prepared for more attacks such as the thwarted assault on a highspeed train last week. Hollande said that Friday's incident "could have degenerated into monstrous carnage without the courage of the passengers," including three Americans and a Briton who subdued the gunman. In a wide-ranging diplomatic speech Tuesday, Hollande said his country remains "exposed" to violent extremism and "this aggression is new proof that we should prepare ourselves for other assaults."
Threat He didn't elaborate on a specific threat, though France has been on high alert for attacks all year. Hollande stressed his commitment to French counterterrorism efforts at home and abroad against Islamic State extremists. The train incident has highlighted growing difficulties in protecting public spaces from individual attackers. Meanwhile, French investigators had just hours left on Tuesday to decide whether to charge a Moroccan gunman who was overpowered by a group of Americans and a Briton when he opened fire on a crowded Parisbound train. Ayoub El Khazzani, a 25-year-old who boarded the high-speed train in Brussels on Friday armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, a Luger automatic pistol, ammunition and a box-cutter, is being questioned by counter-terrorism investigators.
Seeking He insists he had only been seeking to rob passengers, but a source close to the case said Tuesday he had watched a video of jihadist songs on his mobile phone shortly before getting onto the Amsterdam-Paris train. He was initially thought to be carrying two phones, but the source said he was actually only in possession of one mobile, which had been activated on the morning of the attack. Under French law, authorities can question Khazzani, who does not speak French, for four days, a deadline that expires Tuesday evening, after which they must charge or release him.
Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins was due to hold a press conference at 5pm (1500 GMT). Witnesses said Khazzani opened fire, wounding a man before being wrestled to the floor and subdued by three young Americans - off-duty servicemen Alek Skarlatos and Spencer Stone and their student friend Anthony Sadler - and a Briton, 62- year-old business consultant Chris Norman. France has been on high alert since three jihadist gunmen went on a killing spree in and near Paris in January, leaving 17 dead in their wake.
President Francois Hollande told a gathering of French diplomats on Tuesday that France must prepare for further attacks. "The aggression that took place on Friday" which could have degenerated into a monstrous carnage" is fresh proof that we must prepare for other attacks and therefore protect ourselves," Hollande said. Khazzani was on the radar of European intelligence agencies, but gaps remain in his backstory. A Spanish counter-terrorism source said he lived in Spain for seven years until 2014, where he came to the attention of authorities for making hardline comments defending jihad, attending a radical mosque in Algeciras and being involved in drug trafficking. His father said he left for France to work for mobile phone operator Lycamobile - a claim confirmed by the head of the firm who said Khazzani stayed for two months in early 2014 and left because he did not have the right work papers. French intelligence sources, however, said Khazzani only came on to their radars in May this year, when German authorities warned he had boarded a plane for Turkey, seen as a possible sign that he travelled to war-torn Syria.
Khazzani is said to have told investigators he is "dumbfounded" by accusations he intended to carry out a terror attack. He said he stumbled upon a weapons stash in a park in Belgium where he sometimes slept rough and decided to use it to rob passengers, according to Sophie David, a lawyer who was temporarily assigned to his case. Khazzani's father has described his son - who according to David had moved around Belgium, Germany, Austria, France and Andorra in the last six months - as a "good boy" who preferred "football and fishing" to politics.
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