Spain Charges 6 Al Qaeda Suspects, Releases 12

A Spanish judge has jailed six people on suspicion of recruiting Islamic radicals to send as suicide bombers or insurgents to Iraq, Chechnya or Kashmir, a court official said Saturday.

The six were among 16 people arrested Monday in raids across Spain. Two others surrendered after learning that police were looking for them.

After the arrests Monday, the Interior Ministry said the suspects recruited and indoctrinated people who were then sent to wage “holy war” in Iraq as members of Al Qaeda.

It said the group -- whose members were born in Iraq, Belarus, Ghana, Spain, Morocco, Egypt, France, Algeria and Saudi Arabia -- had two fighters ready to send to Iraq when they were arrested.

After questioning the suspects, High Court Judge Fernando Andreu issued an order late Friday accusing three of the men of belonging to a terrorist organization and three others of cooperating with an armed group.

He released the remaining 12 suspects but said they must report regularly to courts near their homes.

The detainees are alleged to have recruited people who “would later be sent to places of ‘Islamic’ conflict, either to be martyrs, through suicide attacks, or as members of insurgent terrorist groups in Iraq, Chechnya (or) Kashmir.” Andreu said in the order, quoted by Spain’s Europa Press agency.

The six in custody include the suspected leader of the group, a 25-year-old Iraqi known as Abu Sufian, and a Belarus-born man who, according to the Interior Ministry, trained in Chechnya and is an expert in chemical weapons.

Andreu said Abu Sufian had met the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Zarqawi, and recruited people for his group.

He said the investigation focused on a mosque in the southern Spanish city of Malaga frequented by people with radical Islamist beliefs.