Daily Times

MADRID: Spanish police on Monday arrested a Moroccan boxing coach suspected of recruiting for the Islamic State group, the interior ministry said. The arrested man specialised in “sending foreign fighters to Turkey where they received instructions from Daesh to commit attacks in Europe”, the ministry said in a statement, using the Arabic acronym for IS. He was detained in San Sebastian in Spain’s northern Basque Country, the statement added, without giving the suspect’s name or age. According to the ministry, the suspect had had links with a man previously detained in Morocco and another arrested in France in November, both of whom followed “concrete and precise instructions from Daesh.” French police detained four men in Strasbourg, on November 20, suspected of plotting to attack the French capital, having allegedly researched sites including a Christmas market and Disneyland Paris as potential targets. A Spanish police spokesman confirmed that the arrested boxing coach had contacts with a suspect who was part of that cell. According to Spanish authorities, 181 alleged jihadists have been detained since 2015, when Spain increased its terror alert to category four on a five-point scale. The country has been mentioned on extremist websites as a possible attack target for historical reasons, given Muslims ruled in Spain for close to eight centuries until 1492. But it has been spared any incident since March 2004, when bombs exploded on commuter trains in Madrid, leaving 191 dead in attacks claimed by Al-Qaeda inspired militants.