Two men have been arrested this morning in Zaragoza and Murcia for being allegedly linked to Al Qaeda, as part of an operation ordered by the National Court.
The two suspected terrorists detained are Nou Mediouni, of Algerian origin, and held in Zaragoza, and Hassan El Jaaouani, of Moroccan origin, and arrested in Murcia. They are “supposedly radical members of a cell related to the terrorist organization AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb),” said a statement issued by the National Police.
However, Interior Minister, Jorge Fernandez, has not confirmed that the two men were related among them. Sources of the National Court also notes that it cannot be said yet that they belong to a jihadist cell, although both of them have visited radical Islamic websites. The profile of those detained, according to the police statement, correspond to the two people who recently committed the attack in the Boston Marathon.
The Interior Ministry said in a second press release that Nou Mediouni was a”regular user of a known radical Islamist platform based in Mali from which AQIM is responsible, and that recruits candidates presenting more radical profiles “. Mediouni, according to police, was recruited by the forum “for its high degree of radicalization” and was instructed to travel to a “jihadist training camp located in northern Mali and directed by AQIM.”However, the note explains, “strong international police pressure on the ground” prevented him to contact those responsible for the field and was forced to return to Spain.
