Morocco’s General Directorate for Territorial Surveillance (DGST) and Spanish Civil Guard have dismantled a nine-member terrorist cell in several Spanish cities, the Civil Guard announced on Friday.
“This operation, carried out jointly by the Civil Guard Information Service and Morocco’s General Directorate for Territorial Surveillance (DGST), identified and neutralized a group of young people who had undergone a process of radicalization into the most violent postulates of the Daesh terrorist organization,” the Civil Guard said in a press release.
Eight people were arrested on Tuesday in Melilia, Madrid and Malaga, while another person was apprehended on Monday in Cornellá (Barcelona) for producing and disseminating terrorist content, the same source added.
“We must stress the cooperation of Morocco’s DGST, whose constant and qualified support has enabled the investigations to progress. This underlines the importance of international cooperation between counter-terrorism services in tackling this threat and the major challenge of anticipating terrorist actions,” it added.
“Throughout the investigation, evidence was obtained on a group that has been formed and organized over time, both online and offline, and whose members have imbibed the most extreme and violent postulates of jihadist terrorist organizations,” the same source noted, adding that much of the propaganda material detected belongs to terrorist organizations such as Daesh.
The detainees were brought before the courts on July 4, and five of them were remanded in custody.