Spanish police Tuesday arrested a man and a woman suspected of recruiting extremists and launching terror threats against Spain and France, the country’s interior ministry said.
The pair pledged allegiance to Daesh and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the ministry said in a statement, using an alternative name for ISIS.
They also “launched death threats in the name of Daesh against Spain and France, as well as against other religious groups.”
The suspects are of Moroccan nationality and lived in Spain legally, the ministry said. The arrests took place in the northern city of Mataro and on one of Spain’s Canary Islands off the coast of Africa.
The suspects allegedly helped in recruitment, indoctrination and enrollment of new recruits, were in “constant contact with active members in Syria” and distributed multimedia material to teach new recruits how to use arms and explosives.
Like other European nations, Spain has been grappling with a growing number of extremist cells on its territory and radicalized Muslims leaving to fight for ISIS or other Islamist groups in Iraq and Syria.
This operation brings the number of suspected extremists arrested since the beginning of the year to 100, the ministry said.