MADRID, July 16: Police have warned that Spain remains a centre for recruitment of radical Islamic fundamentalists, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

El Pais said a police report released in May about the Islamic threat in Spain said there had been an increase of recruitment activities in mosques throughout Spain aimed at the radicalisation of young Muslim immigrants. Some of these mosques are clandestine, organised in parking lots or business premises, El Pais reported.

It also said the Spanish troops in Afghanistan could be at a risk of becoming a terror target. The paper said this was confirmed on July 8 when a Peruvian soldier was killed in explosion near a western Afghan city caused by a remote-controlled, anti-vehicle land mine against the Spanish troops.

The report also said Spanish antiterrorists units have detected the presence in Spain of radical groups, including the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, Algeria’s Salafist Group for Call and Combat and Takfir Wal Hijra. All three organisations, linked to Al Qaeda, recruit Muslim immigrants, mainly Moroccans, it said.

Police also are keeping an eye on Pakistani radicals and Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group, El Pais said.

In the first four months of 2006, Spanish police arrested 31 suspected terrorists in six operations, El Pais reported.—AP