A person with alleged links to jihadist terrorism has been arrested in Ibiza by the National Police in the early hours of this Friday, in the framework of a joint operation with the Moroccan Directorate General of Territorial Surveillance (DGST). Moroccan and Spanish police dismantled this Friday a terrorist cell affiliated to the Sahel branch of the jihadist organization Islamic State (Daesh), in a joint operation that involved the arrest of nine people in the Moroccan towns of Tetouan and Castillejos (Fnideq) and in the Spanish towns of Madrid, Ibiza and Ceuta. Three of those arrested were detained in the two Moroccan localities and six in the three Spanish ones, reports Friday the Moroccan Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation (BCIJ, anti-terrorist body) in a statement reported by the official agency MAP. In the operation, which was carried out jointly and simultaneously between the security services of both countries, searches were carried out in the homes of the detainees, in which the agents seized bladed weapons and computer equipment, explains the note. According to preliminary investigations, some of the detainees had been arrested in terrorism cases in Spain and held meetings in Ceuta and Tetouan to plan terrorist acts on behalf of Islamic State, before becoming part of the branch of this terrorist organization in the Sahel region of Africa. The statement said that the persons arrested in Tetouan and Castillejos (Moroccan town bordering Ceuta) were taken into police custody under the supervision of the Moroccan Prosecutor’s Office, with the aim of clarifying the possible internal and external ramifications of the cell, as well as their degree of involvement in the terrorist acts they were planning. The note from the Moroccan BCIJ, under the General Directorate of Territorial Surveillance (DGST, intelligence), points out that the operation “is part of the continuous and distinguished coordination between the Moroccan security services and their Spanish counterparts to face the terrorist threats that threaten the security of the two kingdoms”.
