3 Arrested in Spain Are Accused of Having Links to Al Qaeda
The Spanish government said Thursday that it had arrested three men suspected of having links to Al Qaeda and believed to have been planning attacks in Spain or elsewhere in Europe.
Two are citizens of the former Soviet Union and the third is a Turkish citizen, according to Spain’s interior ministry. They were arrested as part of a police operation carried out between Tuesday night and Wednesday.
The Turkish suspect was arrested in La Línea de la Concepción, a southern Spanish town facing Gibraltar, in a rented house where the police also found a sizable quantity of explosives. The other two men were arrested while traveling by bus near Valdepeñas, in central Spain, likely on their way to France.
The men had long been sought by intelligence services, according to the interior minister, Jorge Fernández Díaz.