From AP via Fox News, .
MADRID, Spain “” Police arrested 16 Islamic terror suspects in raids in several cities, including 11 men accused of having ties to Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi’s group Al Qaeda in Iraq and recruiting people for attacks there, officials said Wednesday.
The 11 were part of a support group for a Syrian-based recruitment network for attacks on U.S. and allied forces, and some of them had said they themselves wanted to become “martyrs for Islam” and were awaiting orders to do so, the Interior Ministry said. It did not specify how Spanish authorities learned of these alleged intentions.
Most of the 11 are Moroccan and practically all of them sold drugs and committed robberies to finance the network, the ministry said. They were arrested as part of an investigation that began in 2004.
The other five detainees were described as suspects in last year’s train bombing in Madrid.
Some 500 Spanish police took part in raids in Barcelona, Valencia, the southern Andalusia region, and Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on the northern coast of Morocco…
It said the apparent leader of the Spanish group’s recruitment activities was a 28-year-old Moroccan named Samir Tahtah, arrested near Barcelona. He coordinated communications with overseas leaders of the network and the sending of recruits to Iraq for terrorist attacks, the statement said…