The two detainees by the National Police in the early hours of Wednesday terrorism crimes they worked seasonally in El Ejido (Almería) and had the money saved to travel to a country in the Sahel. The investigation indicates that his plan was move to Mali by road within a period of no more than two months to join the ranks of the Islamic State (DAESH).
As reported to Europa Press by sources from the fight against terrorism, these are two citizens thirtysomethings of Moroccan nationality in a legal situation in Spain, where they had lived for five and three years, respectively. In the joint operation of the General Information Commissioner and the Moroccan Police there is a third arrested in Chtouka-Aït Baha province.
The two suspected jihadists from El Ejido had saved several hundred euros in cash and had taken an oath of allegiance to the late DAESH leader, Abu Ibrahim Al Hashimi Al Quraishi, reiterating this oath to the current leader, Abu Al Hussein Al Husseini Al Quraishi. The ‘Operation Ejime’ dates back to last July. Both were detected in a very high radicalization phasesince they interacted on the Internet with other presumed jihadists and massively disseminated radical content.
Although they had considered going to Niger or flying by plane to Senegal, their preferred option was to travel by road to Mali. The investigation has also detected information that they had married in Morocco before moving to Spain, but here they lived alone, without wives or family members.
Specialists in the fight against terrorism give relevance to this operation because it is the first to abort a trip to the Sahel since the fall of the Caliphate in Syria and Iraq, according to the aforementioned sources. The central African zone is a growing focus of concern by the massive presence of different terrorist groups. The aforementioned sources go back to 2014 to recall a precedent for an operation against a cell that sent jihadists to the Sahel. In this case, it was from Melilla and the displacement of about twenty jihadists was discovered, among them a former professional Spanish soldier who had traveled to Mali.
In the case of the detainees in El Ejido, they were arrested before they left Spain thanks to an anti-terrorist operation with Morocco. In a statement, the National Police highlighted this Friday that, as a result of being detected that one of them was in contact with the man arrested in Morocco, they have verified that they were “fully adhering to the ideological postulates” of the Islamic State.
hardcore prison
The judge of the National Court José Luis Calama agreed this Friday the unconditional imprisonment for them in their modality of self-recruitment and self-indoctrination, indoctrination of third parties and transfer to a foreign country controlled by a terrorist organization. In a statement, the National Court pointed out that the magistrate considered that there are rational indications that show the ideological affinity with the Islamic State and its radicalization, as shown by the intention to relocate to conflict zones in Africa.
The National Court added that, in fact, one of the two detainees had acknowledged in court that he had taken the oath to DAESH, as well as that he had communicated his intention to move to the Sahel area. The police and judicial investigation has been based on the wiretaps of the two detainees, the publications on their social networks and the content of the mass storage devices.
The judge considers that the two detainees carried out an active conduct in order to receive, store and distribute massively and continuously documentary and audiovisual material of an ideological, doctrinal, and terrorist training nature, activating themselves as a virtual operational nucleus, which agrees with DAESH’s online Jihad strategy. Also, They carried out a massive recruitment strategy of adept recipients of these contents through the Internet, contributing to the formation of recruits who have already been retained through this same system.
The operation has been carried out jointly between the General Information Commissioner and the Moroccan General Direction of Surveillance du Territoire (DGST), also counting on the collaboration of the Provincial Information Brigade of Almería, the Local Information Brigade of El Ejido and EUROPOL agency.
Source: Lasexta
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