Spain Remands 2 More Suspected Jihadists Held near Morocco

A Spanish judge on Thursday remanded two suspected jihadists in custody on terrorism charges following their arrest in Spain's north African territory of Ceuta, a judicial source said.

Judge Pablo Ruz at the National Court in Madrid ordered the two to be detained pending trial on charges of belonging to a terrorist group and illegal arms possession, the source said.

Police arrested the two, Spaniards "of Moroccan origin", on Tuesday in Ceuta, accusing them of belonging to a group "prepared" to launch possible attacks in Europe, the government said.

One of them had been on the run since May 2014, after being convicted by a court in southern Spain of assault and arms possession, the judicial source said.

The government said the two are suspected of following instructions issued online by the leader of the violent extremist group calling itself Islamic State, which controls parts of Syria and Iraq.

The two suspects were linked to four other arrests in Ceuta on January 24.

"The group that has been broken up was fully operative and composed of individuals who had been radicalized and mentally prepared to carry out possible attacks in our country and neighboring countries," the interior ministry said on Tuesday in a statement.

Spain's government has announced raids on a series of suspected Islamist cells over recent months, most of them in Ceuta and Melilla, two Spanish-governed coastal cities fenced off from northern Morocco.

Most of those arrested have been accused of recruiting militants for IS rather than actually planning attacks themselves.

Spain's interior ministry compared the latest suspects to the extremists behind attacks that left 17 people dead in Paris in January. It said they had similar radical profiles but drew no concrete links between the suspects.

Spanish authorities say about 100 people from Spain are suspected of having joined jihadist fighters in Iraq and Syria, and fear they may return to launch attacks.

Hundreds more such radicals from France, Britain and Germany are also thought to have traveled to those countries to fight.