Three members of the Islamic State (IS), including one described as “one of the most wanted foreign fighters”, have been arrested in the city of Almeria in southern Spain, Spain’s Interior Ministry confirmed.
The ministry said on Tuesday evening that the fighter had been in the “Syria-Iraq conflict zone for several years and had very peculiar personality traits, such as an extremely violent criminal profile.” It added that “part of his trajectory in DAESH (its Arabic-language acronym) has been shown in diverse audio-visual media and written press… showing images, some of extreme violence, of his crimes in the conflict zone.”
Although the ministry has not given any further details about the fighter except for that he is “Egyptian”, British media reports said the man is Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, a rapper from London.
The Spanish National Police said they are still working to identify the other two detainees and to try and discover if “they too are terrorists returned from Syria,” or if they were providing him with “logistical support.”
Police explained they received information that Abdel Bary had entered Spain illegally from North Africa and that while he and his companions were living in Almeria, they had “adapted their behavior to the circumstances of the ‘State of Alarm’ as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, making few exits, separately, and always with masks to avoid being detected.”
