Al-Qaeda suspect arrested in Spain

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Al qaeda suspect arrested in Spain

Madrid - Spanish police arrested Friday a Moroccan man near Barcelona suspected of having links to an Al-Qaeda cell dismantled earlier in the week when three other Moroccans were detained.

The interior ministry named the latest man arrested at Santa Coloma de Gramanet just outside Barcelona as Abdellatif Zehraoui, 29, adding he was "presumed linked to the Al-Qaeda cell dismantled this week."

The ministry says those arrested this week are suspected of recruiting people to send to jihadist training camps in Africa and added their arrests came following investigations begun in December 2005.

The four were the target of international arrest warrants issued by Morocco, which is seeking their extradition for "belonging to a banned association seeking to prepare terrorist attacks."
They are suspected of belonging to an Al-Qaeda group in North Africa which claimed responsibility for more than 30 deaths in bomb attacks in Algeria in April.

This week's arrests follow an investigation launched in 2005 after Morocco dismantled a militant network with branches in Spain.

The Algerian-based Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, better known by its French initials GSPC, changed its name late in 2006 after it rebranded itself as the North African branch of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.

Al-Qaeda has recently stepped up activities in the Maghreb region of north Africa, claiming responsibility for two April 11 car bombings in Algiers which left 30 dead and injured more than 200.

In Morocco, six suicide bombers blew themselves up in Casablanca in attacks on March 11 and April 10 and 14 while police caught a seventh bomber before he could set off his explosives. - AFP

source: IOL: Al-Qaeda suspect arrested in Spain