This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS MADRID 000038 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PTER PGOV PREL SP
SUBJECT: SPAIN ARRESTS 20 ISLAMIST TERRORIST SUSPECTS 
 
¶1. (U) Spain arrested 20 people on January 10 on charges of 
recruiting and training potential terrorists to be sent to 
Iraq to carry out attacks against coalition forces.  The 
individuals arrested in Barcelona are suspected of being 
members of a cell that recruited and trained terrorists who 
carried out a November 2003 suicide attack against Italian 
forces in Iraq. 
 
¶2.  (U) The arrests took place in the early morning in 
Madrid, Barcelona and the Basque Region.  Among those 
arrested near Barcelona was the imam of the mosque of 
Vilanova I La Geltru, who is suspected of being the spiritual 
leader of the cell.  The Barcelona cell is believed to be 
responsible for recruiting terrorists who conducted a suicide 
attack in Nasiriya, Iraq, on November 12, 2003, that killed 
20 Italian military police officers and nine Iraqi civilians. 
 
¶3.  (U) Arrested were 15 Moroccans, three Spaniards, one Turk 
and one Algerian.  In a news conference, Spain's Interior 
Minister Jose Antonio Alonso said the mission of the 
terrorist cells was to recruit and provide financial and 
logistical support to fighters sent to Iraq.  He said they 
had connections in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Algeria, 
Morocco, Turkey, Syria and Iraq.  According to Alonso, the 
group may have planned "violent actions" in Europe, although 
there was no evidence of any imminent attack in Spain. 
 
¶3.  (U) A Spanish judge authorized the arrests after 
reviewing evidence and other information presented by Spain's 
National Intelligence Center (CNI).  It is Spain's second 
police operation in less than a month against Islamist 
extremists involved in the recruitment and indoctrination of 
terrorist combatants. 
AGUIRRE