Two sisters, 19 and 21, arrested by terror police for running 'virtual jihadi academy' for young women from their bedrooms

Daily Mail​

3 days ago

Two sisters have been arrested in Spain for allegedly running an online 'Jihadi academy' aimed at recruiting and training young female extremists.
Police arrested the suspects on Monday in Alcorcon, south-west Madrid, in the home that they shared on charges of terrorist indoctrination.
Cops also seized their computers, which are currently being analysed by terrorism experts.
The women, aged 19 and 21, are believed to have run a virtual platform, that under the guise of providing religious teachings to Muslim women, actually operated as a 'jihad academy' that actively sought to recruit and indoctrinate members.
Spain's Home Office said in a statement that the women had 'created a complex social engineering structure, where under the pretext of teaching religion, they indoctrinated other Muslim faithful.
'This virtual platform, which operated similarly to a jihad academy, primarily targeted the indoctrination of women.'
Police began investigating the sisters last year after counterterrorism experts identified social media profiles managed by the siblings that shared radical and violent content linked to terror group Daesh.
One of them pledged to 'wage Jihad' and even praised a violent attack on six women in the Barcelona underground last year.
The young women are also said to have used encrypted messages to hide their digital footprint.
One of the sisters has been remanded in custody while the other has been released on precautionary measures.
Police have not ruled out further suspects.
Their arrests come months after Spanish police arrested seven people, including four suspected 'jihadist influencers,' for alleged links to Islamist terrorism.
The arrests were made in Madrid and Toledo, which is an hour's drive from the Spanish capital.
Another arrest was made in Pontevedra in north-western Spain.
They were accused of hiding their radicalism behind videos about physical training and self-defence, as well as ISIS material.
One of the accused is believed to have a 'significant influence and accessibility... to disseminate jihadist ideology.'
The arrests of the sisters in Madrid also comes months after ISIS families living in Syria's largest refugee camp declared the terror group is 'ready to rise again'.
Since the jihadist organisation lost its final stronghold in Syria in 2019, tens of thousands of ISIS fighters and their families have been held in prisons and refugee camps in Rojava - the Kurdish-led autonomous region in northeast Syria.
Now, the instability following the toppling of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has created fertile ground for a horrifying ISIS resurgence.
Back in February, military officials in Rojava told MailOnline that ongoing clashes between Rojava's Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Turkish-backed militias may force camp guards to abandon their posts and head to the frontlines.
If this happens, security at the camp could collapse and Islamic State could stage a breakout.