Ceuta is a Spanish enclave on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa, surrounded by Morocco. The Spanish authorities arrested eight men yesterday in Ceuta on suspicion of being Al Qaeda operatives recruiting for the jihad in Syria.
Many thanks to Hermes for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for subtitling this report from RT:
Transcript:
| 00:01 | 8 people have been arrested this morning in Ceuta for allegedly having tried to win Muslims | |
| 00:06 | to fight against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The detainees belonged to a network linked | |
| 00:12 | to Al-Qaeda. Our correspondent in Madrid Angela Gallardo Bernal gives us more details. | |
| 00:17 | This early morning the police and civil guards detained in a joint operation 8 Spaniards in Ceuta | |
| 00:24 | under charge of belonging to a terrorist group. They are linked to a network close to Al-Qaeda | |
| 00:30 | which allegedly has the duty to recruit jihadists in Ceuta and Melilla in order to | |
| 00:36 | later send them to fight in Syria with the rebel forces. According to the Interior Ministry | |
| 00:41 | this network recruited, indoctrinated, facilitated and financed the travels. These are not the first | |
| 00:47 | cases, the authorities have made public this Friday that dozens of people have traveled | |
| 00:52 | already from Ceuta and Morocco with the help of this network. Since April last year | |
| 00:57 | another 8 Muslim Spaniards who fought with the rebels in the Syrian conflict have been identified. | |
| 01:05 | One of them is an under-aged, and at least 3 of them died in the fights. This information was | |
| 01:11 | obtained through phone calls and claims of their own relatives. It is suspected that some | |
| 01:18 | of them took part in suicide attacks, and others were sent to training camps. There are proofs that | |
| 01:28 | some groups of jihadi terrorists are waiting to travel from Spain to Syria. As for their routes, | |
| 01:37 | there is a common denominator, Turkey is always the last country before entering Syrian territory, | |
| 01:44 | but there are different paths. According to the authorities, some depart from Ceuta or Malaga | |
| 01:49 | to other European countries, especially to Belgium or The Netherlands, and in other occasions the trip | |
| 01:55 | is straightaway to Turkey. According to the latest data, between 600 and 700 Europeans have gone | |
| 02:02 | to fight to Syria, which is a great danger to Europe, EU officials declared recently, for | |
| 02:08 | when they return, it is presumed that they will be more radicalized and trained in terrorist acts. | |