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MADRID Rather than scan all of society for recruits, Islamic militants in Spain have found that many of the most promising candidates have already been collected into one bountiful pool, law enforcement experts say.
It is the Spanish prison system, which has become increasingly populated with immigrants from North Africa, many possessing the characteristics that the recruiters are seeking, the law enforcement experts say. The prisoners are often Muslims, even if frequently lapsed ones, and they are often bitter about their lives in the West or their prison experiences.
The pool of recruits, which included 18 arrested two weeks ago, began as a collection of unacquainted men jailed for minor criminal offenses like weapons possession, document fraud or robbery, the police said. But their time in prison transformed some of them into the Martyrs for Morocco, a terrorist group planning to blow up the national court in Madrid, investigators said.
"It has confirmed that the nucleus for recruitment is centered on people convicted of common crimes," Baltasar Garzón, the judge investigating the case, said in a report released last week. He urged the government to tighten controls on the prison population.
Prisons in other countries have become recruiting grounds as well, experts say.
Excerpted