Spanish police arrest two teens for trying to join Islamic State

Spanish police said yesterday they had detained a 14-year-old girl and a 19-year-old woman suspected of trying to join Islamic extremists in Iraq and Syria.

Security personnel stopped the teenagers on Saturday as they tried to enter Morocco, allegedly to join Islamic State, whose fighters have seized swathes of Iraq and Syria, the government said.

The girl could not be identified because she is a minor. The 19-year-old woman was named as Fauzia Allal Mohamed. Both are Spanish citizens.

Video footage released by the Spanish authorities showed the teenagers, both covered in black niqabs, being led away from a small propeller plane, each flanked by balaclava-clad security men.

The pair were detained at the Beni Enzar border crossing in Melilla, one of two tiny Spanish territories on the North African coast. Both Melilla and the other Spanish city, Ceuta, share a border with Morocco.

"Both were trying to cross the border to Morocco with the aim of contacting the network which would move them immediately to a conflict zone between Syria and Iraq," the Spanish interior ministry said.