Madrid: Spanish police said Friday they had arrested a "highly radicalised" young woman who was preparing to head to Syria to marry an extremist there.
Officers detained the woman, a Spanish national who was not named, near the Mediterranean port of Valencia on Wednesday. Police did not give her age.
She caught their attention after shifting from "a completely Westernised lifestyle" to wearing a niqab, a full-face Islamic veil, and "defending the more radical precepts of jihadism," a police statement said.
In January, she travelled to Turkey, where she met with members of " extremist organisations" based in northeastern Syria and on return to her hometown of Cullera near Valencia she remained in contact with them.
She also sent around 5,000 euros ($5,900) to members of Daesh, police said.
They decided to arrest her after she expressed a desire to "become a martyr" and praised recent attacks in France such as last month's beheading of a teacher in a Paris suburb.
She has been remanded in custody and faces charges of membership in a terror organisation, defending and financing terrorism and of travelling to a conflict zone.
Between 2014 and February 2017, police detained eight suspected female extremists, but this is the first such arrest since then.
