SPAIN ARRESTS 20 ISLAMIST TERRORIST SUSPECTS

UNCLAS MADRID 000038 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PTER PGOV PREL SP SUBJECT: SPAIN ARRESTS 20 ISLAMIST TERRORIST SUSPECTS ¶1. (U) Spain arrested 20 people on January 10 on charges of recruiting and training potential terrorists to be sent to Iraq to carry out attacks against coalition forces. The individuals arrested in Barcelona are suspected of being members of a cell that recruited and trained terrorists who carried out a November 2003 suicide attack against Italian forces in Iraq. ¶2. (U) The arrests took place in the early morning in Madrid, Barcelona and the Basque Region. Among those arrested near Barcelona was the imam of the mosque of Vilanova I La Geltru, who is suspected of being the spiritual leader of the cell. The Barcelona cell is believed to be responsible for recruiting terrorists who conducted a suicide attack in Nasiriya, Iraq, on November 12, 2003, that killed 20 Italian military police officers and nine Iraqi civilians. ¶3. (U) Arrested were 15 Moroccans, three Spaniards, one Turk and one Algerian. In a news conference, Spain's Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso said the mission of the terrorist cells was to recruit and provide financial and logistical support to fighters sent to Iraq. He said they had connections in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Algeria, Morocco, Turkey, Syria and Iraq. According to Alonso, the group may have planned "violent actions" in Europe, although there was no evidence of any imminent attack in Spain. ¶3. (U) A Spanish judge authorized the arrests after reviewing evidence and other information presented by Spain's National Intelligence Center (CNI). It is Spain's second police operation in less than a month against Islamist extremists involved in the recruitment and indoctrination of terrorist combatants. AGUIRRE