February 10, 2013

(JTA) — Spanish police arrested a “self-radicalized” Moroccan they suspect of planning terrorist attacks in Spain and elsewhere in Europe.

Mohamed Echaabi, 22, was arrested on Feb. 7 in Valencia, police announced the following day.

Police said he fit the “same profile” as Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old French-Algerian Islamist terrorist who killed three Jewish children and a rabbi at the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse last March before being killed in a standoff with police, according to the French news service AFP. Merah visited Spain in 2007.

Echaabi reportedly traveled to the Gaza Strip in 2011 planning to carry out a suicide bomb attack against Israel, according to CNN.  

Described as a lone wolf, Echaabi was “self-radicalized” using the Internet and was recruited by terrorist networks, much like Merah, Spanish police said in a statement, according to AFP.

He intended to commit terrorist acts in Spain and other European countries, police said.
 

Help us tell the Jewish story with reporting from around the world. Please donate to JTA.

Click to write a letter to the editor.

This article was made possible by the support of readers like you. Donate to JTA now.