MADRID, Spain, June 27, 2012 (AFP)
Spanish police Wednesday arrested two suspected Islamist extremists who found young recruits in north Africa for training in camps and war zones, officials said.
The pair – 25-year-old Rachid Abdellah Mohamed and 30-year-old Nabil Mohamed Chaib, both Spanish – were nabbed in the nation’s disputed north African enclave of Melilla.
They were believed to lead an Islamist group with international connections, made up mostly of Spanish citizens of north African origin living in Melilla or the neighbouring Moroccan city of Farkhana, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
“Both detainees are believed to be the authors of torture and assassination of two group members who decided to leave and break away from the strong religious authority that was imposed,” it said.
Corpses of the two victims showing signs of torture were found July 15, 2008 in the northeastern Moroccan city of Nador, it said. Spanish Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz said the suspects were radical Islamists.
Their doctrine was similar to that of seven extremists who blew themselves up in a Madrid suburb on April 3, 2004 when they were surrounded by police investigating the March 11, 2004 train bombings which killed 191 people in the Spanish capital, he said.
According to the interior ministry, the group set up strong internal security measures including keeping its own existence secret.
Members followed the extreme takfiri ideology which obliged them to separate from family and barred them from listening to music or watching television, the ministry said.
