Two Algerians arrested in Barcelona in an operation against jihadist terrorism

The Mossos d'Esquadra, Catalonia's autonomous police force, arrested two Algerians aged 41 and 43 in Barcelona on Tuesday as part of an operation against Jihadist terrorism. The arrested men were preparing to make an attack, according to investigative sources consulted by El Periódico de Cataluña. The detainees are charged with the crimes of membership and active collaboration with a terrorist organization, acts of preparation for terrorist activities, training and self-training, according to a press release published by the Mossos and available on its website.

The intervention has been carried out by order of the judge of the National Court Manuel García Castellón, who was even sent to Algeria to investigate this cell, which was almost completely deactivated in January last year, according to legal sources in El Periódico. The investigation that led to this Tuesday's arrests has made it possible to identify the places where the terrorist cell was planning to operate. The group had already begun to produce explosive devices and obtain weapons of war, which would have allowed them to carry out the attack. The two arrests are part of the second phase of this operation carried out on 15 January 2019 in Barcelona and Igualada, in which 19 people were arrested, four of whom remain in provisional detention. 

The Mossos launched the Alexandria case in 2017 thanks to a call that alerted the Catalan police and that is now concluded with the arrests of this Tuesday. Several Algerian citizens were investigated in Barcelona and Igualada and up to 18 people were arrested. Most of those arrested were pickpockets living in Barcelona who had been radicalised. 

The detainees were part of a group of pickpockets in Barcelona who had become radicalised. Their goal was to leave the streets to become jihadists willing to commit an attack, but they had not planned how they were going to do it. The agents had put the magnifying glass on a group made up of three Algerians, an Iraqi and a Libyan, all in a very advanced phase of radicalisation. 

The rest of the detainees were part of a gang dedicated to robbery in the Catalan capital. Those arrested ranged in age from 33 to 44. They lived in modest flats, some of them having come to occupy their homes illegally. The investigators believe that the people who were arrested in this operation were living off petty crime, although five of them had been radicalised in a very worrying way. Jihadist propaganda began to be downloaded from the Internet, without any direct link to the Islamic state.