Fourteen suspected Islamic militants were arrested by police on Saturday on suspicion of plotting attacks in Barcelona, according to the Interior Minister.

The suspects were 12 Pakistani people and two Indians and were arrested after police found bomb-making materials and other equipments on raids made in Barcelona.

Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said that the raids were carried on five addresses in Barcelona and that they arrested the suspects after they’ve received

information from its own and other European intelligence agencies, Reuters reports.

On Saturday Rubalcaba said that these raids were not the same with the ones made in the past against Islamic militants, which were against groups that were financing radical groups or were recruiting members.

He said: "Here we are looking at something different: a well-organized group who were going beyond ideological radicalism to acquiring materials to make explosives and therefore eventually to carry out violent attacks."

The arrests were made in the Barcelona’s Raval neighborhood, which is the home of the biggest concentration of Pakistani immigrants in Spain.

According to Rubalcaba, the arrests were part of the plans made by the National Intelligence Center and the Spanish equivalent of the CIA.

The arrests were confirmed by the Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

Zapatero also said that the investigation was continuing. 

In 2004, on March 11, the worst attack in Europe was planned by Islamist on a railway car in Madrid during the morning rush hour. Due to the attack 191 people died and over 1,800 were injured. Twenty one people were convicted for that attack.

The attacks were claimed by Muslim militants acting in the name of al-Qaeda. Still, the Spain’s courts didn’t find any evidence that the attack was carried by Al Qaeda or that it was financially supported by it.

The 12 suspects were arrested two month before Spain’s elections.

The 2004 attacks in Madrid occurred just before the last elections in Spain.