MADRID: Eight suspected militants who formed part of a terrorist recruitment network that sent 50 militants to carry out attacks for Al-Qaeda-linked groups in Syria have been arrested, Spain’s interior minister said yesterday.

Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz said the arrests by police early Friday in the Spanish north African enclave of Ceuta had disbanded and “neutralized” the network.

Diaz said that recruits were given training and finance by the network, which had two bases, one in Ceuta and the other in Morocco.

He said police had been able to determine that the network’s recruits had gone on to perpetrate terror attacks as part of the Al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat Al-Nusra organization.

Diaz said that when members who had been involved in terror attacks in Middle East returned to Europe they remained a threat to security, some as potential “lone wolf” terrorist who needed to be arrested.

He said these types of militants were “highly radicalized and trained” to continue terror activities on an individual scale that was “a real and serious threat to our security.”

The identities of those arrested were not immediately available.