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| Europe |
| Spain arrests suspected Islamic extremists |
| 2008-02-14 |
| Police arrested three suspected Islamic extremists early Thursday in the northern Basque city of Vitoria on suspicion of promoting radical ideology among the Muslim community, the Basque regional government said in a statement. The three were not immediately identified. Police suspect them of distributing CDs and MP3 files obtained from the Internet, with calls for an Islamic "jihad," the statement said. Basque regional police began the investigation last December and located two sites where the alleged distribution of material took place: an apartment and a telephone store, where people without fixed telephone phones often go to make calls or use the Internet, the statement said. The National Court in Madrid, which investigates terrorism, issued the arrest warrants, and Basque police detained the suspects early Thursday in Vitoria, the capital of the Basque region. The arrests come three weeks before Spain's parliamentary elections on March 9 and just a few weeks after Spanish police in Barcelona arrested 14 suspected Islamic suspects, mainly Pakistani nationals, on suspicion of planning suicide attacks in Barcelona and elsewhere in Europe. A National Court judge later ordered 10 of the 14 to be held in jail, while four were released. There was no immediate indication that the arrests in Vitoria and Barcelona were linked. But Spain's Interior Minister said recently the nation remains on "permanent alert" against Islamic terrorism. Al Qaeda communiquis regularly make specific references to Spain. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #2 why do they even bother? |
| Posted by: sinse 2008-02-14 09:17 |
| #1 I thought that when Spain wimped out and left Iraq and elected an appeasement government that they were off the jihadi radar. |
| Posted by: Keystone 2008-02-14 09:16 |