MADRID: Spanish police arrested seven suspected members on Sunday of a cell linked to the militant Islamic State (IS) group and Jabhat al-Nusra militants during raids in the eastern provinces of Valencia and Alicante and in Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta.

In a statement, police said the cell was well-organised and coordinated by a ringleader who ran a business that enabled him to ship containers with technological supplies, weapons and military equipment from Spanish ports to armed groups in operating in Syria and Iraq.

The cell is suspected of also supplying funds for IS and Jabhat al-Nusra and of money laundering, the statement said.

The ringleader was also contacted on several occasion by IS urging him to supply women for combatants in Syria and Iraq to marry, “following guidelines set down by the militant Islamic State group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” the statement said.

Police said they began investigating the suspected cell in 2014 and the arrests took place early on Sunday.

Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2016