Four suspected members of an Islamist militant network have been arrested by police in Spain.
The arrests of two pairs of brothers took place in the Spanish territory of Ceuta which borders Morocco. The men are Spaniards of Moroccan origin.
According to the interior ministry, they had “a very similar profile” to the killers in the Paris attacks on a Jewish shop and the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine.
Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz said there was similarity in their "physical and psychological preparation and their skill in using weapons" with a "firm determination... to commit an attack and if necessary sacrifice themselves and die in the attempt".
It was not said if the four had made any concrete plans for an attack but that they "acquired a high level of radicalisation".
Police seized a nine-millimetre automatic pistol and machetes among other items during the raid.
Spanish police are on heightened alert for extremists in the country. It is now believed that one of the Paris assassins, who was known to be in Madrid in January, had driven five people there to catch a flight to Turkey. The police are also investigating any connections with plots foiled in Belgium.
Over the past year some 50 suspected jihadists have been arrested in Spain, the ministry said earlier this month.
Spain suffered one of Europe's worst ever peacetime attacks on March 11, 2004, when Al-Qaeda-inspired bombings killed 191 people in an attack on Madrid commuter trains.
