Spain busts ring recruiting women for ISIS, as UK says missing girls are in Syria

BARCELONA, Spain – Spanish authorities arrested four people in early morning raids on Tuesday on charges of recruiting women to join the Islamic State (ISIS) and training people to join the jihadist terrorist organization in Iraq and Syria.

The Spanish Interior Ministry said in a statement that two people were arrested in the Spanish North African enclave of Melilla, and two others in the northern cities of Barcelona and Girona.

The arrests came as British police said Tuesday that three missing Muslim girls – two aged 15 and the third a year older – were believed to have crossed into Syria to join ISIS, as their families made televised appeals for the trio to return home.

The Spanish ministry said that the jihadis arrested in Melilla are charged with allegedly creating Internet websites for posting extremist Islamist propaganda, especially from the group known as “Daesh,” a reference to ISIS.

The pair edited and translated ISIS material into Spanish, it was responsible for recruiting women and for indoctrinating potential jihadist fighters, the ministry said.

As part of the recruitment process the two would organize meetings in the homes of potential jihadist recruits, where they would show Daesh videos, the ministry said.

It added that some of the young people indoctrinated had already started to make preparations to travel to areas were the terrorist groups were active.

Authorities are now investigating the links between the pair arrested in Melilla and the two detained in Barcelona and Girona.

The Interior Ministry said the profiles of the pair arrested in Melilla differed from the usual jihadis working on behalf of ISIS.

One was described as a “dynamic” individual who “edited the (Daesh) material and prolifically disseminated it,” while the other was believed to be a “loner” who was once featured in a CNN News report on Islamic radicalization.

In that program, he had described himself as an Islamist sympathizer living in a Western nation.

Spain has joined other European nations in the fight to stop citizens from travelling to Iraq and Syria to join ISIS.

Spanish authorities, who have arrested dozens of suspected jihadists, have said that some 80 Spanish citizens have travelled to Syria and Iraq to join jihadist groups.