Spain arrests eight over links to Mumbai attacks

Seven Lashkar-e-Taiba-linked suspected terrorists have been arrested by the Spanish police in a raid on a group suspected of forging passports for al-Qaeda, interior ministry said.

The ministry provided no other details, but Spain's leading Cadena SER radio says the detainees formed part of a group based in Thailand and linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based terror group blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people.

The arrests took place late yesterday and early today in the northeastern city of Barcelona and in the surrounding region of Catalonia.

SER and other Spanish media say the arrested are mostly Pakistanis who robbed passports that were later doctored and sent to Thailand for distribution to groups linked to al-Qaeda.