The National Police arrested a recruiter of jihadist fighters last Saturday at the Barcelona-El Prat airport. He is a 40-year-old citizen from Tajikistan who was subject to an International Arrest Warrant for his alleged involvement in a network of recruiters of soldiers to join the jihadist ranks.
As reported by the National Police, the agents of the fight against terrorism learned of the arrival in Spain of the now detainee from a flight from Mexico. The Police established a device to locate and arrest him. After his arrest, he was placed before the courts at the National Court, from where his entry into prison was decreed. He is accused of crimes related to terrorism, according to police sources.
According to the investigation, the detainee, after joining the ranks of Daesh in 2014, began to recruit people from the former Soviet republics – including a citizen of Uzbek origin who ended up fighting in Syria.
Likewise, and within the recruitment apparatus of this terrorist organization in Central Asia, he would have financed the trip of other people —some of them his compatriots—, to a conflict zone, mainly Syria, as reported by the National Police. These activities led to the issuance by the Judicial Authorities of Tajikistan of an International Arrest Warrant for activities related to terrorism.
During the height of the caliphate, between 2014 and 2015, experts in the fight against terrorism estimate that between 2,000 and 4,000 foreign fighters from Central Asia moved into the conflict zone -mainly Syria-, gaining some notoriety. among all of them the “Imam Al Bukhari Battalion”, made up mostly of fighters from Uzbekistan, many of them minors.
The operation was carried out by investigators from the General Information Police Station in coordination with the Barcelona Provincial Information Brigade and the El Prat Airport Police Station.
