Four arrested in Spanish terrorist cell, planning attack

MADRID, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- Spanish police arrested four suspected Islamic extremists in North Africa who were preparing to a launch a terrorist attack in in Spain, authorities said.

Officials did not say if the men had made concrete plans, but they were "willing to carry out an attack," Spain's Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz told reporters. "And, according to the police, to blow themselves up."

Police on Saturday detained two pairs of brothers, Spanish citizens of Moroccan origin, in Ceuta, an autonomous city of Spain on the Moroccan border. The Interior Ministry said in a statement the men had "a very similar profile" to the perpetrators of the attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo that left 12 dead earlier this month.

Authorities said the were "strongly radicalized," trained in the use of weapons, and had formed a jihadist cell.