Police neutralise five jihadists in Madrid and Barcelona

The National Police arrested five extremist terrorists, four in Barcelona and one in Madrid, after an operation carried out on Wednesday in the two main Spanish cities as part of a major intervention because the members of the group were "prepared to commit an attack".

It is an operation that began at Christmas by the National Police and continued by the General Information Commissariat, in which several jihadists accused of planning terrorist actions were arrested at the time. 

According to sources of the investigation consulted by the newspaper El Español, police officers have so far arrested five members of the jihadist cell and four of them have been brought before the courts, the other was already in detention. All of them are from Algeria.

The Spanish National Police detected that this commando was going to acquire a Russian-made Kalashnikov rifle and proceeded to police intervention. In the subsequent searches, they found that there was also an arsenal with dozens of cartridges and various machetes. 

Due to this seizure of weapons, it was deduced that they were prepared to attack immediately, as the same sources of the investigation pointed out to the newspaper El Español. As El País also reported, Judge Joaquín Elías is leading the investigation from Central Court number 6 of the National Court in the Spanish capital. 

The leader of the group was known as the "sheikh", who had already been arrested in 2016 in Turkey when he tried to enter conflict zones to join Daesh. Within the cell, this ringleader, an Algerian who had already served time in Algeria for jihadist-related matters, was dedicated to recruiting future terrorists. He is accused of membership of a terrorist group, collaboration with an armed group, indoctrination and possession of weapons, according to the newspaper El País.