Spanish police have arrested 11 suspects linked to Islamist militants in a raid on a neighbourhood in the country’s North African enclave Ceuta, an Interior Ministry official said on Tuesday. Spanish media reported that one of those arrested was Hamed Abderrahaman Ahmed, a Spanish national who spent two years at the United States detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, following his capture in Pakistan. The so-called “Spanish Taliban” was freed earlier this year after terrorism charges in Spain were overturned. The Interior Ministry official could not confirm that Ahmed was among those arrested. About 50 police vehicles carrying armed police entered the El Principe neighbourhood, starting the raid at 4:00am (3:00GMT), a government official said on condition of anonymity. Local media reported that 300 police had been backed by specialist marksmen. The raid was continuing, the Interior Ministry official said.
Another of those arrested was a Moroccan citizen with a Spanish work permit, while the others were Spanish nationals, local radio quoted Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba as saying. Moroccan intelligence helped provide information for the operation, Rubalcaba said, according to the radio report. Local news agency Europa Press said that the suspects were linked to the Moroccan Islamist Combatant Group, which was blamed for bombings in Casablanca in 2003 which killed 26 people.