Spanish and Moroccan authorities arrested seven suspected members of an extremist cell engaged in recruiting and sending gunmen to fight in Syria and other world regions with armed conflicts.

Spanish and Moroccan authorities arrested seven suspected members of an extremist cell engaged in recruiting and sending gunmen to fight in Syria and other world regions with armed conflicts, the two governments said Friday.

According to the ministry of Internal Affairs “four people were arrested in Spain and three in Morocco”.

Spain's Interior Ministry said three were arrested in its North African coastal enclave of Melilla and another in the southern resort city of Malaga. It said that at least one of those arrested had affiliations with terrorist organizations, closed to the al-Qaeda.

Members of other group involved in the recruitment militants including its leader Ahmad Yassin Laarbi, were arrested in July and September last year.

The Moroccan Interior Ministry said police arrested three others in the town of Laroui, not far from Melilla. The ministry said the leader of the cell was a Spaniard arrested in Spain who had previously lived in Laroui.

The leader had ties with a cell recruiting gunmen for al-Qaeda's North African branch fighting in northern Mali that was broken up in November 2012, and he also sent militants to Libya and Syria and raised funds for extremist groups, the Moroccan statement added.

Moroccan authorities regularly report disrupting militant recruitment cells for fears that they could carry out attacks after returning from Syria.

The Justice Ministry estimates that hundreds of Moroccans have gone to fight in Syria against the national military, including former detainees from the U.S.-run prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.