Dilip Kuner
A YOUNG woman who was planning to join jihadist terrorists in Syria has been arrested in Spain.
Police say the woman – born and raised in Europe – had been rapidly radicalised and now wanted to join the so-called Islamic State terrorist organisation.
Investigaters say she preached the most violent forms of terrorist ideology, showing her support for the recent beheading of a French teacher who showed cartoons of Prophet Muhammad to his students.
The woman from Valencia was preparing her departure to Syria, where she was going to marry a jihadist terrorist living in the Idlib area. She had met him through social networks at the end of 2019 and actively encouraged him to dedicate his life to fight for the jihad.
In January 2020, she travelled to Turkey where she contacted members of the terrorist organisation to whom she sent money to support their activities.
Since then, she has turned to crime to fund her planned journey to Syria and to finance terrorist fighters. She planned to leave for Syria this month. Her plan was to buy false ID to conceal her Spanish nationality and travel to the border area of Turkey with Syria.
There she would be met by a people smuggler who would take her across the border to an IS controlled area in northwest Syria.
Europol facilitated the information exchange and supported the case with operational analysis. On the action day, Europol provided support by deploying an expert to Spain to crosscheck operational information against Europol’s databases and provide links to investigators in the field.
