Paris mastermind tried to recruit women in Spain

Spain’s interior minister says Abdel Hamid Abaaoud, the alleged mastermind of the Paris attacks, used Internet social networks to try to recruit women from Spain to join the Islamic State group.

Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz, speaking on Spain’s Antena 3 television, says Abaaoud “had tried to recruit through social networks Spanish people, especially women, to join and travel to fight” for IS in combat zones.

He says this matched the extremists’ campaign to recruit women to “repopulate” its self-declared caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq.

Diaz said Spanish intelligence services had no information indicating the Belgian extremist had tried to recruit people to carry out attacks in Spain. French officials say Abaaoud died during the police raids Wednesday on an apartment in Paris.

— AP